The Search for Belonging

 I have not really touched upon how much I rely on meditation as a community as well as place of belonging. Tonight, for example, after the group sitting, I had to leave early to take care of lesson plans for this coming Saturday's classes. My sitting tonight wasn't very good, to be honest, because I was somewhat tired and also distracted by the things I need to do. And yet behind all the distractions were two distinct wishes: one to "practice well" and consistently, and the other to belong in the group somehow. I don't always feel such a belonging, since a lot of times, I face cultural and language barriers with the non-English speakers in the group. And there are even times when I simply am not engaging with others, because I am wanting something much more from myself in terms of practice. But nonetheless, being in such a community does raise for me issues of "sense of belonging" and to what extent it is fulfilled in the group meditation practice or other Buddhist activities.
  I am also aware that the sense of belonging is entirely subjective: it isn't something that a group consensus builds, since everyone has a very different understanding of what belonging looks and feels like. In writing this, I also begin to realize that the feeling of belonging is really only a passing perception: there are moments when I am quite engaged and others when I am not engaged in practice. Knowing that both engagement and disengagement aren't permanent or even real, objective events that are external, can help one to get over the attachment to being engaged with anything. It's a bit like what Master Sheng Yen was explaining in the video after tonight's meditation, around "love". While feelings of love might be thought in some traditions as being eternal and unifying, Buddhism suggests that most kinds of love are forms of craving or attachment. While they may be temporarily satisfying, it helps to understand that they are passing perceptions which can be framed and reframed. They can even be renewed, if one is willing to endure the cloudier or dryer aspects of one's experiences.