I just got off the phone with my best friend, who is in Louisiana caring for her dying mother. My friend has been practicing for decades, and her younger sister also chants.
"So, are there any other Buddhists in Lake Charles at all?" I asked my friend. I was hopeful that she and her sister could get some support and maybe find some people who would be able to come over and chant with them during this stressful time. The answer to this was "no," and it appears that the closest practice center is in Houston, Texas, several hours' drive away.
I know a lot of people who practice in relative isolation away from major urban areas, and away from SGI community centers. I wonder about how to create sense of sangha in places where there is no sangha to speak of.
For me, I really enjoyed a Lotus Sutra Study group I was a part of a year ago or so. One of the participants let us use her business's dial-in conference call code. So, we called in every Sunday and had a wonderful time making friends and discussing the sutra. This group had participants in areas as far-flung as Alaska and Belfast. That's one way of creating sangha. Online discussions are another way. Obviously, a lot of people in remote areas rely on the SGI's publications to keep them "in the loop". The beauty of the conference calls, though, was that we could all participate and we got to know each other.
Does anyone else here have any other suggestions about how to create a sense of sangha in areas which are remote from the SGI 's centers? America is a lot bigger than Japan,and we are going to have to come up with some remedies which suit this country's wide open spaces.
Thanks for putting your thinking caps on.
Byrd in LA
Posted by wahzoh at August 12, 2007 11:30 AM"Better recognize your brother's everyone you meet." -John Lennon Instant Karma
Posted by: clown hidden at August 13, 2007 09:09 AMInvite her on to the discussion meeting that never ends...
RG
Posted by: Rev. Greg at August 13, 2007 09:34 AMI've been lurking for a few months now, and I wanted to say that I have been struggling with this myself. We do have a small district here, but attendance is sporadic. I can't afford the subscriptions to the SGI publications, so I mainly rely on online contact. It helps that both my parents, though they live far from me, are Buddhists too.
I have all these ideas from an SGI perspective on how many wonderful things we can do once we loosen ourselves from the restraints we've put ourselves in that keep us listening so much to President Ikeda, that leave us blindly following whoever gets appointed with no desire for democracy, that lets us connect with like-minded Nichiren Buddhists without fear of reprecussion (like not being able to hold SGI meetings at your house). But when will these things happen? I wish I had the answer.
Posted by: mypunkshoes at August 13, 2007 06:02 PMHiya, punk shoes! I don't know where you live, but you might be able to get together a group of people who are interested in either learning about Buddhism, or maybe studying something like the sutra. My sutra study group was wonderful -we had a Gakkai member (me) a number of Shu members, and some indies. I don't know where you're located, or whether you even want to tell us, but I do appreciate you're writing in this comment. I'm not crazy - there really is a need for some way of creating sangha "out there".
Are you in a "red state"? (and I don't mean the world of Anger!)
Best, Byrd in LA
Posted by: Byrd in LA at August 15, 2007 01:18 PMHey Byrd--
I live in Chico, CA. I would love to have something like that going on but it's hard enough to even have enough people for district meetings here! I think if I were to get anything going it would have to include Buddhism in general--which I'm not against. At least we could study the Lotus Sutra, I know there are other sects that use that. Even though we're a college town, it's still very rural all around, so it's hard to get people interested sometimes. Thanks for the advice though!
Posted by: mypunkshoes at August 16, 2007 07:20 AMEven in an urban area with a center, it can be very difficult to get people to chant with you. I had that problem when my father was dying. And right now I'm not able to go to meetings.