Atta, one of the participants from last year’s Wake Up Easter Retreat, shares with us his insights into Sanghahood, or “why good friends are always important for your life and your practice.”
After the Wake Up retreat last weekend, I think everyone has known by now about the importance of Sangha in our practice. Yet I want to share my experience in this realization even before the retreat started. I arrived at Apeldoorn Osseveld station almost 20.30 on Friday. I heard three ladies talking in English. Though I thought they might go to the retreat as well, I did not want to walk with them at first because I thought that with the map from Google I printed, I could walk there mindfully on my own. Yet they asked me to join and we ended up walking and having a nice conversation together. After having walked for half an hour, we approached the retreat centre but we made one wrong turn. Luckily, one of us realized that. Then we tried to look on our map, googled the direction and so on. Finally, we walked back, found the correct street and reached the centre before 21.30.
What would have happened to me that night if I walked “mindfully” alone with an incomplete map and no internet connection? Sure, I could have called someone and reached the centre anyway in the end, but I might have paniced and walked very far in a wrong direction. Of course, it is fine to search for your way alone. Yet with good friends, we can remind each other that “maybe” this is not the right way. Then we can search for the right way together, using various tools each of us has and ultimately, reach the destination together with less hassles and more peace in our minds.
Thank you friends 🙂
This article was originally published on wkup.nl
