Going for Refuge

by Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo

If we think of the Buddhist path as a temple, then in order to gain entry we have to go through the front portal. This front door is the commitment of taking Refuge. To take Refuge means we are fleeing from something. What are we escaping from? Nowadays, the world is full of refugees. Refugees are seeking refuge. They are fleeing from wars, enemies, and natural disasters that have occurred in their countries; they are escaping to some place which they hope will give safety and protection. So in Buddhism, we are all refugees. We are seeking to escape, if we have any sense, from the problems, conflicts and difficulties of this round of birth and death. In particular we are fleeing from conflicts which are created by our untamed, undisciplined minds, by the poisons of our delusion, greed, ill-will, pride and jealousy which cause so much disturbance to ourselves and to others. We are in flight from the problems of not getting what we want and getting what we don’t want – old age, sickness, death. There are so many problems in this world.

Where can we find a refuge? We can find refuge only in ultimate truth. That’s the only really firm ground. Nothing relative can ever be a true refuge. In the Buddhist tradition, we regard as a refuge the Buddha, his Teachings and the Community of those who have realised those teachings. Why? The Buddha was a prince 2500 years ago in Northern India, who had everything he wanted. He had three palaces for the three seasons of the year, he had doting parents, a beautiful wife, and he even had a son. He had everything. But during outings when he left the palace, he beheld the spectacle of a sick man, and a very old man and finally, a corpse. This was a great revelation for him, because these things had been hidden from him during his life of indulgence. Maybe they were not physically hidden from him, but he had not really thought about these things.

While we are young, we usually don’t think of sickness, old age and death. These happen to those old fogies elsewhere. We don’t think that these things are inevitably going to happen to us. There is sickness. Not just old people get terrible diseases; many young people also become very ill. And even if we avoid dying young, and avoid being sick, or if we are ill but we still keep on living, then we are going to get old and decrepit.

The Buddha said that the one thing certain about life is death. That is true — it doesn’t matter how old or how young we are. I’m sure all of us have friends who were very young and who were in a car accident or in some other kind of accident or suddenly had some fatal disease, and died very young. Who would have expected them to die? But we don’t know. Today we are here and tomorrow we’re gone. We can’t think “I’m going to live for three score years and ten and then I’ll die.” Who knows when we are going to die? Nobody knows. Just because we are young and healthy today doesn’t mean we are not going to be dead tomorrow. We don’t know; none of us knows.

The Buddha saw all this, and he saw how much suffering there was in the world because people want things but don’t get what they want; instead, they often get what they don’t want. And so, they are miserable. And he thought “what is the cause of this?” So he went away — he left his palace, he left his family, he left everything — and wandered out as a beggar, as a holy man in India. He went to look for the truth of the causes of suffering and how to overcome them.

After six years of various kinds of practice, he experienced a total awakening of his mind under the Bodhi tree in Bihar, in Northern India. His mind completely opened up and went back through aeons and aeons of time. What happened was that he realised his human potential — a potential that we all possess but which is normally closed to us. It wasn’t that he was a God; it was just that as a human being, his mind reached its potential. It is said that we use something like 8% of our brain. What is the other 92% doing? Maybe it’s keeping all these records. There is an account in the Sutras which says that once the Buddha was in the jungle where he picked up a handful of leaves and asked his disciples: “Which is more, the leaves in the jungle or the leaves in my hand?” And of course they said, “The leaves in your hand are so few. The leaves in the jungle are infinite”. And the Buddha said, “Well that is like how much I know compared to how much I’m actually telling you. What I’m teaching you is like the leaves in my hand, what I’ve realised is like the leaves in the forest.” But he added “What I’m telling you is enough for you to become liberated. That’s all you need to know.” So, someone like that with a totally liberated and omniscient mind is worthy of Refuge, because he set out the path very clearly.

The second reason is that the word Buddha, which means “to be awake”, is the culmination of ultimate wisdom, compassion and purity. We go for refuge to that. We go for refuge to our own inner potential for Buddhahood. We all possess what is called Buddha Nature. That means we all possess within ourselves the fullness of wisdom, compassion and purity. But it’s covered over. Yet it is this which connects us with all beings — not just human beings, but animals, insects and everything sentient. Anything which has consciousness has this potential. It might take a long time to uncover it, or it might happen in a moment, but we have it there. So, we also go for refuge to that within ourselves — our own innate true nature.

When we go for refuge to the Dharma, first of all we go for refuge to the teachings of the Buddha. After the Buddha’s enlightenment, he went around North-West India for 45 years talking to many different sorts of people — the rich and the poor, lay people and monks, males, females, the young and old — and much of this instruction was recorded. In the Tibetan canon, there are 108 volumes of the Buddha’s teachings. But we also go for refuge to the Dharma in the sense of ultimate reality — of that which really is when the clouds of our confusion and our delusion part, and we see truth face-to-face: That ultimate reality is out there and in ourselves also. That is the true Dharma, the universal law.

We go for refuge to the Sangha because the Sangha are those who have realised the path — who have had genuine experiences and realisations of the unconditioned nature of their minds. It’s as if we are all sick — we are all so very sick with the 5 poisons of delusion, greed, ill-will, pride and envy. The Buddha is like a physician who says, “You’re sick but you can be cured” and then he prescribes the medicine. The medicine is the Dharma. And just as with ordinary medicine, it is no good just reading the label or knowing the ingredients: we have to take the medicine; we have to follow the cure. There is a cure. We can be healed. And those who help us and look after us are the Sangha. They are like nurses — they take care of us, they help us to take the medicine in the right doses and they look after us until we are completely healed. When we are healed we can then take their place and help others.

The ceremony of taking of Refuge came from the time of the Buddha himself. When the Buddha was wandering around in Northern India he met so many people seeking his advice. At the end of many of these discourses, the questioner states, “From now until life’s end, I take Refuge in the Buddha, in the Dharma, in the Sangha.” It is a very ancient tradition in all Buddhist countries. It is the commitment to put the spiritual path in the centre of our life instead of placing it just at the periphery. It’s a commitment which says, “From now on, I will transform my life into something meaningful”. Therefore, taking refuge is the beginning of the Buddhist path.