Now is the Knowing!
When
people ask, ‘What do you have to do to become a Buddhist?’, we say that we take
refuge in Buddha Dhamma Sangha. And to take refuge we recite a formula in the
Pali language:
Buddham saranam gacchami
I go to the Buddha for refuge
Dhammam saranam gacchami
I go to the Dhamma for refuge
Sangham saranam gacchami
I go to the Sangha for refuge.
As
we practise more and more and begin to realize the profundity of the Buddhist
Teachings, it becomes a real joy to take these refuges, and even just their
recitation inspires the mind. After twenty-two years as a monk, I still like to
chant ‘Buddham saranam gacchami’ — in fact I like it more than I did
twenty-one years ago — because then it didn’t really mean anything to me, I
just chanted it because I had to, because it was part of the tradition. Merely
taking refuge verbally in the Buddha doesn’t mean you take refuge in anything:
a parrot could be trained to say ‘Buddham saranam gacchami’, and it would probably be as
meaningful to a parrot as it is to many Buddhists. These words are for
reflection, looking at them and actually investigating what they mean: what
‘refuge’ means, what ‘Buddha’ means. When we say, ‘I take refuge in the
Buddha,’ what do we mean by that? How can we use that so it is not just a
repetition of nonsense syllables, but something that really helps to remind us,
gives us direction and increases our devotion, our dedication to the path of
the Buddha?
The
word ‘Buddha’ is a lovely word — it means ‘The one who knows’— and the first
refuge is in Buddha as the personification of wisdom. Un-personified wisdom
remains too abstract for us: we can’t conceive a bodiless, soul-less wisdom,
and so as wisdom always seems to have a personal quality to it, using Buddha as
its symbol is very useful.
We
can use the word Buddha to refer to Gotama, the founder of what is now known as
Buddhism, the historical sage who attained Parinibbana in India 2,500 years ago, the teacher
of the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, teachings from which we still
benefit today. But when we take refuge in the Buddha, it doesn’t mean that we
take refuge in some historical prophet, but in that which is wise in the
universe, in our minds, that which is not separate from us but is more real
than anything we can conceive with the mind or experience through the senses.
Without any Buddha-wisdom in the universe, life for any length of time would be
totally impossible; it is the Buddha-wisdom that protects. We call it
Buddha-wisdom, other people can call it other things if they want, these are
just words. We happen to use the words of our tradition. We’re not going to
argue about Pali words, Sanskrit words, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English or any
other, we’re just using the term Buddha-wisdom as a conventional symbol to help
remind us to be wise, to be alert, to be awake.
Many
forest bhikkhus in the North-East of Thailand use the word ‘Buddho’ as their
meditation object. They use it as a kind of koan.
Firstly, they calm the mind by following the inhalations and exhalations using
the syllables BUD-DHO, and then begin to contemplate, ‘What is Buddho, the ‘one
who knows’?’ ‘What is the knowing?’
When
I used to travel around the North-East of Thailand on tudong I liked to go and stay at the
monastery of Ajahn Fun. Ajahn Fun was a much-loved and deeply respected monk,
the teacher of the Royal Family, and he was so popular that he was constantly
receiving guests. I would sit at his kuti [hut] and hear him give the most
amazing kind of Dhamma talks, all on the subject of ‘Buddho’— as far as I could
see, it was all that he taught. He could make it into a really profound
meditation, whether for an illiterate farmer or an elegant, western-educated
Thai aristocrat. The main part of his teaching was to not just mechanically
repeat ‘Buddho’, but to reflect and investigate, to awaken the mind to really
look into the ‘Buddho’, ‘the one who knows’ really investigate its beginning,
its end, above and below, so that one’s whole attention was stuck onto it. When
one did that, ‘Buddho’ became something that echoed through the mind. One would
investigate it, look at it, examine it before it was said and after it was said,
and eventually one would start listening to it and hear beyond the sound, until
one heard the silence.
A
refuge is a place of safety, and so when superstitious people would come to my
teacher Ajahn Chah, wanting charmed medallions or little talismans to protect
them from bullets and knives, ghosts and so on, he would say, ‘Why do you want
things like that? The only real protection is taking refuge in the Buddha.
Taking refuge in the Buddha is enough.’ But their faith in Buddha usually
wasn’t quite as much as their faith in those silly little medallions. They
wanted something made out of bronze and clay, stamped and blessed. This is what
is called taking refuge in bronze and clay, taking refuge in superstition,
taking refuge in that which is truly unsafe and cannot really help us.
Today
in modern Britain we find that generally people are more sophisticated. They
don’t take refuge in magic charms, they take refuge in things like the
Westminster Bank — but that is still taking refuge in something that offers no safety.
Taking refuge in the Buddha, in wisdom, means that we have a place of safety.
When there is wisdom, when we act wisely and live wisely, we are truly safe.
