What is Sangha? And What is THIS Sangha?
What is Sangha? And What is THIS Sangha? By Sam Tullman
What is sangha?
On one hand, this is an exceedingly simple question to answer. Sangha is a Sanskrit word that describes a community of people collectively moving towards increased freedom from suffering. Traditionally, it’s a word that’s been used in Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu contexts, as those traditions all share roots in Sanskrit language. The word roots are “together with” (sam/sang) and “to come into contact with” (han/ha). One might say that the word reminds us that we come together in order to come into contact with our lives, as opposed to finding shelter from our lives.
So, why not just use the word “community?” Well, community definitely works too! This is, hopefully to all of us, a wonderful community. But we use this word “sangha” to remind us that this is a community that has come together to face reality - a community with a strong, transformative purpose - not just a group of friendly people. Further, many of us DiabetesSangha (DS) facilitators appreciate it as an homage to ancient contemplative traditions that have been and continue to be hugely impactful in our lives, which use this word, sangha.
If you’re reading this, you already know that reality is often quite frustrating (to say it lightly) if you have T1D, whether it’s you living with it or a loved one. While ultimately we can only face our own experience by ourselves, as no one shares our same exact experience, we need not be alone as we turn to face our experience by ourselves. We can turn to it in the midst of friends doing the same thing, knowing that our doing so brings us closer to living a happy, meaningful life on the whole - not just the Diabetes part. Diabetes has a lot to teach us about life, but only if we really look at it. If we’re alone, it’s much easier to ignore it.
I’ve lived with T1D since I was 8 years old. I’m 27 now. For many years, I did everything I could to avoid the Diabetes community, actively resisting any contact with most others with Diabetes or connection over the shared experience of Diabetes. Why? One of my greatest fears was being defined by my experience of having T1D, being defined as a “Diabetic.” This scared the shit out of me. I just wanted to be a “normal” person, where I could fit in and indeed thrive amongst others who didn’t have Diabetes. And for the most part, this really worked for quite a while. I ran a tight ship, my blood sugars were quite often in a healthy range, and things externally were going pretty well for me. But this one-man island of living life playing down and concealing life with Diabetes was exhausting, and constricting.
Even more deeply, I see now what I was afraid of was seeing or hearing my own suffering in the face or words of another. This was something I could not bear to tolerate. I, like so many people, deeply believed I wasn’t entitled to be struggling, because I was entitled in so many other (positive/privileged) ways. I was disgusted with any sense within myself that I might be having a hard time, so I shut it down completely. Some time early in my Zen training (I’m still early in my Zen training, so I really should say even earlier :-p), I had the earth-shattering realization that no matter how “well” I did maintaining solid blood sugars - and indeed, I was doing a great job outwardly - Diabetes was causing me and going to continue to cause me lots of discomfort anyways. I’ll write about that realization elsewhere, but essentially, I saw that my shutting it down was only causing me more pain in the form of overcompensating in the rest of my life, being highly sensitive to any inference that I couldn’t or shouldn’t do something because of T1D, and my inability to be happy unless my blood sugars were excellent (that’s a pretty tough condition to attach your happiness to if you have Diabetes!). I realized at that moment that I needed to be more intimate with the fact that I live with a relatively serious chronic health condition. And I found the wonderful community that is the Diabetes Online Community (DOC).
Our hope is that the DS is another wonderful branch of the DOC. In this branch, we specifically explore how contemplative activites - those that bring us closer to the heart of life, like meditative practices - may be of benefit to not just living with Diabetes, but living a good life with Diabetes. It’s wonderful to be here.
