Buddhist Sangha Community Paper

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According to Zastrow (2015) communities are comprised of groups of individuals or families who share some values, services, institutions, or geographic location. I lived in a Buddhist Center, referred to as a Sangha, for one year accompanied by four other Buddhist residents who shared similar values, services, an institution, and geographic location. This community was also an organization because the residents formed a collectivity of individuals who shared a specific purpose. The community was also a group, because the residents had personal contact with each other which is a characteristic of a group (Zastrow, 2015). The Buddhist Sangha was one out of 667 located across the globe, whose residents who gathered together to serve a particular …show more content…
This community exhibited many strengths and distinct features, for example the Sangha was structured as a communal living cooperative, in which residents were responsible for the upkeep and operation of the center, and worked collectively to support each other and their shared values. Each resident financially contributed to the mortgage and pooled money to purchase food as a group. The members also voluntarily shared the responsibility of maintaining the upkeep of the center. The residents assumed roles and shared tasks, such as purchasing and preparing meals for all of the residents, cleaning the center, and leading weekly meditations which were open to the community. The five members of this community were Buddhist, but had unique and distinct characteristics. One of the male residents in his forties, from a rural farming town in the United States, and employed as a professional classical musician and professor. Another was a male in his mid-twenties from the United States and employed as an engineer. The other two residents were married school teachers in their mid-thirties, one from Cuba and Denmark. I was in my early twenties, my family emigrated from the Czech Republic, and I was studying Buddhism. Many of the members were closely tied to their culture and shared their traditions
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