Taking Refuge or Formally

 Becoming a Buddhist


 

What Happens During the Refuge Ceremony?

The refuge ceremony begins with the establishment of an inspirational setting and goes through the following steps:

Prostrations
The student is directed to offer three prostrations to the Three Jewels, the Buddha, his teachings and those who teach it, with a feeling of inspiration and confidence, seeking refuge in them. You then sit with your right knee on the ground with hands joined together. Joined hands signify respect, your bent knee represents sincerity.

The ceremony and the repetition of the commitments
The commitments are repeated three times. Each repetition has a different purpose. Think like this as you recite after the Teacher or Lama:

1. The first recitation: requesting that refuge be given
2. The second recitation: making the intention to observe the commitments.
3. The third recitation: acknowledge taking & accept the responsibility of keeping the commitments.

So the student requests the support of the teacher in requesting & intending to keep the commitments, and acknowledges and confirms having taken/made the commitments.

The confirmation of making the commitment
The vow is confirmed by the giving of a new name and by the cutting of a lock of hair. The new name signifies a new beginning, reminds you that you have become a Buddhist, and serves as an inspiration. The cutting of the hair signifies a new life, turning away from the distractions of ordinary life, just as the Buddha did. He cut his hair, which was a mark of high rank in society, to signify his change to living the life of a religious practitioner.

The conclusion of the ceremony
The teacher instructs the student in the commitments of the vow, explains the benefits of taking the vow, and prays for the student's growth through his or her practice.


The Meaning of Refuge

Outer Refuge: Refuge as External Resources you can rely on

The Buddha: the one shows us what to do
Refuge in the Buddha means taking refuge in Buddha Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha. Without his example, we would not have this tradition of practice and teaching. He is the one who showed the way. He was a human being who, moved by the questions of suffering, death and ultimate peace, came to an understanding or knowledge beyond intellect which we now call awakening. He showed that this could be done and taught how to do it.
To take refuge in Buddha Shakyamuni means to see him as a teacher, as person who showed the way, not as a divine being, a saviour or a prophet.

Dharma: the way
The Dharma is the collection of teachings which have come down to us through the centuries: the teachings from Buddha Shakyamuni, the sutras and tantras, the commentaries composed by later masters, and all the texts, oral instructions, guidelines, and sayings. These are called the instructional Dharma.

To take refuge in the Dharma is to rely on this body of teaching for instruction and guidance in the path of awakening.

Sangha: the guides
The Sangha, traditionally speaking, are those people who have taken monastic ordination and devoted their lives to that path of waking up. Historically, they have served as models of awakened behaviour. The monastic sangha has served to transmit the teaching and practice of wakefulness faithfully from generation to generation.
Fundamentally, the Sangha consists of the people who share the same intention and are making the same journey. In the West, the term sangha is often used incorrectly to refer to a particular community of practitioners around a given teacher. There is only one Sangha, namely, all those who follow the teachings of the Buddha

The point of practice is not to create a community. The Sangha is more of a companionship. We can and do receive support and guidance from each other but we don't become dependent on others for our practice or well-being.

Inner Refuge: Refuge as Internal Understanding

Buddha is being awake
Buddha means awakened: the sleep of ignorance is cleared away and all qualities are fully developed. To take refuge in buddha means to acknowledge and accept that peace can and will be found only in your own mind, in the empty, clear awareness that is your human heritage. No external reference, be it money, power, relationship, physical well-being, or intellectual, artistic, psychic or sensory ability can bring about freedom from a disturbed mind.

Dharma is experiential understanding
The Dharma is the knowing of compassion, impermanence, non-self, emptiness, etc. in you. These are no longer theoretical concepts but qualities which you know experientially. They have become part of your make-up and interaction with the world of experience.

The instructions of the external Dharma are mere words until they become experienced understanding in you.

Sangha is making use of experience
The Sangha is making use of everything that arises in experience to cultivate, develop, and deepen your understanding of impermanence, compassion, and emptiness. To take refuge in the Sangha as an internal understanding is to let all resistance to experience drop.

