This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Lovingkindness for the Community; Sangha 5/5: Six Principles of Cordiality (sāraṇīya-dhammas). It likely contains inaccuracies.
The following talk was given by Nikki Mirghafori at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.
Hello everyone. Greetings. Greetings wherever you are in the world. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. I’m joining you from Tuscany still. This is the last day, the fifth day.
So lovely to be with you and share these teachings about Saṅgha, about community this week. Sharing the teachings and feeling into the importance of community, of spiritual friends, and not just our receiving of community, which is where our mind goes usually, but how can we be a caring, kind, beneficial member of the community.
So we’ve been covering different themes, different aspects this week. And today I wanted to speak about the six principles of cordiality. The Buddha talks about these six principles, and yes, Buddhism has a lot of lists. The Buddha loved a lot of lists. I love lists. I hope you love them too.
This particular list of six principles of cordiality are from the Anguttara Nikaya 6.12, the Sāraṇīya Sutta. The difference between the teaching today is that these are the six principles, and I’ll mention them very briefly and then I’ll guide a meditation aligned with them. It is the way we think, the way we hold others in our hearts and minds. So three of the six aspects have to do with loving-kindness: actions of the body, actions of speech, actions of thought. How do we think about others? Do we think of them with kindness?
The other ones also have to do with sharing virtue, sharing views, this living ethically. Whereas what we covered yesterday, just to bring a distinction, was the four principles of embracing, the four grounds of embracing others. So they were more action-oriented. Yesterday we talked about generosity, dāna. We talked about kind speech and service, acts of service, as well as embracing others with equality, with openness of heart, with seeing them on the same level as I. So there are nuances in the teachings, and maybe I’ll expand it further.
So, without further ado, the guided meditation today, as we settle in the body, of course, mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of the breath first, and then inviting some of these principles of how do we hold in our hearts ourselves, others, these principles, ways of being in community, practicing ways of being in community. So with that, let’s sit together.
So, landing, arriving, arriving in our bodies, arriving in this moment in time. This moment has never been and will never be exactly like this.
And can we arrive in the body? Relaxing, softening the shoulders, the neck, opening the chest a little bit as if we’re greeting the world, greeting ourselves and this human life. Settling into our sit bones, taking our seat on this earth.
What does it really feel like to take your seat in this moment in time? Really take your seat in the midst of this being human, just as you are. Embracing all of you, all your beingness, taking your seat with confidence and humility. Both confidence and humility.
Feeling the connection of your feet, your legs, with the earth. Earth on earth. Connection of your sit bones. Let your sit bones soften. Offer their weight to the earth. Relax. Release.
Allowing the breath to be received. Relaxing and receiving the breath. Calming, soothing, settling each in-breath and out-breath.
Any clear thoughts arising, taking us into the past, future? Can we see them? Can we see them with kindness, not with aversion? Perhaps smilingly and say, “Thank you. Not now. I’ll come back to you later. Please come after I’m done practicing.” Smilingly, knowing what the thought was about and releasing. Releasing. Feeling the goodness, the peace of release and settling with kindness. Right here, right now, where the heart and mind can be nourished.
And now I would like to invite you, if you would, bringing to heart maybe one or multiple if that feels more appropriate for you. Friends, good friends, benefactors, maybe spiritual friends, maybe members of your community, Saṅgha, whether it’s this community here online or a dear good friend you have who’s kind and wise.
Allow your heart to be free to invite anyone that feels right, feels appropriate. One, multiple people. Let your heart be relaxed as if you’re sitting in a comfortable space. Opening the door of your heart, inviting who feels appropriate to come and sit with you. Maybe one person enters into this chamber of your heart in this moment in time. Whatever feels appropriate. See if you can sit with this friend, these friends, part of your community with kindness, with friendliness, in the space of goodwill.
A very simple space of goodwill. Thoughts of goodwill permeate the space of the heart. Feelings of goodwill, well-wishing, friendliness. If there are phrases that want to come in naturally from your history of doing Mettā practice, it’s okay. You can bring in phrases or just let it be wordless. Receiving and sharing goodwill, friendliness.
Holding space, holding space of kindness, goodwill in your heart. Friends, benefactors, spiritual friends, community members, Saṅgha members. Make sure you are included too in this holding with goodwill and friendliness. Don’t leave yourself out.
