04/03/2021
Like many of us, the last year has been one filled with challenges and with those challenges ample time for reflection. Faced with questions and uncertainty, my personal practice often felt more like an obstacle than a refuge. Despite this feeling, growth would inevitably arise in the midst of discomfort, though not immediately.
In hindsight, this experience of loss and at times disillusionment has made one thing abundantly clear. I am grateful for my community. Sangha, one of the three jewels of Buddhism, is important to me and, in all my years of practice, perhaps something I’ve often taken for granted. Paying lip service to the value of community, the abundance of support I have felt in the past was the very wall that hid my awareness from it. It wasn’t until confronting and being honest about my own isolation that I could truly understand the depth of my love for the many friends I’ve made through the years.
It has been a little more than a year now since my last class and longer still since visiting other studios, offering workshops and sound baths. I’ve missed singing mantra and sharing in deep conversation with friends both old and new. My heart longs to return to and see my friends there as well. That same heart smiles knowing that though the future is unknown, I now have a deeper understanding of the love that calls us together. Whenever and wherever we are together again, our embrace of friendship and love will hold all the more weight.
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