Take Refuge in the Sangha
Something missing? The Three of Cups and Star inspire a poem pointing toward one possible answer.
Welcome back to WiggleStick: a playful synonym for “divining rod” that, today, helps Emma with the question they volunteered on a previous poem.
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Three Of Cups
Celebration, friendship, creativity, collaborations.
The Star
Hope, faith, purpose, renewal, spirituality
All of us feeling the need for belonging—
Alien, lonely, with not a soul calling—
Filling our holes with the falsely enthralling—We each need some friends to rock out with.
You still stuck inside like the lockdown’s still going?
It’s time for renewal; rebirth overflowing;
Hope, faith and purpose: prepare you for growingA Sangha to shout it.
Buddha outlined three Jewels for spiritual seekers. The Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. They’re ideas that we can “take refuge” in, that we can remind ourselves of when times get frustrating and exhausting.
To take refuge in The Buddha refers to feeling grateful that you’ve incarnated on a planet that has already had a Buddha. Because one person has woken up, more people are able to. Through a kind of morphic resonance, once the door is open more and more people can walk through it.
Taking refuge in the Dharma is all about taking refuge in the Buddha’s teachings. Follow the Eightfold Path’s suggestions, and develop your Insight, Wisdom and Moral faculties.
The Sangha is the community of spiritual seekers that you work on these objectives with. Your friends who are also deep in the search. The people, in short, you cheers and dance with, as shown in the Three of Cups.
When asked which of the three Jewels the Buddha thought was most important, he answered clearly: “The Sangha.”
Maybe Buddhism isn’t your jam, but other spiritual traditions have their own versions of this. The Yogic Satsang. The Magickal Secret Society. Etc.
Trust your gut of course, and exercise discernment. Not every spiritual community is safe or promotes equally empowering teachings. Don’t go join a cult because The WiggleStick told you to.
Still, it seems the combination of a card that refers to group celebration and a card that points out the need to renew a spiritual search form a pretty clear picture of a need for a community of seekers to take refuge in.
Good luck!
If you liked this, you can always buy a cup of coffee as a form of Dāna.
The WiggleStick has spoken.
(Dramatic!)
I’m trying to keep this poetry project going for as long as I can. That means I need a little help coming up with questions for readings. If you’d like a poem of your own, please don’t hesitate to…
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Huge thanks to
for translating these poems into something wonderful and weird and totally TikTok worthy! Check it out!