If it feels okay, expanding the heart to also invite folks who are practicing with you through this Saṅgha, through this community on YouTube. You might have never met them, but maybe their names have become familiar as they say good morning, good afternoon. Inviting them to this heart space, to this sitting space, this hall of your heart that you’ve opened. This open house of your heart. Letting them come and take a seat.
All of us together, all of us, a space of goodwill, kindness, fostering goodwill for one another, for ourselves. This is the glue in Saṅgha, goodwill, Mettā in thoughts, words, and actions. Stay with thoughts of Mettā, goodwill.
Imagine all these beings from various places around the globe. This invisible network that connects us all, sharing goodwill like Indra’s net. This invisible net where we give and receive this golden light of friendliness. Goodwill, friendliness, the benefit of the doubt. Training ourselves in seeing goodness, seeing friendliness, acting, speaking, thinking with friendliness.
And as we keep stretching, my last invitation. If there are people in your community, in your circle, and you’re having a little bit of a challenge with, you feel stretched by, and they feel stretched by you, can you invite them to let them come and be in this space of goodwill? Not condoning the harm, but seeing, allowing their humanity, including them in the goodwill.
Perhaps with some relationships where there’s been strain for a long time unresolved, it’s time to move on and share goodwill. Move on from holding on, grasping to the hurt, not being so loyal to our suffering. Moving on to possibility.
And we allow and invite our heart to grow, to expand. What’s possible in our sense of this being who is me? Sense of ourselves growing with it, expanding with it, in a human, earthy, humble, kind way.
As we turn to bring this sit to a close together, inviting ourselves to be held in the community with kindness, with goodwill, with appreciation for having showed up, for practicing kindness, goodwill, aligning our actions with our intentions.
May all beings everywhere know their own goodness. May all beings everywhere be kind to one another. May all beings everywhere be happy. May all beings everywhere be free, including ourselves.
Thanks everyone. Thanks for your practice.
So nourishing and beautiful to sit with different aspects of friendship, community. And especially for me as I was practicing with you, it was really beautiful and heart-expanding to imagine all of us sitting together, all of you, all of us in different places in the world. It just really uplifts my heart. And yeah, so much goodness to uplift the heart, so much goodness in this community. If you’ve been coming for a long time or if you’re new, the first time, you’re part of this community because you’re showing up. You’ve showed up.
So, taking a pause before I transition to the teaching.
Hello again and welcome everyone. So today is the fifth and last day of sharing teachings, exploring teachings together on Saṅgha, on community, on friendship, how to show up, how to embrace others, how to be with others, spiritual friendship.
So today I want to share teachings from the Anguttara Nikaya 6.12, and the English translation is “The Six Principles of Cordiality.” In Pali, they’re known as the sāraṇīya-dhammas1, which literally means “the qualities that are worth remembering” or “the virtues that create harmony and endearment.”
So in other ways, the theme really is how can we live together with kindness, with cordiality. And these six principles are ways that the Buddha instructs us, invites us to be in our hearts and minds, the way we share of ourselves and our mind space and heart space.
Again, it’s a little bit different from the teachings that I shared yesterday. The teachings yesterday, as I mentioned earlier, are referred to as the saṅgaha vatthūni2, the four saṅgaha vatthūni. And those four principles are known as the four means of embracing others. They’re more action-oriented. If you remember the list yesterday—again, Buddha loves lists—on the list yesterday was dāna3, generosity, acts of giving, sharing of resources and goodwill. There was kind and affectionate speech, piyavācā4. There was beneficial action or service for the sake of others, atthacariyā5, this beautiful term. And samānattatā6, which means impartiality, equality. Which basically is this beautiful idea of embracing others as equals, not with pride, not looking down on others. That’s the way to embrace others. So these ways of embracing others again with generosity, with kind speech, with service, and with equality, this open heart, being equitable, humble, fair, open. So those four principles of embracing others, a beautiful teaching.
Now today, another way of seeing this in the Buddha’s teaching, the six qualities, the six principles of cordiality. The first three of the six are:
So the first three of the six principles again have to do with loving-kindness in action, in speech, and in thoughts. And so you see that loving-kindness, Mettā, goodwill, is 50% of these six principles. Three have to do with different aspects of Mettā. And I love that the Buddha has unpacked it. It’s not just, “Oh, go do Mettā now, just go do it in your thoughts.” It’s that there is this nuance of, “Oh, do it in your actions, do it in your speech, do it in your thoughts silently.” Again, putting so much emphasis on goodwill.
