I have often wondered why my Sangha is since I live in a rural small town in Virginia. There is no one that I have found on the path of Dharma practice, and I mean who actually meditates and studies the teaching and, most important of all, serious applies the teaching to everyday life. However, since I have been here since 1981—I thought I would be a big yoga teacher here since they had no yoga. WRONG!

Ironically, it turned out to be a good soil for my practice because I kept my candle lit in private and protected it from the conventional winds. And then I started writing on a blog, and then Facebook, and it was daily writing, for no reason except to write, that fed my flame. Then came Facebook Live and now my flame has more oxygen.
But the point I find I’m making is that Sangha is not necessarily a group, a support group that props us up, a Sangha is relationship, and you only need two for relationships.

But a sangha does need interaction with the teaching. Take refuge in the Buddha (nature); the Dharma and the Sangha. The Buddha is your inner core spiritual awakening, the yearning for truth and wholeness; the Dharma not only the Teaching but being itself, this present moment. Stay ground in your present moment, in your everyday moments and experiences which are your Buddha nature.
Buddha nature is not something, not external, not a noun, but your unity with the world as the world. You are the world and the world is you. I always remember this Krishnamurti mantra. The Truth is always unity, so your true nature, Buddha nature, is unity.
The Dharma teaching is not only written in words, a Buddha manual so to speak on how to fix the mind, but its real Truth is subjective, not objective. The Four Noble Truths are both objective and subjective.

Objective the Dharma says. There is suffering in life, in humanity. The Subjective Dharma says. I Hurt! I suffer! What is the real cause? I see the cause! I am free! I am free…Oh…crap…the suffering, the contraction is back, what do I do? I can’t make my Beloved come back…

I can create the conditions for my Beloved to return by the 8 fold path, which begins with Wise View…and Wise Vies is applying the Dharma from the Subjective view, from the of my True Nature.

When the Buddha awakened he said: “Throughout heaven and earth I alone am the most honored One.” This is the Subjective View. His voice is your voice…throughout heaven and earth I alone am the most honored One….Or as my guru used to say: God dwells within you as You. This view state the truth that you are already always the One or as I said before. You are the world and the world is you.
We are the most honored One, (subjective) and at the same time we are a one among many (objective) view. Buddhism is the awakening of both views, a union through transcendence of these opposite yet mutually dependent ways of being aware. Buddhism is the Transcendent Way…a leap…a courageous leap to heal the wound of division in my psyche, a wound maintained by our society, a wound that pushes me, kicking and screaming, to transcendence and the realization of my true nature.