Safer Sangha  » Community Agreements

In Buddhist recovery meetings, people from all walks of life come together to talk about the less glamorous moments of life. Topics and discussions can often be painful and personal. Members also share the vulnerability to talk about their unique pasts, traumas, confusions, disappointment, shame, losses, lessons learned, and together, strength and hope is gathered to embark on a wise path of transforming sufferings. These are all courageously vulnerable steps to take. Although a sangha has a shared path in recovery, members come from different backgrounds, life experiences, social experiences, adversities, and have different personalities, triggers, expectations, and needs. Community and connection is crucial in our recovery, and on this shared spiritual path of recovery, we have a responsibility to tend to each other, to understand our own needs, and to support each other in a way that sustains the recovery of ours and our spiritual companions. We also have a commitment to maintaining the integrity of the meeting itself; it is a way to be of service. Community agreements are how we can find a common ground and maintain the integrity and sense of safety of the meeting. 

Recovery cannot happen in meetings if people do not feel safe, included, or accepted. 

Creating community agreements is a courageous act taken on by the community to actively create and protect connections in ways that make each other feel seen, heard, and respected. It is also a way to keep members mindful and self-aware of how to maintain the safety and harmony in the room. By joining a sangha, a member is agreeing to align their intention, speech, and action with the shared vision of the group. 

What are community agreements? 

Community agreements are agreements created by the group that delineates the consensus of individual needs, the ways to meet these needs, and how members envision to interact and exist with each other. It embodies a commitment to fulfill the shared vision of the group through awareness, openness, trust, and a sense of safety. 

Community agreements are revisable, peer-created, and consensus-driven. It is not authoritative, rules, or customs. 

Creating community agreements

If this is a new meeting, then you may get together in a business meeting to discuss what each person needs to feel safe and accepted, and identify values and themes that encapsulates the consensus. If this is an old meeting, in addition to considering individual needs of regular members, there may have been breaches of emotional and psychological safety or rupture in prior meetings. You can get together to consider what could have prevented these ruptures from happening, what was needed in the moment for members and facilitators, and what would benefit post-rupture restoration. You may also reference the community agreements and/or guidelines of other sanghas, meetings, and meditation centers that resonate with your sangha, and revise them to accommodate the unique needs of your sangha. It may be necessary to reevaluate the community agreements from time to time to see if there is a need for revising. 

Be specific in your agreements, provide definitions and explanations so members can know what they are agreeing to. For example, instead of only saying “practice deep listening,” provide explanations of what “deep listening” would look like, things that will get in the way, and specific examples, such as “turn off your phones,” or “allow others to speak without interruptions.” Remind members that these are continued practices that the sangha is working together towards. Aim not at perfection, but learning from the process, as companions on the same path. 

Some examples of Community Agreements

Below are a variety of community agreements or meeting guidelines of various sanghas from different contexts and purposes. It is not an exhaustive list but a few examples that may be used as references or starting points for you to create your community agreements. Please note that even though some of these examples are referred to as “guidelines,” we encourage you to use the language “agreements” instead and draft your agreements with your sangha as a consensus and with a “bottom-up” approach. In addition to the below examples, You may base your community agreements on the Buddhist Five Precepts and Noble Eightfold Path or incorporate processes of conflict resolution when there were ethical concerns in the sangha. 

Agreements within Buddhist or recovery sanghas: 

• East Bay Meditation Center’s Agreement for Multicultural Interactions
• Brooklyn Zen Center Community Agreements
• The New Sangha Handbook downloadable from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation explains the intention, speech, and behavior that are asked of members for mindfulness practices. It explains wise speech and deep listening, being mindful of time, others, personal needs, and values of diversity. It also explains what is a sangha and provides passages to reassure safety, acceptance, and honoring one’s needs. The handbook also provides ways for facilitators to guide members’ body, speech, and mind during dharma sharing. These can be found under World Beat Sangha: How we Practice Mindfulness Together, Sample Comments for Bell Master/Facilitator, Facilitating Dharma Sharing, The Practice of Dharma Sharing, and Trainings of the Mind in Diversity. 
• Recovery Dharma Online Safety Guidelines. 

Agreements within organizations/centers: 

• White Awake Shared Agreements
• Union Theological DWAG Agreements, adapted from Brooklyn Zen Center’s Undoing Whiteness and Oppression Guidelines
• Summer Search Community Agreements
• Eat Breathe Thrive Community Agreements
• Cornell University Center for Dialogue and Pluralism Community Agreements
• Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Community Agreements
• Wa Na Wari Community Agreement

If you are a meeting facilitator and would like to understand how to implement and maintain these agreements in meetings and navigate some challenges in facilitating, please see our resources For Facilitators.