Sharing of material possessions (sādhāraṇa-bhogitā10): Sharing material gains. This means sharing without reservations. It’s always good to have a sense of humor, of course, about oneself and the beautiful Pali language with all the diacritics. So this sharing of one’s resources, it creates a culture of generosity, trust, non-possessiveness, and non-jealousy. So especially in the Buddhist communities, when monastics, for example, live together, the invitation or the teaching here is for them to be sharing of all alms food with one another. So often only one monk goes to the village and gets alms food and brings it back and shares it with everybody else, to share medicine, to share robes, to share all the resources that they have, which is very little.
Sharing ethical conduct (sīla-sāmaññatā11): Sīla is the word for ethical conduct. This is sharing our ethics with one another, living ethically with one another. The five precepts, the five ethical trainings, to live according to them with one another, which again ensures a mutual trust and stable foundation for deeper practice. Because when we trust that this other person is not going to lie to us or steal or take or harm us, this just automatically creates a sense of trust in the community.
Sharing of right view (diṭṭhi-sāmaññatā12): Diṭṭhi is wise view, right view. Sāmaññatā is to share it with others. So here it is about sharing this view, being in this community, speaking from, living from, sharing the perspective that upholds wisdom and compassion and the various principles: wise view, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path. It’s basically this view of, as if we had the awakened perspective. As if we had the awakened perspective, in the way of, you know, “fake it ‘til you become it.” So living from that place, treating ourselves, living and exuding this sense of this vision of a bigger sense of possibility of ourselves and each other and community. So sharing that view with one another. Not living from this small-minded place, but sharing, living from this higher, this more expansive place of our hearts with one another.
And again, when I say community, there are so many different shapes and forms to a community. There could be a community of two, your spiritual friendships. It could be the community of hundreds here online, etc. So many different ways to really consider the teachings on community.
And these teachings really allow for a non-visible field of safety and trust in the way that we interact with each other and with ourselves, and we hold ourselves. And there’s so much more dignity also, the sense of dignity that arises for us as we live in this way.
So I want to leave you with some reflections as I have every day of this week. Here are the reflections for today:
I think that’s enough, those three reflections.
And I want to thank you all, actually. And I want to thank IMC and also Gail for inviting me to share these teachings with you this week, and IMC for offering all this support to us in the background. And also a host of awesome tech support volunteers online who have my back and your back and really are supporting these teachings.
And here come the bells.
I also wanted to say that this teaching this week has been inspired by a book by Bhikkhu Bodhi13, which is called The Buddha’s Teachings on Social and Communal Harmony. I’ll put it in chat. And also I’ll put my website in chat, which is where you can find me.
And I want to thank you at the end. Thank you so much to all of you for your practice, for your sharing, for being here, being online, practicing with one another and being part of this community.
Thank you all. Thank you so much for your practice this whole week. It’s been a delight to be with you from here in Tuscany, especially with the bells. Okay, take good care. Thanks everyone. Be well.
Sāraṇīya-dhammas: (Pali) Six principles of cordiality or qualities that are worth remembering, which create harmony and endearment within a community. ↩
Saṅgaha vatthūni: (Pali) The four grounds for embracing others, or the four means of showing favor. These are principles for creating social cohesion. ↩
Dāna: (Pali) Generosity, giving, or donation. It is one of the foundational virtues in Buddhism. ↩
Piyavācā: (Pali) Affectionate, kind, or endearing speech. One of the four saṅgaha vatthūni. ↩
Atthacariyā: (Pali) Beneficial conduct or action; acting for the welfare of others. One of the four saṅgaha vatthūni. ↩
Samānattatā: (Pali) Impartiality, equality, or treating all beings as equals. One of the four saṅgaha vatthūni. ↩
Mettā kāyakamma: (Pali) Loving-kindness expressed through bodily actions. ↩
Mettā vacīkamma: (Pali) Loving-kindness expressed through verbal actions or speech. ↩
Mettā manokamma: (Pali) Loving-kindness expressed through mental actions or thoughts. ↩
Sādhāraṇa-bhogitā: (Pali) The principle of sharing one’s possessions or material gains with the community. ↩
Sīla-sāmaññatā: (Pali) The principle of sharing a common standard of ethical conduct (Sīla). ↩
Diṭṭhi-sāmaññatā: (Pali) The principle of sharing a common “right view” (Diṭṭhi), a unified perspective based on Dharma principles. ↩
Bhikkhu Bodhi: An American Buddhist monk from New York City, ordained in Sri Lanka. He is a renowned scholar and translator of Pali texts. ↩