Refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha – meaningful or not?
Refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha – what does it really mean to us? Or doesn’t it mean anything?
Let us begin this essay with two quotations:
“Where the mind has no resting place, there Mahamudra is present. Cultivating this attitude one gains highest Enlightenment. The treasure house of the original Mind is free from selfish passions and radiates like the unlimited sky.” (Tilopa)
Lama Govinda never stopped reminding his students about a saying of the Buddha: “The sea has only one taste, the taste of salt, and my teaching, too, has only one taste, the taste of liberation.”
Both of these quotations let us sense the magnificent vision of the Buddha during the night of his Enlightenment. This vision and the experience of Enlightenment became the starting-point of more than 40 years of the Buddha’s work trying to show to the people a path to that insight where the mind has no resting place. The Buddha’s vision points at the total liberation of the mind. This is an experience of meditation. What we call Buddhism is therefore a splendid path of inner experience of our own along the guidance from the teaching of the Buddha.
A Buddhist is someone who not only recognizes this path and the ideals connected with it, but he is also convinced the ideals are attainable. Therefore he or she opens up and is committed to that path, and he or she are prepared to overcome the hindrances blocking the realization of that path. It is this commitment that constitutes a practising Buddhist.
Traditionally this commitment is expressed in the act of Going for Refuge. Refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. (Theravâda-Buddhism calls the teaching for Dhamma, in the Mahâyâna it is called Dharma)
Buddham saranam gacchâmi - that is the age old formula for refuge. In English it is often translated as: I take my refuge to the Buddha. But are we escaping into some kind of refuge? No! The Buddha did not want us to escape from the reality of life into a lot of pseudo-occupations. He encouraged us to face the necessities of life, and that means first of all to be mindful and alert in all situations. We must face who we are. The word sarana means protection, help, roof over one’s head, but not a place to hide. To the contrary, it means just that state of being where the mind has no place where to rest.
I TAKE my refuge to the Buddha? No, we do not take anything. The word “gacchâmi” simply means “I go” (grammar: 1.person, present, indikative active of the root gam = to go). To take anything would mean we wish to hold on to something and in essence it is just that we cannot do, according to the teaching of the Buddha. To the contrary! The Buddha urges us to go to that state where the mind has no place to rest. Of course, the same is due for the next two lines in the Refuge formula:
Dhammam saranam gacchâmi (I go to the Teaching as my refuge) Sangham saranam gacchâmi (I go to the sangha as my refuge)
Well, we just do not escape to the Buddha, the Dharma or the Sangha, but we go to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha as our protector and our light on the path. We should always keep in mind the famous metaphor of the Buddha about the teaching as a raft! We need that raft in order to cross the wild river (our lives and the difficulties), but when we have reached the other shore we do not carry the raft with us any more. Then it has fulfilled it’s purpose.
Maybe it is about the time to give the word “refuge” even the meaning of commitment? We open up, which has to do with devotion, too. Refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is not something we do once and for all. It is rather a steady companion on the path, a way of growing into it by our understanding of the teaching as a result of our personal practice through ethics, meditation and studies. Out of this deepening experience grows trust, confidence. This is called saddha in Pali. It is not any blind belief but an inner urge. Only then the Three Jewels have become a true refuge, an all embracing commitment.
If somebody would ask me if it is meaningful to take refuge for somebody who has just started to explore the teaching of the Buddha, I would advise against doing such a thing. The act of going for refuge needs first some time of regularly practised meditation, because just an intellectual conviction can never be the fountain watering true commitment. The personal inner experience makes us grow, and then the experience of refuge can be expressed on various levels:
A) A genuine feeling for the teaching of the Buddha, the ideals expressed in the teaching and a strong wish to walk along this path. Mostly a strong experience of meditation is made on this level. But then a lot of things tend to get in between. The first deep experience tends to be pushed into the background by other commitments and interests. The first hot flame is burned out and there is the danger of the ideal of refuge sinking into a long deep sleep. B) Now one’s own experience springing from the practice of the teaching has become deeper. The refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha has become the central focus in one’s life. There is no way back. The Three Jewels have become bright stars at the nocturnal sky, a beacon in the dark. Daily practice including recitation and meditation have become an integrated part of one’s every day life, and it is not felt as a must. Now the practice of the Dharma is carried by a feeling of joy.