The conditions around us might change. We can’t guarantee what will happen to
the material standard of living, or that the Westminster Bank will survive the
decade. The future remains unknown and mysterious, but in the present, by
taking refuge in the Buddha we have that presence of mind now to reflect on and
learn from life as we live it.
Wisdom
doesn’t mean having a lot of knowledge about the world; we don’t have to go to
university and collect information about the world to be wise. Wisdom means
knowing the nature of conditions as we’re experiencing them. It is not just
being caught up in reacting to and absorbing into the conditions of our bodies
and minds out of habit, out of fear, worry, doubt, greed and so on, but it is
using that ‘Buddho’, that ‘one who knows,’ to observe that these conditions are
changing. It is the knowing of that change that we call Buddha and in which we
take refuge. We make no claims to Buddha as being ‘me’ or ‘mine’. We don’t say,
‘I am Buddha,’ but rather, ‘I take refuge in Buddha.’ It is a way of humbly
submitting to that wisdom, being aware, being awake.
Although
in one sense taking refuge is something we are doing all the time, the Pali
formula we use is a reminder — because we forget, because we habitually take
refuge in worry, doubt, fear, anger, greed and so on. The Buddha-image is
similar; when we bow to it we don’t imagine that it is anything other than a
bronze image, a symbol. It is a reflection and makes us a little more aware of
Buddha, of our refuge in Buddha Dhamma Sangha. The Buddha image sits in great
dignity and calm, not in a trance but fully alert, with a look of wakefulness
and kindness, not being caught in the changing conditions around it. Though the
image is made of brass and we have these flesh-and-blood bodies and it is much
more difficult for us, still it is a reminder. Some people get very puritanical
about Buddha-images, but here in the West I haven’t found them to be a danger.
The real idols that we believe in and worship and that constantly delude us are
our thoughts, views and opinions, our loves and hates, our self-conceit and pride.
The
second refuge is in the Dhamma, in ultimate truth or ultimate reality. Dhamma
is impersonal; we don’t in any way try to personify it to make it any kind of
personal deity. When we chant in Pali the verse on Dhamma, we say it is ‘sanditthiko
akaliko ehipassiko opanayiko paccattam veditabbo vinnuhi’. As Dhamma has no personal attributes,
we can’t even say it is good or bad or anything that has any superlative or
comparative quality; it is beyond the dualistic conceptions of mind.
So
when we describe Dhamma or give an impression of it, we do it through words
such as ‘sanditthiko’, which
means immanent, here-and-now. That brings us back into the present; we feel a
sense of immediacy, of now. You may think that Dhamma is some kind of thing
that is ‘out there’, something you have to find elsewhere, butsanditthikodhamma means that it is immanent,
here-and-now.
Akalikadhamma means
that Dhamma is not bound by any time condition. The word akala means timeless. Our conceptual
mind can’t conceive of anything that is timeless, because our conceptions and
perceptions are time-based conditions, but what we can say is that Dhamma is akala, not bound by time.
Ehipassikadhamma means to
come and see, to turn towards or go to the Dhamma. It means to look, to be
aware. It is not that we pray to the Dhamma to come, or wait for it to tap us
on the shoulder; we have to put forth effort. It is like Christ’s saying,
‘Knock on the door and it shall be opened.’ Ehipassiko means that we have to put forward
that effort, to turn towards that truth.
Opanayiko means
leading inwards, towards the peace within the mind. Dhamma doesn’t take us into
fascination, into excitement, romance and adventure, but leads toNibbana, to calm, to silence.
Paccattam veditabbo vinnuhi means
that we can only know Dhamma through direct experience. It is like the taste of
honey — if someone else tastes it, we still don’t know its flavour. We may know
the chemical formula or be able to recite all the great poetry ever written
about honey, but only when we taste it for ourselves do we really know what it
is like. It is the same with Dhamma: we have to taste it, we have to know it
directly.
Taking
refuge in Dhamma is taking another safe refuge. It is not taking refuge in
philosophy or intellectual concepts, in theories, in ideas, in doctrines or
beliefs of any sort. It is not taking refuge in a belief in Dhamma, or a belief
in God or in some kind of force in outer space or something beyond or something
separate, something that we have to find sometime later. The descriptions of
the Dhamma keep us in the present, in the here-and-now, unbound by time. Taking
refuge is an immediate immanent reflection in the mind, it is not just
repeating ‘Dhammam Saranam gacchami’ like
a parrot, thinking, ‘Buddhists say this so I have to say it.’ We turn towards
the Dhamma, we are aware now, take refuge in Dhamma, now as an immediate
action, an immediate reflection of being the Dhamma, being that very truth.
Because
our conceiving mind tends always to delude us, it takes us into becoming. We
think, ‘I’ll practise meditation so that I’ll become enlightened in the future. I will
take the Three Refuges in order to become a Buddhist. I want to become wise. I want to get away from
suffering and ignorance and become something else.’ This is the
conceiving mind, the desire mind, the mind that always deludes us. Rather than
constantly thinking in terms of becoming something, we take refuge in being
Dhamma in the present.
