The Open Way Mindfulness Center has helped strengthen a Montana-wide digital network during the pandemic.
Photos by: Gina Garlie, Greg Grallo

Despite the difficulties of the pandemic era, the three member groups of Open Way Sangha Inc. of Montana have found ways to come closer together than ever before, by interweaving online and in-person practice.

This is important because Montana is a big state – 630 miles from east to west- and is known for its small cities, long roads and dispersed population. Sometimes the state is described as a “small town with very long streets.”

A key way sangha members have contacted one another is through walking meditation, such as this Open Sky Sangha session in Woodland Park, Kalispell, Montana.

Based in Missoula, Open Way connects small sanghas in the widely-separated cities of Missoula, Helena, Kalispell, and Bozeman, in the Plum Village tradition of Vietnamese teacher Ven. Thich Nhat Hahn.

Early in the pandemic we made the difficult decisions to offer our retreats only online, and to stop meeting in-person indoors. In Missoula we closed the Open Way Mindfulness Center.

Even though we already had some precedent of meeting remotely due to the distance between sanghas, the isolation and technology-mediated gatherings began to weigh heavily on sangha members. We explored new ways to come together safely and creatively.

A turning point came with the protests of George Floyd’s murder in May of 2020, which spurred a walking meditation for peace in Missoula, outside the mindfulness center there. This meditation, with a hand-painted Black Lives Matter sign, offered a silent show of support. It also served an additional function of bringing people together physically, breaking some of the isolation.

These walks continued through the spring of 2021, until the Mindfulness Center opened again that summer. Open Sky Sangha in Kalispell also hosted twice-weekly walking meditations in Woodland Park, from March through September.

Brother Phap Con (Br. Gem) offering a dharma talk at Open Way Mindfulness Center during the Deer Park Monastery “Happiness is the Way” Road Retreat August 2021.

Retreat coordinators expanded on this practice, inviting people in online retreats to also gather locally and engage in outdoor walking meditation. Many members shared that these group walking meditations became one of the highlights of the retreats.

Though we unanimously missed in-person residential retreats, sangha members also appreciated how online technology brought retreats into the home. Retreat coordinators created skillful schedules allowing for time away from computer screens, so participants could carry retreat energy into everyday home activities.

For this author that included mindfully preparing lunch for the kids, and doing the laundry!

The beauty was that the retreat container held the practice of mindfulness throughout these everyday activities, and the effects of the retreat seemed to resonate for much longer afterward. While it was not always easy to touch the deep stillness of a residential retreat, it was a gift to bring some elements of a residential retreat into the home.

The Interior of the Open Way Mindfulness Center in Missoula, Montana, with video for Zoom participants and zabutons socially distanced.

While these practices and activities helped our statewide sangha feel connected, we continued looking for other approaches. And so we’ve also started taking up what Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh calls “Second Body Practice,” which is taking responsibility for one other sangha member.

Order of Interbeing member Gina Garlie of Kalispell suggested this approach during a 2021 meeting of the Open Way Sangha, Inc. Care-Taking Council (governing board).

The practice is based on an instruction by the Buddha to his attendant and cousin Ananda. The Buddha said:

“If you want to take care of the Buddha, then you have to take care of your brothers. When you take care of your brothers, you are taking care of me, and when you take care of the Buddha, you are taking care of your brothers.” (“Mindfulness Bell,” Spring, 1999)

According to this approach the body we inhabit is our “first body,” and the sangha member we care for is our “second body.” In this way each member of the Care-Taking Council has a second body to look after and tend to. We hope to include the wider sangha in this practice.

Dharmacharya Chân Trú An (Greg Grallo) attending online sangha services from his Kalispell home.

The intention of the practice is to care for our second body with the same tenderness and thoughtfulness that we care for our first body. Each person is given a second body to care for, and in turn each person is a second body to a different sangha member.

In practice this has provided a means to look in on one another through messages, emails, and phone calls. Personally it has been a delight to receive a message describing a joyous event from the person for whom this author is a second body.

Developing this extra intention to care for one another across this vast state, has truly made sangha friends on each side of the Continental Divide feel like neighbors.

Prior to the pandemic we met in-person as often as possible, with our twice-yearly retreats and the Open Way Sangha, Inc. annual meeting. The sanghas in Helena and Kalispell invited the two dharma teachers in Missoula to host local retreats and days of mindfulness as well. But the travel times were often burdensome, and so we also met by phone and by video conferencing.

The exterior of Open Way Mindfulness Center in Missoula.

Open Way Sangha (the local Missoula community) was founded 32 years ago, by a small group of people who took on Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh’s call to form a sangha wherever you are.

Dharmacharya Chan Phap Luc (Rowan Conrad) has been a steady presence throughout Open Way Sangha’s beginnings. The two residential retreats each year have attracted people from all parts of Montana.

As people from other cities began to organize into regular practice groups, those groups wanted to become full-fledged sanghas and to become nested under Open Way’s non-profit status.  Flowing Mountains Sangha in Helena and Open Sky Sangha in Kalispell emerged in this way.

In 2013 the sanghas decided to shift the locus of control from Missoula to become a truly statewide sangha, with each municipality maintaining autonomy over local programming and events. Thus Open Way Sangha, Inc. was formed to help organize Open Way Sangha in Missoula, Flowing Mountains Sangha in Helena, and Open Sky Sangha in Kalispell.

We are excited that the Bozeman Thich Nhat Hanh Practice Group is exploring as well becoming a part of Open Way Sangha, Inc.