Don’t we find ourselves very often to be fully occupied by our family life, work, leisure, interests and sometimes political activities? Sometimes we visit a church, a mosque or temple for namegiving cermonies, weddings and funerals – and in essence we are quite satisfied with that kind of commitment.
But suddenly something happens shaking us in our innermost being. For the Buddha it were these four excursions we can read about in the old sutta-texts of the Pali Kanon. He was confronted with old age, sickness, death and a roaming mendicant. The 6th patriarch of Zen-Buddhism, Hui Neng, when he was selling goods on a market was shaken by listening to the recitation of the Diamond Sutra from a nearby temple. This changed his life. For myself it was the feeling of coming home when I visited Bodhgaya in India the first time 1981 after a period of strongly felt spiritual ambivalence during this first journey to India. Bodhgaya was the place where the Buddha gained Enlightenment according to legend. I stayed for a full month. Religions have the capacity of inspiring us, helping us to become more mature and develop our highest potential.
What is it now that refuge to Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha really means?
The BUDDHA is first of all the former prince and later mendicant Siddharta Gotamo, who became the Buddha Shakyamuni. He offered a teaching based upon his experience of Enlightenment. Yet this refuge also means refuge to the Buddha as the spark of Enlightenment and the realized state of Enlightenment. In the Mahâyânottaratantrashastra we can read: “Finally the refuge is the Buddha and the Buddha alone. Because the Holy One embodies the Dharmakaya, and regarding the Sangha he embodies the perfect Sangha”. Even Master Asanga hold that view: “The inexhaustible refuge, the constant refuge, the eternal refuge, the sublime refuge is one and only one. What is it? It is the Tathagata, the Arahat, the absolute perfect Buddha”.
From the viewpoint of realization in Mahâyâna and Vajrayâna the Buddha is regarded as perfect because he embodies the three kayas (bodies), that is Dharmakaya, Samboghakaya and Nirmanakaya. In this definition the Dharma is also defined as the Dharma of peace and Nirvana. The Sangha is defined here as the Bodhisattvasangha on the level of sublime realization.
The Dharma (Dhamma in Pali) is first of all the body of the teachings as philosophy, ethics and methods of meditation. From the beginning they were transmitted orally, but later they were written down and preserved first in the Pali Kanon and later in the text collections of the Mahâyâna and Vajrayâna. Dharma is also the personal experience and its realization in daily life, e.g. the realization of the Four Noble Truths in one’s own life through regular meditation and to put into practice Metta (love), Karunâ (compassion), Muditâ (sympathetic joy) and Upekkhâ (equanimity free from the limitations of the ego).
The Dharma and the Sangha as a community of practising people is nothing permanent – remember again the parable of the raft. In the “Sutra of the Great Liberation” we can read the following: “To express it in a short way the Refuge is only one, yet expressed as method it is threefold” (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha).
The Sangha originally was the congregation of monks (Bhikkhu) and nuns (Bhikkhunî) and ordained lay-people (Upasaka and Upasikâ), that means the Caturvarga, the four branches of the Arya Sangha (the congregation of the noble), as it is described by the Buddha in the text “Jewels of the Sangha” (Anguttara Nikaya, IV, 7). You find this in my collection of texts under the headline: About monks, nuns and laymen. From the viewpoint of the Mahâyâna even the Bodhisattva-Sangha belongs to the Sangha, and some contemporary teachers of Buddhism have even defined the Sangha as the community of practitioners.
In my opinion the Sangha finds its strongest expression in a group of people – be it within a monastic framework or not – who really try to walk on the Path of the Buddha, viewing their practice as a fulfilment and harmonisation of their personal development in connection with a strongly felt wish that their practice might contribute to the well-being of all sentient beings.
