The Voices of Sangha: Connection in Our Digital Gompa

When I look around our Zoom screen each week, I see the mosaic of our sangha – small glowing squares of light, each one a window into a home, a life, a moment of practice. Some of us remember the days when we gathered in the Key West Nature Chapel, sitting close enough to hear the sound of a friend’s breath settle into meditation. Others have joined since those days, connecting from distant time zones and new corners of the world.

What amazes me is that, despite the distance, the heart of sangha remains alive – vibrant, responsive, and real. There is something profoundly beautiful about hearing a familiar voice offer a dedication, or seeing someone’s eyes soften in a moment of shared silence. These small gestures are threads of connection, weaving us together into what Lama Tsultrim calls “the living mandala.”

Over the past year, our group began a new practice we call Voices of Sangha. It grew from a wish to know one another more personally, to hear the stories and insights that arise through daily life and dharma practice. Every few weeks, before meditation, one sangha member offers a 10-20 minute reflection – something from their practice, an experience that revealed a teaching, or a simple moment of awareness. Sometimes the sharing is joyful, sometimes tender or raw, but always authentic. Afterward, we take a quiet moment to let the words settle before moving into meditation together.

What has unfolded is more than storytelling; it is a living exchange of presence. In hearing each other’s voices, we begin to sense the many ways the dharma manifests in ordinary life – through illness and healing, through relationships, through nature, through loss, and through small daily acts of kindness. Each voice becomes an offering, a note in the larger harmony of the sangha.

As one member shared, “Preparing my talk became a reflection on my spiritual path – revisiting old journals, remembering retreats, and realizing how grateful I am for this lineage and for walking this path with others.” Another expressed, “I love this practice. Even though we meet on Zoom, it feels like holding hands across the distance – weaving a beautiful, colorful tapestry of friendship and love.” And another reflected with luminous depth, “I have loved Lama’s insight in the Feeding Your Demons practice, when she says, ‘Now go back and notice something you have not noticed before.’  I take it quite literally that all of humanity is one body. I take it as the evolution of the appearance of Maitreya – the sangha as the body of the Buddha for our difficult times right now. It is especially fitting that our teacher would act to enable her dear sangha members to love each other more, always to look again and go deeper into appreciation and gratitude for our precious sangha body.” 

In listening to these voices, I’m reminded of Thich Nhat Hanh’s wise words:  “It is possible that the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community – a community practicing understanding and loving-kindness, a community practicing mindful living.” 

When I hear the voices of our sangha – greeting, chanting, reflecting, and even quietly listening – I feel that possibility already unfolding. The next Buddha is not waiting to be born; the next Buddha is being lived, moment by moment, through our collective practice of awareness, compassion, and connection. Perhaps this is what makes our digital sangha so powerful. It is a mandala that has no walls, no single center. Every participant becomes a radiant point of awareness, contributing to the whole. Like the five Buddha families themselves, we each bring our distinct energies – clarity, compassion, equanimity, spaciousness, and skillful means – forming a mandala of living wisdom.

When we listen deeply to one another’s voices, we enter into a subtle practice of reflection. We see ourselves mirrored in another’s story, emotion, or moment of insight. Through the sangha, we come to know that awakening is not a solitary endeavor but a shared unfolding – a dance of consciousness that is always relational, always interconnected.

As we continue to meet in the digital gompa, may we remember that our connection is not bound by pixels or geography. The light that shines through our screens is the same luminosity that shines through our minds. Each time we open the Zoom room, we are also opening the mandala – a field of awareness where we can recognize and nurture the awakened heart in one another.

And so, as the session closes and we bow with palms together, let this be our aspiration:  May our sangha continue to be a voice of compassion and wisdom in the world. May the next Buddha, the community itself, awaken ever more fully through our practice together. May all beings benefit.