Toh 281Being Mindful of the Community
Pāli / Sanskrit:Saṅghānusmṛti
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An Explanation of the Saṅghānusmṛti Sūtra (Mindfulness of the Sangha)
Background
The Saṅghānusmṛti Sūtra, contained in the Kangyur of the Northern Transmission of Buddhism, is one of the core Mahāyāna scriptures on the practice of recollection (anusmṛti). The Sangha is regarded as one of the Three Jewels of Buddhism, together with the Buddha and the Dharma. This sūtra was transmitted in order to guide practitioners to understand deeply the value of the community of practice and the immeasurable benefits of supporting and participating in the Sangha body.
In the Mahāyāna context, the Sangha includes not only renunciants but the entire community of bodhisattvas, both monastic and lay, who wholeheartedly aspire to awakening. Therefore, mindfulness of the Sangha in this sūtra has a broader meaning, relating to the entire community of those who practice the bodhisattva path.
Main Content
The sūtra teaches that mindfulness of the Sangha is an important method of practice for maintaining a mind of faith and creating vast wholesome conditions. Practitioners are instructed to contemplate the noble qualities of the Sangha: uprightness, purity in conduct, wisdom in studying the Dharma, together with discipline and self-mastery among its members.
The sūtra emphasizes that those who circulate the true Dharma, practice the Noble Eightfold Path, and direct their minds toward unsurpassed awakening are worthy of reverence and support. The gathering of many purified minds, practicing together for a common purpose, creates a field of Dharma energy that cannot be agitated or broken. The sūtra also teaches that when practitioners are mindful of the Sangha, they are automatically joined to the current of the development of the Buddhadharma across the centuries.
In addition, the sūtra points out that the Sangha is the place that protects the Dharma, transmits the Dharma, and teaches the Dharma to later generations. Without the Sangha, the Dharma would not be passed on.
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