San·gha [ súng gə ] (noun) a community of brothers and sisters who are practicing the teachings of the Buddha. In the Sangha there is the element of stability, the element of joy.
We are a community of friends around the Londonderry, NH area practicing the Dharma together in order to bring about and to maintain awareness, understanding, acceptance, harmony, and compassion.
Rodney Smith from the Seattle Insight Meditation Society (SIMS). Rodney spent eight years in Buddhist monastic settings, both at the Insight Meditation Society (IMS) in Massachusetts and several years as a Buddhist monk in Asia. He disrobed as a monk in 1983 and, after returning to the West, started working in hospice care and teaching vipassana meditation throughout the U.S.
Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Zen Master, poet, peace and human rights activist who was nominated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for the Nobel Peace Prize. Often referred to as the most beloved Buddhist teacher in the West, Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings and practices appeal to people from various religious, spiritual, and political backgrounds.
Gil Fronsdal from the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. He is trained in both the Japanese Soto Zen tradition and the Insight Meditation lineage of Theravada Buddhism of Southeast Asia. Gil was trained as a Vipassana teacher by Jack Kornfield and is part of the Vipassana teachers' collective at Spirit Rock Meditation Center.
Zoketsu Norman Fischer from the San Francisco Zen Center is a Jewish-American Soto Zen roshi and Buddhist author practicing in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki. Norman has been particularly interested in the application of Zen to issues of Western culture and everyday life in the world. His Zen essays on topics ranging from racism to monasticism to romance appear frequently in “Tricycle,” “Shambhala Sun” and “Buddhadharma.”
Others - while a majority of our talks come from the above four teachers, our weekly talks from the Internet have included many other teachers which we are very grateful for.
Sangha members also share readings and talks from others sources, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist.
We meet weekly on Sundays at 11:00 AM on WebEx. Resumption of in-person meetings is unlikely to resume very soon.
Prior to COVID-19 we met in person for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. During our weekly Sangha meeting, we:
Join in silent meditation
Join in walking meditation
Listen to a Dharma talk (usually an audio CD or perhaps a reading)
Share tea together
Participate in a dharma discussion
Everyone is welcome. We have people who are just starting out that have never meditated, people that have been practicing for a few months or several years. Our Sangha has been composed of Buddhist, Christian and Jewish members.
The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly. -- Buddha