Refuge and the Three Jewels

 

Approximate script, with some variations and possible errors, of the podcast at podbean

Refuge and Bodhicitta – and one simple tune.

Hello dear listeners, and welcome indeed to another episode of the Double Dorje podcast.

There can’t really be any doubt that saying that taking refuge is the gateway to Buddhism is a good metaphor. It’s not perhaps quite so cogent, but does nevertheless probably makes sense, to say that having come into the entrance hall, adopting the bodhisattvas’ vow and training to develop bodhicitta is the grand staircase leading up to the great rooms above. And although, as I keep saying, I’m not trying to give you a course in Buddhism, having just looked at the four revolting thoughts in the last episode, it does follow very naturally to look at the next step – taking refuge.

In a moment, we’ll look at that, but first the quick “call to action” as it’s known. Do, please, take a moment on whatever channel you are listening, to like this episode, subscribe to this podcast, share it with your friends or on social media, or indeed whatever else might be appropriate on your channel. It really does help. Thank you!

So, to the subject of taking refuge. It is the moment where you take up the practice of Buddhism, and most importantly the orientation towards that practice. As seems to happen rather often, I feel that before talking about what taking refuge actually is, it would be good to dispel one or two misconceptions.

In that sense, let’s start with the question of who it is that gives refuge, or the refuge vows? In some traditions there are strict rules about this, but in others it can be anybody who you can trust to be a representative of Buddhism. This is one of the most important steps you ever make, so it would clearly be ridiculous to take your refuge vows with the aid of someone you did not like or respect just because they “technically” satisfied the rules. But it is a mistake to think that this process turns the person administering the vows into “your teacher”, “your Lama” or anything of that sort. Most of all, if Lama XYZ administers the refuge vows to you, it does not mean that you have taken refuge in Lama XYZ.

This is unlike the situation with empowerments. An empowerment should create a deep, personal connection between the student or students and the guru or Lama. Anyway, that’s the case in theory, although nowadays some empowerments seem to be scattered around like confetti, and even given “virtually” as online empowerments. Who am I to say that that doesn’t work? After all, there are, it seems, people who are totally happy with cybersex, or digital pornography, yet I think most people would recognise that the real thing is in another league. But that’s an aside. Taking refuge, however, is not meant to establish a specific connection with the person who administers the vows, but who really only facilitates the student in taking the vows, and the connection is with the whole bang shoot – the three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha. In real situations, of course, the student may indeed have a strong personal connection to the person administering the vows, it’s just that that’s not essential, and the vows you take is are made to the Buddha and bodhisattvas, not to a specific teacher or even lineage.

This is what formally makes you a Buddhist. Now you will, unsurprisingly, find some people taking what quite honestly is a juvenile attitude to this, saying things like, “why should I identify as anything”, or “I don’t want to be confined by labels”, or “saying that I am a Buddhist solidifies my ego”, or other such barren, trivial objections. To these objections, I say come on, bite the bullet have the guts to accept the label – actually the honour, the privilege, and the duSure.or would you rather be a neither-here-nor-there type person?

Did I say vow? Sure. Pride of place does not go to the question of whether you believe or disbelieve something. It goes to a deep-seated motivation to do something about the mess we are in, and the promise to act in ways that will take us in that direction. For details, take a look at “Dudjom Rinpoche’s “Perfect Conduct – Ascertaining the Three Vows”. You might know that I typically include a list of technical and other terms that you might like to look up in the description of the podcast, so you can check the title of that book there if you want to find it, though I will warn you that the average reader might find the description of the various vows found in the Buddhist tradition to be excruciatingly detailed. Perhaps a little more accessible would be the descriptions given in the Jewel Ornament of Liberation to which I referred in the previous episode, or to the Words of My Perfect Teacher, a famous Nyingma text on this and related subjects. All of those sources will cover these things more deeply and with more authority than I can, so I limit myself to providing a tasting plate.

First, of course, taking refuge in the Buddha. What does that mean? On the one hand, the Buddha may simply mean the historical Buddha who lived two and a half thousand years ago, but is perhaps more often understood in a broader sense as the three kayas or three bodies of the Buddha. But saying anything about the three kayas would definitely cause this episode to burst its banks. In particular, taking refuge in the Buddha means that we shall not to take refuge in other gods. Traditionally, most Buddhists would take the existence of some kind of gods, with perhaps some power to help or hinder us, living on some other plane, for granted. The point is not necessarily to ignore them, but to recognise that they cannot give us shelter from the shit-storm of samsara, of the cycle of suffering.

It is precisely around this point that one of the questions most asked about Buddhism hinges. That is the question of “Is Buddhism a religion?” I can now give you the true, honest, considered, fair and correct answer to that question, the answer that will allow you to stop worrying about this for the rest of your life, namely “yes and no”. Go to any traditional temple, listen to the chants, enjoy the offerings of lights, flowers, incense and so forth, and you will have no doubt that Buddhism is a religion. But it does not include a creator God, with the power to save us, to damn us to eternal suffering in hell, or just to torture us for a while in Purgatory. So when the Buddhist teachings advise us not to put other gods above the Buddha, this is absolutely not in the sense of the claim that the Buddha is the best God, better than your God, or any other God for that matter. No. It is in the sense that Buddhism is just not playing that game.

