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Originally Posted by Gem
When it comes to sangha, people have to earn trust. Many schools out there are involved with corruption and degeneracy, and the monks and trustees are generally untrustworthy. They ask you to 'take refuge', but it's not a safe place to undergo purification.
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Thanks for your reply.Generally speaking it's not nice when it turns sour, like there can be lots of instances of Sangha rubbing up against each other on retreat.
However, someone said it can be like stones in a bag the more they rub each other up the smoother they become. In the context I'm speaking about it's do-able
but often the more long term members of a community or sangha have stuff going on behind the scenes, clashes etc that practitioners coming for a relatively
short term retreat don't see. So as you say there has to be such things in place as adherence to precepts and refuge.
There was once a guy who was placed in charge of building a stupa in a retreat centre I still visit. Was a big project, lots of concrete being poured etc. and wheel barrowing. Well he thought he was building Carnegie Hall or something. It was a bit of a Milarepa narrative too, much darkness drug dealing etc. The nun is charge at the time really made a huge effort and allowance to help him but alas they had to ask him to leave in the end as he couldn't handle the leadership and managed
to alienate the whole of the community more or less lol.
I hear what your saying about the trustees handling money etc. In terms of Dana that really has to carefully thought through. What is acceptable to pay and what is not. Interesting. Also what you say about the daily goings on or grind of a Sangha is not always pretty, looking back in retrospect I can see spirituality can be sold
to oneself as sweetness and light, or more often you end up reading books and sell the message of sweetness and easy goingness to yourself, I have done this. lol.
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