The Spiritual Community
It is important to review the role and function of a spiritual community in the Mulberry Path; how a spiritual community relates to its environment and society, and the aspects that set it apart from traditional religion or organized religious institutions.
Of course, there is great overlap between spiritual communities and religion. Spiritual communities are a part of any religion, and all religions deal in part with spirituality. Additionally, these terms are fuzzy and have different interpretations. But, generally speaking, religious institutions tend to be hierarchical, they have authoritative doctrines and figures, and they tend to act as an organism to affect their surroundings.
Spirituality is often seen as more of an individual endeavor and often inward focused, cultivating a certain life and character through practice. But this doesn’t mean those engaged in similar spiritual practices have some mandate or requirement to isolate themselves as lone wolves. Indeed, a healthy part of any spiritual practice should be engagement in a spiritual community. This is why one of the three jewels of Buddhism, for example, is the sangha (spiritual community). Sharing in community aids in education and many important rituals are communal in nature.
A spiritual community is a group of practitioners who gather to support one another in their practice, bounce thoughts and ideas off of one another, give compassion and moral support, and generally share their journeys. Yes, the spiritual communities in organized religions certainly perform this function. And yes, most spiritual communities outside of religions eventually have to outline what it is they believe and practice, thus creating religion-like materials. But the key here is emphasis.
Certain people in a spiritual community may come to be looked at as leaders or guides within it. But this is often simply a logistical matter, such as who brings the candles and reserves a room, and so on. Another reason leaders rise is because, in any diverse community, there is likely to be variance in experience and education regarding the practice. There are also natural differences in personality types which form dynamics within the community. As such, there may arise certain ‘go to’ people, and this is a good thing. This is how new people can know who might be able to help them and how long-timers may know how they can best be of service.
But, ideally, in a spiritual community there are no ‘authority figures’ on 'Truth'. There are also no ‘enforced doctrines’ of what followers must or should believe. Rather, any listings of principles is more like a report of what most individuals in the community already practice – so that others may know who they are dealing with when they meet us, and whether they might find kindred there. This kind of summary of community's thought and practice has a very different flavor than a top-down authoritarian dictate. There are no excommunications or thought police in a healthy spiritual community. Those who are too incompatible with a group will naturally find their way where they need to be over time.
Today's diversity, globalism, and internet communications have attracted us to these more distributed and grassroots approaches. This may explain attraction to the home-church model in many Christian communities, which are seen as more like the early Christian church before its institutionalization under Emperor Constantine. This may also explain some of the recent attraction to “spiritual but not religious” concepts. How can we best help to facilitate these vectors for our mutual well being?
First, the top-down authoritarian notion of ethics needs to be discarded. Rather, enlightened philosophies recognize that ethics is a natural and healthy part of individual human well-being.
Second, we need to focus less on beliefs or their denial (something both supernaturalists and naturalists tend to do). None of our beliefs or suspicions about the ultimate truths of existence are very likely to be on base anyway. We are, after all, simply primates who only recently learned how to wear clothing. Instead of tribalistic flag waving based on “opinions about things”, we should turn our attention toward practice. What practices do we engage in? How do we live? What can we build experiences helpful to human flourishing, equanimity, compassion, mindfulness, wisdom, virtue, and happiness?
Practice then becomes our focus; that being the cultivation of a life in which flourishing is made possible through development of certain character traits, value systems, deep perspectives, and responses. This is how we achieve the call of many ancient Greek philosophers, who told us the way to make one wealthy is not to add to their riches, but to subtract from their desires#. This is how we escape the need for certain external conditions (which are not in our control) in order to have True Happiness.
Without such a focus, the role and purpose of a spiritual community can become clouded and confused. Substitutes like obsession with politics can distort the community's central purpose#. Spiritual communities play a vital role in the larger society. They are a go-to place for rejuvenation and renewal. They are a moral high ground and can be an authentic place to explore our general wisdom, values, and principles. But when a spiritual community becomes political, this costs a group its position as a spiritual refuge and its authenticity as a source of wisdom and values. Such a community becomes seen as just another partisan power-seeker on the political playing field.
Consider how Christians in America are now seen by many as having nothing to offer other than constant drumming on “Guns, Gays, and Abortion”. This is much to the chagrin of those Christians who would prefer their religion be known for the compassionate teachings of Jesus and those who try to live by them. Yet, this kind of political engagement has cost Christianity much of its moral respect in America. Similarly, even “Engaged Buddhism” is now presenting the same difficulties to its tradition#.
There must be someone in society who is there to support, promote, and inculcate values of compassion, wisdom, good-will, and virtue who are respected across broad communities. Without legitimate sources of support for these shared values, there is no foundation on which all of the various opposing sides can come together to live in peace and work productively together in a civilization.
While many religious organizations focus on evangelism or political action, spiritual communities gather - not to change others - but to help one another in changing themselves. Spiritual community is not a force of similar believers organizing to evangelize and exert control over the world – but rather, a means of practitioners supporting one another in their practice.
But this inward focus should not be narcissistic. Rather, it is a recognition of ‘what we most control’ (ourselves and the kind of people we will become). It is an effort to "be the change we wish to see in the world"#. This is why it is important that there be non-political non-partisan ‘places of refuge’ – sacred spaces. These sacred spaces allow us to focus on the fundamental values in their most essential sense, before the bickering begins about how they should or shouldn’t apply in various ‘issues du jour’. The spiritual community trusts practitioners to turn to those values once they are ‘out in the world’ as self-determined agents in society.
This is how common ground is fertilized between factions within a society. This is how, for example, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was able to appeal to the common values of his society that reached the hearts of those across racial, religious, and political lines. But for that common ground to exist requires the kinds of sacred spaces that will be respected by all as wellsprings for common values. This is what we have lost as so many of our religious institutions have become politicized.
Action comes as a natural result of people practicing their values in the world, who have been fortified by that spiritual practice and spiritual community. The goal of a spiritual community is to help transform the natural spirit of the people. As such, spiritual communities acting as a political organization will not be necessary – the people will be wholesome, and will therefore act wholesomely as citizens, promoting virtuous policies themselves. More importantly, they will not dehumanize one another when differences arise as to how to get there, because they will recognize the universal goodness within one another. This can only be nourished in shared sacred spaces of refuge and support in personal practice – what spiritual community is all about.