Our great example for the Sangha is the way of the Bodhisattvas. Beings who never rest in their efforts to show the path to liberation from hate, greed and delusion to others, and they are not afraid to risk their life in order to help other beings. Remember the Jataka-stories about the previous lives of the Buddha. Remember even great Bodhisattvas like Avalokitesvara (Tchenresig in Tibetan) and Manjusri (Jampeldjang in Tibetan). However, we should never forget there are many human beings who have vowed to walk on the Bodhisattva-path, and we should also be reminded of all of those people who selflessly help their fellow beings in various ways without being Buddhists in the strict sense. We should not be too rigid, thinking that only Buddhists can walk on the Bodhisattva-path. Let us not cling onto too doctrinal formulations of the Bodhisattva-path. But a discussion about that cannot be subject of this essay. Every day you can remind yourself about the Bodhisattva vow at the conclusion of your meditation period. It can be done in simple words of your own or in elaborate formulations of the Bodhisattva-vow.
The refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is recited daily in all traditions of Buddhism, usually before meditation. There are various formulations, long and short, in Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Japanese, Korean or Chinese and of course in Western languages. They are used according to different branches of Buddhism, but you could also alternate between them. Because these formulations often mirror different aspects of the teaching. After some time maybe there is the personal wish to recite this refuge as a concious act in front of a teacher and witnesses. You may say it is not really necessary, it is just a psychological trick. Why always these ceremonies?
“Mind is the fore-runner of all conditions. Mind is chief and they are mind-made”. This teaching we find already in the Dhammapada, one of the oldest preserved texts. In consequence the concious act of Going for Refuge creates wholesome karma. The official ceremony, by being lifted out of the frame of our daily life doings, can create an atmosphere of openness between teacher and student. Thus it becomes a path to wholeness, intellectually and emotionally. The Refuge experienced in that way becomes a protection in life, too. You give yourself in to the protection of the Buddhas and the Teaching. Of course this sounds almost like a theistic religion, but the longer I have tried to walk on the path of the Buddha, almost 30 years by now, the more I have felt this protection. Yet, one cannot discuss about this, it has to be experienced.
Maybe it could be maintained in the beginning the act of refuge might be a projection of one’s own mind on a high ideal. During growing practice however, even the refuge becomes a tool on the path. The refuge has first been created by the mind, then it is projected out of oneself upon Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and now the refuge radiates its power back to us and changes us.
If you participate in a refuge-ceremony, in essence this refuge is focused upon the Buddha as the fully Enlightened one (sammâ sambuddha), because he represents teaching and congregation it its purest form. In the Gopaka-Mogggallana-Sutta (Majjhima Nikaya III) it is expressed in the following way:
“No, brahman, there isn’t any one monk endowed in each and every way with the qualities with which the Blessed One — worthy and rightly self-awakened — was endowed. For the Blessed One was the arouser of the unarisen path, the begetter of the unbegotten path, the expounder of the unexpounded path, the knower of the path, the expert with regard to the path, adept at the path. And now his disciples follow the path and become endowed with it after him.”
Arouser/creator of the unarisen path, begetter of the unbegotten path (in other words: the source of the path without source) – in these lines can’t we already sense the way of paradox sayings as we find them in the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra? Both are texts of the Mahâyâna. When meditating about the text of the Gopaka-Moggallana-Sutta the gate to the path of the Buddha might open up to the mindful walking on the path. As I feel it, this path and the Buddha as the embodiment of Enlightenment are one and the same.
This mindful walking on the path is also the experienced refuge. Now we might really experience right/complete view (sammâ ditthi), that is the experience of the Four Noble Truths with all one’s mind and heart. Only out of this attitude an intention is born for the active walking on the path with thoughts, words and actions. Only by steadily delving more deeply into this walking with all one’s heart, this path can finally lead to Enlightenment. Expressed in traditional terms we could say that this experienced insight into the Four Noble Truths also becomes the Entering into the Stream (sotapatti), that is the overcoming of the first three fetters: personality/ego-belief, clinging to rules and rituals as means in it self and continuous doubts.
In connection with these thoughts let us read two traditional quotations (Mahâyâna):
1. From the Manjusrivikrdita-Sûtrâ: “Today I go to the Buddha, the Dharma and the supreme Sangha of the Bodhisattvas as my Refuge, because they help the faint-hearted to overcome fear and they represent a protection for the unprotected”.