There is something else that follows from this understanding. In some circles the idea of being a Buddhist Christian or Buddhist Jew is promoted. Well full marks for openness and generosity of spirit, but not many marks for clarity. Christianity, if I may make so bold, is founded on the redemption of sinful humanity through Christ’s sacrifice of his life, so acting as a proxy for us so that God will not send us to burn in hell, or even just to oblivion. Buddhism rejects the idea that such a god exists, and rejects the idea that someone else can save us. The two lines of thought are quite incompatible, and in my view (feel free to differ) is effectively an insult to both the Christians and the Buddhists. A quick look at that movement (no, I’m not an expert in it) suggests that a few exercises, thought of as Buddhist, such as mindfulness and watching the breath, have been extracted and included in a prayerful Christian life. Great! It may very well be helpful. But what it shows is that those practices, popular as they may be in Buddhist circles, are not definitively Buddhist. It is not in any sense “combining” Buddhism and Christianity. The two are not playing the same game.

The second of the three Jewels is the Dharma. Scholars will tell us that Dharma is a very tricky word, with a large number of different, context-dependent meanings. In the Buddhist context, two are important, and one of those is in fact quite slippery, being, at the risk of being shot down by scholars, something like a “true thing”, as in statements such as “all dharmas are empty of true existence”. Luckily, that’s not the meaning in use here, so we can put that aspect back in the cupboard. Here, the meaning is very much that of the Buddha’s teaching. In its simplest sense, that is the words of the sutras and other such literature. In fact, in visualisations and pictures, the Dharma may well be represented by a stack of books. Again, it also has a deeper but closely related sense, which is the deep peace experienced through having realised the meaning of the teachings. And for a vow related to this jewel? Not harming. Simple, short, but huge.

The third refuge jewel is the Sangha. If you are now surprised to hear that this word has different meanings at different levels, then I obviously haven’t been engaging enough, so I’m sorry if you have fallen asleep. Most basically, the Sangha is the community of Buddhists, particularly referring to 5 or more fully ordained monks or, more broadly, of the “bodhisattvas living on a high level”, which includes popular figures such as the compassionate Chenrezi, the lovely saviouress Tara, and others.

And what about a specific bit of a vow connected with this? Not to associate with non-Buddhist extremists. Exactly what is meant here can be a bit tricky to unravel, but in our hearts most of us know that we can be hugely influenced by other people. Indeed, making an effort to associate with other people who are working in the same direction is, in a sense, part of what taking refuge in the Sangha is about. If, most particularly, we are starting out on the Buddhist path in a non-Buddhist environment such as a typical modern environment, our choice of friends can help or hinder progress hugely.

If you understood all the above, then you can in fact take refuge yourself. It IS valid. But taking it formally is more usual. The officiating teacher may well take cut a small piece of hair from your head as a sign that you are cutting the root of the cycle of suffering. You may very well be given a new name. Some people then use that name in everyday life, but others find that somewhat pretentious, and prefer to keep their new name in their heart. The ceremony can be very moving. Picture the end of a week of Buddhist teachings, where some of the newcomers ask in the course of the last session, whether they can formally take refuge. Those of us who have been around for longer may well find it very touching as we watch them going up one by one, having the bit of hair cut and being given the slip of paper with their new name, as we wish a good journey to our new fellow travellers.

This kind of formal refuge is sometimes made a prerequisite for other teachings, but in many cases it is just assumed when, for example, the Chenrezi empowerment is given, that the recipients will have taken refuge, or at least they will recite a refuge formula early on in the ceremony. Nevertheless, taking refuge formally and properly with a teacher for whom you have real respect is a magic moment.

Taking the bodhisattva vow really is a second step. When done through a formal ceremony, it may happen quite some time after the refuge ceremony, on a separate occasion altogether.

There is a huge amount of teaching surrounding bodhicitta, in its relative and absolute versions and so on. The gist of it is not simply to escape from the cycle of suffering for ourselves, but taking the bodhisattvas vow means that we will wait and suffer and work until all beings are liberated. That’s a pretty mighty vow! One very popular text that deals with this is the Bodhicaryāvatāra, of which it is not hard to find translations. I recall seeing Dalai lama, when he was teaching in France in the early naughties, actually in tears as he taught from this text. Having taken this vow, one is a bodhisattva, at least in training.

Although these two – refuge and the bodhisattva vow – are separate things, and formally taking up these trainings can be separated by significant time, in liturgical practice they are often – very often, in fact – put together as a pair. Here is what, at a guess, might be the most popular verse for doing this. (I will put this in the description). First, a translation:

Until enlightenment I go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma and the supreme assembly.
By my practice of giving and other perfections,
May I attain Enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings.

So you see the reference to both vows quite clearly.

And this is how you are likely to hear it at a Tibetan Buddhist centre. With any luck it will be sung more beautifully than what I’m about to do!

Sang gya cho dang tshog kyi chog nam la
Jang chub bar du dag ni kyab su chi
Dag gi jin sog gyi pai so nam gyi
Dro la pan chir sang gye drub par shog

I’ll put a phonetic version in the description.

So that’s it for today. Just a quick reminder to like share or subscribe – and whatever promise you have made – do keep it!

Words or phrases you might want to look up:

●      Refuge (Buddhist)

●      Dharma

●      Sangha

●      Three Jewels

●      Bodhisattva

●      Bodhicitta

●      Perfect Conduct – Ascertaining the Three Vows (by Dudjom Rinpoche)

●      Jewel Ornament of Liberation

●      Words of My Perfect Teacher

●      Three kayas

●      Sutras

●      Bodhicaryāvatāra

 

And the verse:

Sang gya cho dang tshog kyi chog nam la
Jang chub bar du dag ni kyab su chi
Dag gi jin sog gyi pai so nam gyi
Dro la pan chir sang gye drub par shog

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