Secret Refuge: Refuge as Direct Experience

Buddha is emptiness
Mind itself, buddha nature, is empty, clear, unceasing awareness. When you experience that mind is empty, devoid of intrinsic being, you are taking refuge in buddha.

Dharma is clarity
To take refuge in the Dharma is to experience the clarity of awareness itself, a clarity that doesn't come from anywhere, doesn't go anywhere, and is not located anywhere.

Sangha is unceasing experience
When you experience no separation from the constant arising and subsiding of experience, you are taking refuge in the Sangha.
 

Vajrayana Refuge: The Three Sources

In the Vajrayana tradition of Buddhism, you also take refuge in the Three Roots. Like the Three Jewels, the Three Roots operate on multiple levels.

The lama or guru: the root of energy
The guru is your actual human contact with awakened mind. The energy of the guru is inspiring, challenging, and sustaining. In his or her presence you feel directly the effect of awakened mind. That presence can and does awaken something in you, a sense of being that is different from the functioning of habituated personality. The explicit recognition of this possibility is the essence of empowerment. When it is clear in you, you have few choices but to travel the path.

Refuge in the guru means not only your own guru but the gurus of the transmission lineage since each of them plays a role in this awakening of our own potential. As your recognition of mind nature deepens, refuge in the guru also comes to mean taking refuge in mind nature, your own mind as your guru.

The yidam: the root of attainment
The yidams, meditation deities, are expressions of awakened mind. In meditation practice, you identify with the particular expression, awake compassion (Avalokiteshavara), for instance, or awake purity (Vajrasattva). By reorganizing your experience of what you are and of the world around this expression of wakefulness, the knots of habituation and confusion loosen and fall apart. In effect, you cease to be you and you become the yidam, with all its understanding, capability, and qualities. Thus, the yidam is the root of attainment, the attainment of free knowing and the ability to live awake.

The protector: the root of activity
The protectors are further expressions of awakened mind, how your experience of wakefulness arises in the world around you. As you practice, wakefulness manifests as reminders to be awake. The constant play of wakefulness creates conditions that support your practice. At the same time, it averts conditions that disrupt your efforts to wake up. The activity can be very direct and dramatic or very subtle and seemingly inconsequential. However, the more messages you miss, the more forceful the reminders. Consequently, this manifestation of awakened mind is often depicted in wrathful forms that represent the terrific power and immediacy of awakened mind when it manifests directly in your world of experience.
 

Why Take Refuge?

Refuge is based on three qualities:

1. renunciation
2. orientation
3. determination

Renunciation is the quality of being tired with the lack of meaning in life, the sense that something is missing. It may arise as a sense of not being enough of a person, a sense of being incomplete or flawed, or a sense of separation or alienation. Whatever form it takes, it has become so strong that you cannot ignore it any longer and are willing to look for other ways of being.

Orientation means that you recognize that the only viable alternative is the clarity and openness of mind itself. To take refuge in anything else will be futile. Money, beauty, power, education, etc., (the "worldly" gods of this culture) cannot provide peace or meaning. This recognition and the subsequent shift in orientation lead to your taking refuge.

Determination signifies the faith to pursue this alternative. Faith is the willingness to open to what arises in experience. You are willing to open to the dissatisfaction you are experiencing and go where it takes you. Taking refuge will, in the end, require you to let go of any aspect of your life that is based on habituated patterns.


Refuge and Buddhism

Do I have to take the refuge vow to practice Buddhism?
When you practice Buddhism, you are taking refuge. Whether you formalize your commitment in the vow ceremony is your choice. Many people find that taking the vow strengthens their motivation and practice.

What is the frame of reference for the vow?
When you take the vow of refuge, you are saying that you will continue to take refuge in the Three Jewels until you wake up, that is, until the experiential understanding of the Three Jewels arises in you. In the vow, you are also saying that you want to wake up so that you can help others become free of suffering, too.


