Blast from the Past: Crazy Sangha

Dzogchen Ponlop said something quite funny about sanghas in a teaching on interdepedence. A friend asked him: ‘How come you attract so many crazy people?’ DPR said: “It’s because I’m crazy—and dharma attracts crazy people, because we need dharma to overcome our craziness. If you’re not crazy then why are you here meditating? So we both attract each other, all the crazy people together. Isn’t that nice? It’s more fun that way. We will never bore each other.” (DPR, 2013). When  you join a Buddhist community, you become involved as a crazy person with bunch of other crazy people, trying to heal their craziness. The problem with many Buddhist sanghas is they will never admit that.

[originally published Nov. 2015 in engagedbuddhism.net]