David Sudar teaching an intro to meditation workshop at Pause Meditation Studio.
Photos by: Mariana Peña Alfaro, Aran Clary, Rena Satre Meloy, Cody Onthank, David Sudar , Asher Wallis

Fulfilling a long-time vision, on July 9 the Portland-based Path of Sincerity Sangha gathered for mostly unstructured community-building time.

Then starting on Sept. 11, many community members will again gather at Cloud Mountain Retreat Center in southwest Washington. There Path of Sincerity founder and lead teacher David Sudar, will assist longtime dharma friend Vance Pryor on a five-night silent meditation retreat titled “The Unfolding of Awareness and Wisdom.”

Offering these two deeper dives represents a kind of milestone for Path of Sincerity, which began as a modest drop-in sitting group in 2018, and has slowly yet steadily expanded programming to meet practitioners’ needs.

Central to community life are the regular drop-in gatherings, the Monday evening sitting group in Portland, and a daily morning meditation on Zoom.

The morning Zoom sit has now met every day for over six years. It includes a short talk, a silent sit, and a community discussion on weekdays, with a longer silent sit on weekends.  Initially about it was a small group of around a dozen people gathered each morning, but now draws 40 to 50. 

Regular attendee Susan King said, “After practicing mindfulness meditation on my own for many years, I joined the sangha in 2022. Since then, my practice has grown exponentially. Being in the presence of others who are dedicated to their practice, and having the support of an exceptional teacher, has given me the solid ground from which I can meet life’s inevitable challenges with greater wisdom and steadiness.”

In our age of fragmentation and individualism, there is a widespread lack of true spiritual community and friendship in society.  People new to practice continually report feeling alone in their efforts, and lacking. During Sudar’s years of intensive meditation practice in Southeast Asia, as well as during his upbringing in a robust Christian community, he experienced the palpable feel of a strong sangha. He has sought to create conditions where that can arise naturally.

A guiding metaphor is that sangha is the fertile soil from which spiritual friendship grows, which the Buddha famously identified as “the whole of the path.”

Thus for Path of Sincerity nearly every gathering, both virtual and local, includes some amount of time the teacher is put out of the central focus, allowing participants to engage with peers in earnest inquiry and practice. Using various prompts, participants are invited to go below the surface, and to exchange talk about matters of spiritual significance. 

Kevin McHargue, a regular attendee since 2024, said, “I started attending the sangha at the start of what turned out to be the most difficult year of my life, and the sangha was a genuine refuge in every sense of the word. It’s a sacred, protected, peaceful space, with people in all their vulnerability and imperfection, holding each other with compassion and love.”

Over time the community has also begun hosting regular potlucks, community service days, and an online Discord forum. In addition some community members have taken the initiative to launch offshoot groups including a mindful book club, a mindful movie night, and the Recovery Dharma & Mental Health group.

Underlying both the community and the teachings, is a basic message from Sudar’s two years of monastic training with Burmese vipassanā teacher, Sayadaw U Tejaniya. This monastic emphasized that meditation isn’t just for the cushion, but for every moment of our lives.

Thus the community’s core teaching is that to be free, one doesn’t so much need to cultivate refined or rarefied meditative states, but rather to meet each moment of experience with awareness and wisdom.  Thus nothing is out of bounds for practice: joy or despair, relational harmony or conflict, deep stillness or agitated distraction. All of it can be seen as a natural process that isn’t “me” or “mine,” but is instead something to steward with great care.

This view is continued through the community’s 1-on-1 mentorship program, 10-month study cohorts, quarterly deep-dive courses, or daylong retreats. Many people have found this approach incredibly liberating, amidst contemporary householder life.

Maureen Leier, a sangha member since 2022, said, “Since practicing consistently with a sangha and teacher David, who teaches in the Sayadaw U Tejaniya style, the continuity of awareness in daily life has increased exponentially.  When all experience is viewed as nature, and worth engaging with and being curious about, life, including the hard stuff, seems naturally more vibrant, more precious, more beautiful, and more peaceful. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to engage with these teachings.”

Thus this summer’s two deep-dive offerings—the previously mentioned—“sangha retreat in the woods” and the meditation retreat at Cloud Mountain—represent the central aims of the community. These are “To offer opportunities to practice the dharma and taste the fruit of liberation, as well as to nurture the community that supports that undertaking.”

One essential aspect of nurturing this aim is the Buddha’s teachings on generosity and giving; often called dāna in Buddhist circles.  This is most evident in the community’s commitment to offering teachings and events based on the principle of mutual support, where all offerings are held without a set fee, a suggested donation, or any expectation to give.  This isn’t so much a financial position as it is about a lifestyle revolving around what the Buddha called kataññu-katavedi –gratitude and reciprocity—thus attuning to the ways we support and are supported by one another in a vast web of relationship.

This focus offers a heart angle on the basic message from Sayadaw U Tejaniya, of bringing practice into our daily life. That is, rather than see dāna as something one does exclusively to support a spiritual community or teacher, dāna becomes a way of life where we incline to service, stewardship, and compassionate action.

This is an attitude where we are willing to make the first move toward reconciliation, or to take action for what feels wise and loving, even if the outcome is uncertain or bleak. Dāna anchoring is a sense of trust that if we take care of the dharma, the dharma will take care of us.

The name “Path of Sincerity” was inspired by an offhand quote Sudar heard in 2013 from Buddhist teacher Patrick Kearney, who said that a spiritually mature person has a “sincerity of purpose yet a lightness of being.”  Rather than see dharma practice as about striving for an imagined future, the name is meant to invite people into an earnest engagement with each step of the path; humbly, patiently, and sincerely.

Ever since the sangha began in 2018, the flavor of the community has been to nurture this sincere engagement and love of the dharma, tearing down the wall between “spiritual practice” and “the rest of our lives.” The process becomes a shared journey of learning to inhabit our actual lives with awareness and wisdom—one ordinary, unfiltered moment at a time.

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