2. From the Mahâparinirvâna-Sûtrâ: “Somebody who has taken Refuge to the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha) will be without anxiety”.
But can we really be protected by the Three Jewels without trying to really practise it? Many people have just taken part in a ceremony for refuge, thinking now they have also got the protection of the Buddhas. Maybe a feeling of inner security goes with it, well, can’t be wrong to have participated in the ceremony, one might think. But according to my personal opinion this would be a magical conception and it has nothing to do with mindfully going for refuge.
Therefore the act of conscious going for refuge to Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is regarded as being very important in all branches of Buddhism. If we look at the Buddhist texts it shows clearly how many famous teachers of Buddhism have pondered about the refuge.
Only three later examples will be mentioned here: the Ven. Gampopa, the founder of the Kagyud-school of Tibetan Buddhism. In his profound book “The Jewel Ornament of Liberation” (in Tibetan: thar.pa.rin.po.che’i.rgyen – short: Dagpo Tarjen) the whole eighth chapter has been dedicated to the subject of refuge in different aspects. Let us have a short look at it, some consequences of the refuge are listed here under the headline “Three specific instructions”:
1.You should pay respect to the representations of the Tathagata (the Buddha), regardless if it consists of clay or precious metals. They represent the real and very precious Buddha”.
2. “You should pay respect to the collected texts of the (Buddhist) scriptures, because they represent the precious Dharma”. This means for example not to put Dharma-texts on the floor or to step at them. They should be kept in a high and clean place.
3. “You should pay respect to the Buddhist robes, because they represent the precious Sangha”. (from Gems of Dharma, Jewels of Freedom, page 111)
The late Ven. Chögyam Trungpa, a modern meditationmaster of Tibetan Buddhism, puts much effort on the refuge. In one of his essays on the subject he writes: “In the Buddhist tradition the refuge is about waking up from blindness and to dedicate oneself to wakefulness. The refuge is about commitment, but it is also about openness and freedom. By the act of refuge we make a commitment to freedom. We have a tendency to allow ourselves a lot of fascinating things and self-deceptions, but nothing really touches us deep within. All of our experiences in life, regardless if it is about spirituality or something else, in essence they are only some scratches on the surface. They are seen by us as non-committal. By going for refuge we stop roaming around the spiritual supermarket. We make a vow to keep to one road for the rest of our lives. Going for refuge means to create a connection with the Buddhist Path. It is not only the most simple thing but also a practical solution. From now on we walk on this defined path shown to us by the Buddha and the teachers following in his footsteps. We have now got a strategy and a tradition to hold on. A path for development. Now we can let go of running after different paths. (quotation from Chögyam Trungpa: Das Herz des Buddha, page 95-96. English title: The Heart of the Buddha /Shambala Publ.)
Lama Shenpen Hookham from Oxford also emphasizes the importance of Going for Refuge. In her book “there’s more to dying than death” (page 3) (look at books/böcker) she writes the following: “For Buddhists, the fact that there is the goal of Awakening to Nirvâna, the path of Dharma, by which to reach it, and the Sangha who show us that path, ensures there is always hope and meaning in both life and death. Buddhists regard these as their sure and abiding source of protection, whom they place their reliance on by ‘going for Refuge’ to them. Thus Going for Refuge, the most fundamental and widespread practice of the Buddhist tradition, has freedom from death as its ultimate hope.”
You may agree with it or not, but all of these quotations I have mentioned in this article simply show how much emphasis was laid on the conscious act of going for refuge. That is still the case today. If we really manage to open up ourselves completely during the refuge ceremony, then we may get a short experience of the taste of liberation, a state where the mind has no resting place.
I personally feel the refuge is also the key opening the gate into the garden of first enthusiasm about the teaching of the Buddha. Out of the garden the path then is leading us, the path that has to be walked upon. It leads through deserts and oases, passing cold mountain tops and fertile valleys back into the garden of enthusiasm, which at that point might have become the garden of Enlightenment. And now we realize we have not really moved away from it – and yet – first now we truly are on our path “for the happiness of many beings, for the well-being of many beings, because of compassion for the world”. Sarvamangalam!
