Sangha · Pāli: saṅgha; Skt: saṃgha

The word saṅgha carries two senses, and the tradition keeps them apart. Access to Insight’s glossary puts it plainly: “on the conventional (sammuti) level, this term denotes the communities of Buddhist monks and nuns; on the ideal (ariya) level, it denotes those followers of the Buddha, lay or ordained, who have attained at least stream-entry”. Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu draws the same line in his introduction to the refuges: the ideal saṅgha “consists of all people, lay or ordained, who have practiced the Dhamma to the point of gaining at least a glimpse of the Deathless”, while “in a conventional sense, Sangha denotes the communities of ordained monks and nuns”. The two overlap without coinciding: “Only those who are ordained are members of the conventional Sangha; only those who have glimpsed the Deathless are members of the ideal Sangha.”

The classic recollection describes this noble saṅgha as “the four types [of noble disciples] when taken as pairs, the eight when taken as individual types”, who are “worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality, worthy of offerings, worthy of respect, the incomparable field of merit for the world” (AN 11.12, trans. Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu). It is this saṅgha that stands as the third of the three refuges, alongside the Buddha and the Dhamma.

Lay followers in neither group are not outsiders to the community. As Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu writes, “all those who take refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha become members of the Buddha’s four-fold assembly (parisa) of followers: monks, nuns, male lay devotees, and female lay devotees”. For the community in practice, see our guide to the Sangha.