Sangha as Refuge

Stephanie Swann
April 8, 2026

Dear Beloved Sangha,

I am writing to you on Wednesday morning, still carrying the weight of last night’s sangha gathering in my heart.

Yesterday, when President Donald Trump spoke of his intentions — “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” — my breath stopped. It was our sangha day, and I had a responsibility to show up for you and offer something from the Buddhadharma, but in that moment I froze. Not because I had nothing to offer, but because what was being asked of this moment was larger than my voice, larger than my thoughts, larger than anything my preparation could provide.

And then there you were.

All 39 of you. Also in shock. Also grieving the unthinkable: the possibility of an entire people annihilated as the world watched. With two hours before Trump’s threats were to be acted upon, what could we do? What should we do, as citizens of this country and as practitioners of the Buddhadharma?

We did the only thing that made sense. We came together. We got still. We tuned into our own minds and hearts. And we shared our fear, our brokenheartedness, our determination, our hope, and our gratitude.

In doing so, we became the teaching.

I had planned to speak last evening on anattā, on the nature of self, on the subtle and persistent habit of “selfing.” The irony is not lost on me. Because what actually happened was a living demonstration of that very teaching. The prepared talk, the “I” who planned to offer wisdom, all of it stepped aside. And in that stepping aside, WE became the wisdom, together. The self that needed to teach dissolved, and something truer emerged in its place.

This is the Three Jewels made visible: the Buddha, the heartful awareness we each brought into the room; the Dhamma, the practice that held the container; and the Sangha, the 39 of you who showed up, whole and broken at the same time.

Rebecca Solnit has written that “maybe changing the world is more like caregiving than it is like war.” I have been sitting with that line. It maps so closely onto what the tradition calls karuṇā and mettā, compassion and loving kindness, not as soft feelings to be cultivated in calm moments, but as the very ground of engaged action. Not the warrior energy of conquest or defeat, but the steady, unglamorous, life sustaining work of refusing to abandon one another.

And this brings me to what I believe is our spiritual task in this moment. We must continue to see clearly. To not look away. To resist, with full hearts and open eyes, the movement of violent authoritarianism becoming the new norm. This is not a task any one of us can carry alone. We need each other. We need the ground and the strength that come from our authentic, loving connection with one another. The Sangha is not a comfort we retreat into. It is the source from which wise and compassionate action flows.

That is what you did last night.

We are living in a time of deep institutional unraveling. Systems and structures that have held power for generations are fracturing. With that fracturing comes real destruction, real loss, real grief. And yet the Buddhadharma reminds us that all conditioned things are impermanent, aniccā. What falls apart is, by its nature, constructed. And within that falling, something less constructed, something closer to what is true, has room to breathe.

In October 1993, speaking to over two thousand people at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Thich Nhat Hanh offered these words in closing:

“It is possible the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community, a community practicing understanding and lovingkindness, a community practicing mindful living. And the practice can be carried out as a group, as a city, as a nation.”

Last night, I believe we touched that possibility. Not as an idea, but as a living reality in a room of 39 people who refused to look away, who sat with what was unbearable, and who spoke what was most alive, both the grief and the gratitude that lived right beside it.

My deepest hope is that you left feeling nourished. That you carried with you a sense of belonging, a sense of energy renewed. And that you took that out into your lives, into your families, your neighborhoods, your workplaces, as presence, as kindness, as loving intention made real.

And then, at 7:58 PM, two minutes before we closed, the news arrived. The United States and Iran had reached a two-week cease-fire agreement.

I saw tears on the faces of a number of you. I felt them too.

I will not try to explain the timing. Some moments ask only to be received.

Here we are. Together. Still breathing.

With love and gratitude,

Stephanie