Three Activities to Stop

Taking refuge in worldly attainments
You stop regarding anything other than the open clear awareness of our own mind as a source of ultimate security or peace: money, fame, physical well-being, a relationship, power, magical abilities, states of bliss or clarity, etc.

Harming other beings
The key idea here is intent. The essential point is that you don't harm people or beings intentionally as much as possible. Where it is clearly necessary for health, nutritional or other reasons, you do what you have to with full knowledge and full acceptance of the responsibility. Shuffling off extermination of cockroaches onto someone else in no way reduces your involvement.

Associating with non-spiritual people
The essence of this point is to recognize that in having taken refuge, your basic orientation in life has changed. You are internally committed to the cultivation of awareness or buddha nature, and thus your goals and purpose are significantly different from someone who feels that money is everything. Thus, while you may do business, have friendships, etc. with many people holding such ideas, you don't allow their perspective to influence what is at the heart of your own life.


Three Activities to Develop

Honouring of Buddha
All depictions of Buddha instantly remind us of what is truly meaningful. Thus, it is appropriate to honour and treat them with respect.

Confidence in the Dharma
Confidence in the Dharma sustains you in your practice. True confidence arises when you know the Dharma as direct experience.

Respect and support for the sangha
You honour, respect and support those who have taken monastic ordination regardless of their actual ability or character. The monastic sangha has provided Buddhism with a wonderful continuity through the centuries and will continue to play a central role in maintaining transmissions, rituals, learning and other key elements.

Secondly, you honour, respect and support those from whom you receive guidance and instruction. Many of the people we will learn from live ordinary lives externally. This ordinariness in no way decreases their value in our lives. The human teacher is the most important teacher because he or she is your contact with the teachings and path of practice.


Three General Points

Offerings and respect for the three jewels
The form this takes is a matter of personal inclination. There is definite merit in maintaing a shrine in your home. Of equal importance is to take time each day to reflect on refuge and the role of the three jewels in your life. To make actual monetary or physical offerings and to express one's respect physically as in bowing are important points; they prevent subtle and not so subtle patterns of pride and attachment from remaining fixed.

Repetition of vow on daily basis
The most important point about refuge is not to forget that you have made this commitment in the presence of a teacher. The vow serves as a reminder that you have, in fact, taken spiritual awakening as the foundation of your life.

Work with a spiritual friend and follow the way of the Dharma
These are practical steps. Every teacher has their own ideas but the key point is that refuge is part of a path rather than an enthusiastic response to an initial impulse.


Refuge Prayers

Refuge as practiced in all traditions of Buddhism

I take refuge in the Buddha.
I take refuge in the Dharma.
I take refuge in the Sangha.

Refuge as often practiced in the Tibetan tradition

I take refuge in the guru.
I take refuge in the Buddha.
I take refuge in the Dharma.
I take refuge in the Sangha.

Refuge in the Three Jewels and the Three Roots

I take refuge in all the glorious holy gurus.
I take refuge in all the yidams and the assembly of deities in their mandalas.
I take refuge in all the Buddhas, the fully awakened.
I take refuge in all the holy Dharma.
I take refuge in all the noble Sangha.
I take refuge in all who possess the eye of pristine awareness, the assembly of dakas, dakinis, protectors and guardians of the Dharma.

Refuge prayer composed by Atisha and used in all traditions of Tibetan Buddhism

Until I awaken, I take refuge in
The Buddha, Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly.
Through the goodness of generosity and other virtues
May I awaken fully in order to help all beings.

Refuge prayer from the Mahamudra tradition

I take refuge in the guru, precious buddha.
I take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
I take refuge in the guru, yidams and assemby of dakinis and protectors.
I take refuge in mind itself, empty, luminous pure being.

Refuge prayer from the Dzogchen tradition

Until I awaken, I take refuge
In the Three Jewels, and the Three Roots,
In awakening mind as paths, energy, and essences, and
In the nature of mind, essence, nature, and compassion.