Sangha Support Group

The blessing of the Dharma gem in our lives has only been made possible by more than one hundred generations of Buddhist monks and nuns, almost entirely Asians, living lives of great commitment as Dharma guardians, practitioners and teachers. In Australia we are blessed by having access to Asian monastic teachers and models and, increasingly, to Western monastics.

Recently we have become aware of a number of circumstances that have inspired us to think about how to generalise support for monastic Sangha in South Australia and throughout Australia generally. What follows is a number of possibilities but the imagination and commitment of numbers of people will make the real difference.

These include spreading the blessing of the Sangha gem further by investigating the ways nuns and monks, Asian and Western, need support in their lives. That support may be:

• Moral support
• Financial support
• Housing
• Training and education
• Teaching “Buddhist” English and creating connections for Asian monastics with Australian people and culture
• Negotiating with the Department of Immigration
• Making the Sangha and its needs more visible to local Buddhists
• Promoting Sangha education and training
• Encouraging local people to experience for themselves a taste of Sangha life and to foster vocations.
  

If you are interested in participating, please come to the events we have planned by contacting Thích Thông Pháp  on thon0012@flinders.edu.au. As an interim measure only he will give you the information. A pdf version of this flyer is available here.

Best wishes
Sangha Support Group

Events and Activities

The Sangha Support has arranged a series of events and activities in the upcoming weeks.

For more information, please refer to the links below.

• Public Forum: Faith, Affluence and Poverty-A Buddhist-Christian Dialogue [1 October]
  For more information, please click here.
• Public Forum: Buddhism: Core Beliefs and Practices and Role in the Contemporary World [2 October]
  For more information. please click here.
• Film Screening: Through the Eastern Gate [31 October]
  For more information, please click here.

Articles

• A Life of High Adventure: Integrating the Monk and the Pastor
  
• Is that you?: A Buddhist Monk Reflects on his Chaplaincy