The Four-fold Sangha

The Deer Park Sangha has recently come out from our lazy days period that proceeds the Three Month Rains Retreat.  Deer Park was so blessed during the past months.  This was the first time we had both lay men and women practice with us for the whole duration of the retreat.  Their presence really brought the D.P. community of practice to life.  The ten men and three women practitioners adorned the monastery with such freshness and joy that is so crucial for the manisfestation of a fourfold sangha to truly flourish within the monastery boundaries.  They taught us so much about family and fun. They brought music and laughter out into the open, especially in the Solidity Tea Room.  The place where everyone gathers and things just seem to happen.  From the beginning of the lazy days dear friends invited the 3 month practitioners to go out and have fun together as a fourfold sangha in celebration for the closing of the Rains Retreat.  With these kinds of experiences, I feel very touched with the sense of community, especially the feeling of family.  Not only do we practice and study as a fourfold community, we actually cook and eat, sleep, learn, have fun and play together, and simply live as any household family.  The brothers and sisters also took these lazy days to do some personal practices like fasting, noble silence and solo retreats while others just took the time to reflect on the past months together and their own practitice.  The younger sisters in the Clarity Hamlet noticed their youth quite loudly during this quiet period of lazy days.  All the older and elder sisters used this precious time to go deeply back to themselves by practicing noble silence.  The young sisters wanted to wear a badge saying I am still alive, please talk to me.  Luckily they were able to open their voices to the world in the middle of the lazy period with the fourfold community’s trip to Palm Springs.  The monastic and lay friends had fun walking the snowy mountain peaks and unknowingly tanning their heads and faces. A wonderfully light time being joyfully together before we made the full transition into the new season’s retreat schedule.