September 2025 – Barry Garden Path

I gave the following talk at the Blooming Heart Sangha on September 25, 2025.

Trauma Belongs in the Sangha 9/25/25

I have been thinking a lot lately about the place trauma has in the Sangha.

healing?

I think “Yes”, but it’s not simple.
I suspect you have many thoughts about this, there are many experiences in this room.
My own thinking has been stirred up by a recent episode of “The Way out Is In” in which Phap Hu told of retreatants complaining that they were triggered by their experience at Plum Village.
His response was “suffering is our business.”
The first noble truth identifies how suffering is foundational to our practice.
A realization of our suffering is the beginning of the path, of deep mindfulness,
But, again, is it really that simple?

The notion of trauma, certainly the word “trauma” has become more and more common.

Gabor Mate, in “The Myth of Normal” writes that trauma is a common experienceof ours from the moment of our birth.
Trauma has many faces and degrees of toxic impact.
I feel like we live in a toxic environment
Buddha’s primary insight: Suffering is part of the human condition.
However, in our culture, “Trauma” may actually be overused as a defense for not dealing with our discomfort, our suffering.

We seek to avoid trauma, especially our own

Engaging trauma has not been easy for me: My own racial trauma has been on my mind for about five years, and I still wrestle with it.
Resmaa Menakem, a local trauma therapist, explains how each of us, no matter what the color of our skin, carries the trauma of racism.
We inherit trauma, we breathe racial trauma, we experience it.
For five years, a small group of us has been meeting every two weeks to share our personal involvement with racial trauma: ours, others’, one another’s.
We share and support our struggle with trauma, and we support our healing.
Because of these friends, I am aware of my racial trauma, my unease, when waiting for the Green Line LRT or riding the bus with a diversity of people.
So what does that have to do with this Circle? This sangha?

I think this Circle is a safe place where I can bring the disquieting aspects of my life, my suffering, my trauma.

Perhaps I can bring the unresolved racial trauma, unease, and suffering that I experience.
Already, I have often brought my own unease and discomfort with the negativeaspects of the Five Mindfulness Trainings to this Circle, ……ANDI am aware I am still working on something much deeper.
It is my way of becoming aware: becoming mindful of my suffering is the beginning of my healing.
The sangha, this Circle, can be a place of healing, collective healing and personalhealing.

It’s happening: In this Circle, we share our experiences

We tell of our losses: parents, pets, jobs.
We speak from the heart……not so much our head
We lead with our heart.
We deepen our vulnerability.
We address our discomfort, our suffering in a supportive environment.
We may even allow ourselves to rub against the rough edges of one another.
This Circle becomes an opportunity of deep caring, beyond those who are a routine part of my life.

I know we sometimes speak of the sangha as a place where we come to practice.

For me, that is a little like going to the gym to exercise or do pilates.
I also find much comfort in seeing this Circle, this Sangha as a communal hot tub: a place where I may bring our aches and pains, my unease, my discomfort; a place for healing.
In the Circle, we can become vulnerable, silently or out loud.

The Circle is not a therapy session: there is no discussion, no one-on-one

Still, the Circle is a place where I can bring my suffering, my unease; I can do this openly or silently
It is a place where I can be in the present moment without outside distraction.
I can experience what it feels like to be in the present moment; know I am not alone, I am in the presence of one another.
Where I can relax into a common experience of vulnerability.

BUT it may not always be comfortable

Even in the Circle, I can feel stress from the presence of individuals
Even here, there are feelings of conflict, caution, rejection.
Not unlike when I am standing on the LRT platform or riding the bus
Being aware of that unease is a mindful practice, even a healing practice of vulnerability
The healing is in the present moment.

The Circle is where I can feel my suffering, my trauma, without being a victim of it.

Awareness is the beginning of healing.
I’ve decided that the Circle can be a place of healing.
The Circle is one place I can bring my trauma.
I may even make friends with my trauma, just as the Buddha sat down to tea with Mara.

So what do you think?