Mindful Communities

Creating warm-hearted connections

Aug 22, 2025

“A good community is needed to help us resist the unwholesome ways of our time. Mindful living protects us and helps us go in the direction of peace. With the support of friends in the practice, peace has a chance.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

Another word for community is “Sangha” a Sanskrit term used to describe Buddha’s ordained followers the monks and nuns, as well as the wider lay community, the Buddhist practitioners who support the practice centre or monastery.

This community is a way of supporting each other along the Buddhist path, helping and encouraging each other to develop and deepen their practice.

“It is difficult to make a change alone. In the Sangha there is a powerful collective energy of mindfulness and concentration. It can help us make a breakthrough; it ignites our insight. Our practice together of walking, sitting, breathing, eating, is very important. When we practice with the Sangha, it’s easier than practicing alone.” (Thich Nhat Hanh)

Community is a large part of Buddhist practice, it is one of the three jewels that Buddhists take refuge in.

The three jewels are the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

Buddha means the awakened or enlightened one and we can use his example to live our life like a Buddha. We can look to the original Buddha as the ultimate teacher, as a spiritual guide to help us commit to our practice and aim to become Buddha ourselves. We can use his example to follow the path of enlightenment. We can take refuge in the Buddha, in all teachers and enlightened beings who inspire and guide us to help us see into the true nature of reality and find the end to suffering.

Dharma refers to the Buddhist teachings, also known as the Buddhist doctrine. It includes the Buddha’s foundational teachings and the methods that are passed down from teacher to student through books, lectures and recordings of how to practise meditation and mindfulness methods. These methods help us to understand ourselves and the world around us better, they lead us towards our true nature and free us from suffering, so they provide a refuge from the challenges of life.

Ultimately, Dharma is anything that helps us to wake up to our own Buddha nature, this could be the sound of a bird singing, the sun shining in the window, a deep full breath, anything at all that brings us into the present moment, fully aware and open.

Sangha refers to the Buddhist community, whether that’s monks or nuns or the wider lay community. It is important to have people around us who can provide help and support along the way. If our community lives in harmony and awareness then we can too. If we can practise together then it encourages us all to keep going, to find a space away from our busy lives to release, relax and just be. If we join a Buddhist community or create our own little community then we can let go of daily struggles and unwind together. We may like to sit with a friend or family member, take a mindful walk together or drink tea mindfully together, that way we can keep our meditation and mindfulness practice going.

Being in a Sangha is a welcoming space where you can just be you, exactly as you are.

“You don’t need to be like others; you just need to be yourself. You don’t need to have perfect health or a perfect mind without any worries and anxiety. You can still have some pain in your body or some pain in your mind.

But thanks to the practice, you can create more joy, peace, and understanding that nourishes you, nourishes the Sangha, and nourishes the world.” (Thich Nhat Hanh)

The wonderful thing about taking inspiration from a Buddhist Sangha is that we can bring the same positive qualities gained from this community into our own little communities. We can create our own Sangha without any religious or spiritual background, just a desire to be kind, supportive, friendly, helpful and encouraging.

My own wish to create a community of like-minded people comes from this desire to help people develop mindfulness within the support of a welcoming and friendly group. It offers a boost to our motivation and keeps us going, especially as it takes time and patience to work with mindfulness, to develop healthy habits, to transform our thought processes and to change our unhelpful beliefs. A community can provide a little help and guidance to nurture these positive habits.

I have been building my little communities for while now to help nurture and grow the positive seeds within us and allow the flowers of mindfulness to bloom. As a community we can walk in friendship helping each other along, lifting each other up and guiding each other to more freedom, love, kindness and compassion. We can help each other develop more clarity, calm, peace and positivity when we need it.

Joining together helps provide the inspiration we need, it offers the opportunity to pause, breathe and be more mindful, it helps us navigate our life, to make more time for ourselves and develop more self-care. It creates and nurtures friendships and it helps us to take the steps we need to feel healthier, happier and more at peace within ourselves.

My experience of being part of a sangha has been a blessing, the wealth of knowledge and understanding from teachers, mentors and the wider community has helped me through some challenges and inspired me to keep learning and growing.

Working in community roles supporting others and bringing groups together has also greatly inspired by desire to grow my own communities, to offer support where I can and provide a safe space to share ideas, discuss self-care and develop healthy habits.

I have created a variety of ways for people to feel connected, supported and part of a welcoming community. With my yoga and meditation classes I wanted to create a safe space for those attending so they could just be for a while, to rest their body, mind and heart and settle for a moment, creating a little bubble of calm within the chaos of life.

My wish then was for students and coaching clients to be able to continue creating their own bubbles of calm at home to continue their practice off the mat in their daily life, so I opened a private Facebook group to help them share, discuss and encourage each other along the way. I knew I wanted it to be a little sanctuary away from the busyness of life, so I called it the Mindful Heart Sanctuary and anyone is welcome to join in.

I followed this with putting together some online courses, for those who wanted to explore a little further, to delve a little deeper into mindfulness, meditation and healing practices. This later developed into a membership for people to not only learn on their own, but have some support along the way, to be part of a forum and have the opportunity to meet online through the Mindful Living Community, where we connect in our Cosy Corner Conversations. This a place where we can nurture caring conversations, quiet meditations and gentle mindfulness, from the comfort of our own homes. I encourage curling up under a blanket on a comfortable chair, with a cuppa, a notepad and enjoy connecting with our lovely community. These moments help us to walk the path of mindfulness, heal our hearts, soothe our minds and relax our body, so that we can create more love, compassion and peace.

I would like to bring some of this cosy calmness to Substack so I am now started to think about offering a new community called Soulful Seedlings.

My idea is for Soulful Seedlings is to be a soft and welcoming space for those of you who would like a moment of rest, relaxation and peace. A safe place to relax and unwind where we can come together for support, encouragement and inspiration in this quiet and gentle space.

It would be wonderful if this online community could be just as precious as my in-person classes and my 1-1 coaching and guidance, so that everyone feels just as held and supported here.

Soulful Seedlings could be a beautiful community of soul filled kindness, where we can plant the seeds of helpful words, kind action and deep inner connection, allowing us to grow into the beautiful flowers that we are.

I would love to offer cosy moments of reflection, meditation and kindness, gentle reminders and sparks of inspiration for growing a mindful life, along with creative ideas to allow you to flourish in body, mind and heart.

I am planting the seeds of my idea here, to see if it will develop and grow into a garden of warm-hearted connections.

May all my communities be like the light of the sun that shines on all who enter. May our thoughts, words and actions wash over each person like the rain nurturing the seeds of kindness within us all.

Soulful Seeds

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