The
impersonality of Dhamma bothers many people, because devotional religion tends
to personify everything and people coming from such traditions don’t feel right
if they can’t have some sort of personal relationship with it. I remember one
time, a French Catholic missionary came to stay in our monastery and practise
meditation. He felt at something of a loss with Buddhism because he said it was
like ‘cold surgery’, there was no personal relationship with God. One cannot
have a personal relationship with Dhamma, one cannot say ‘Love the Dhamma!’ or
‘The Dhamma loves me!’; there is no need for that. We only need a personal
relationship with something we are not, like our mother, father, husband or
wife, something separate from us.
We
don’t need to take refuge in mother or father again, someone to protect us and
love us and say, ‘I love you no matter what you do. Everything is going to be
all right,’ and pat us on the head. The Buddha-Dhamma is a very maturing
refuge, it is a religious practice that is a complete sanity or maturity, in
which we are no longer seeking a mother or father, because we don’t need to
become any’ thing any more. We don’t need to be loved or protected by anyone
any more, because we can love and protect others, and that is all that is
important. We no longer have to ask or demand things from others, whether it is
from other people or even some deity or force that we feel is separate from us
and has to be prayed to and asked for guidance.
We
give up all our attempts to conceive Dhamma as being this or that or anything
at all, and let go of our desire to have a personal relationship with the
truth. We have to be that truth, here and now. Being that truth, taking that
refuge, calls for an immediate awakening, for being wise now, being Buddha,
being Dhamma in the present.
The
Third refuge is Sangha, which means a group. ‘Sangha’ may be the Bhikkhu-Sangha [the order of monks] — or the Ariya-Sangha, the group of the
Noble Beings, all those who live virtuously, doing good and refraining from
evil with bodily action and speech. Here, taking refuge in the Sangha with ‘Sangham
saranam gacchami’ means we take refuge in virtue, in that which is good,
virtuous, kind, compassionate and generous. We don’t take refuge in those
things in our minds that are mean, nasty, cruel, selfish, jealous, hateful,
angry — even though admittedly that is what we often tend to do out of
heedlessness, out of not reflecting, not being awake, but just reacting to
conditions. Taking refuge in the Sangha means, on the conventional level, doing
good and refraining from evil with bodily action and speech.
All
of us have both good thoughts and intentions and bad ones. Sankharas [conditioned phenomena] are that way,
some are good and some aren’t, some are indifferent, some are wonderful and
some are nasty. Conditions in the world are changing conditions. We can’t just
think the best, the most refined thoughts and feel only the best and the
kindest feelings; both good and bad thoughts and feelings come and go, but we
take refuge in virtue rather than in hatred. We take refuge in that in all of
us that intends to do good, which is compassionate and kind and loving towards
ourselves and others.
So
the refuge of Sangha is a very practical refuge for day-to-day living within
the human form, within this body, in relation to the bodies of other beings and
the physical world that we live in. When we take this refuge we do not act in
any way that causes division, disharmony, cruelty, meanness or unkindness to
any living being, including ourself, our own body and mind. This is being ‘supatipanno’, one who practises well.
When
we are aware and mindful, when we reflect and observe, we begin to see that
acting on impulses that are cruel and selfish only brings harm and misery to
ourself as well as to others. It doesn’t take any great powers of observation
to see that. If you’ve met
any criminals in your life, people who have acted selfishly and evilly, you’ll
find them constantly frightened, obsessed, paranoid, suspicious, having to
drink a lot, take drugs, keep busy, do all kinds of things, because living with
themselves is so horrible. Five minutes alone with themselves without any dope
or drink or anything would seem to them like eternal hell, because the kammic result of evil is so appalling,
mentally. Even if they’re never caught by the police or sent to prison, don’t
think they’re going to get away with anything. In fact sometimes that is the
kindest thing, to put them in prison and punish them; it makes them feel
better. I was never a criminal, but I have managed to tell a few lies and do a
few mean and nasty things in my lifetime, and the results were always
unpleasant. Even today when I think of those things, it is not a pleasant
memory, it is not something that I want to go to announce to everybody, not
something that I feel joy when I think about.
When
we are meditating we realize that we have to be completely responsible for how
we live. In no way can we blame anyone else for anything at all. Before I
started to meditate I used to blame people and society: ‘If only my parents had
been completely wise, enlightened arahants, I would be all right. If only the
United Sates of America had a truly wise, compassionate government that never
made any mistakes, supported me completely and appreciated me fully. If only my
friends were wise and encouraging and the teachers truly wise, generous and
kind. If everyone around me was perfect, if the society was perfect, if the
world was wise and perfect, then I wouldn’t have any of these problems. But all
have failed me.’
My
parents had a few flaws and they did mak e a few mistakes, but now when I look
back on it they didn’t make very many. At the time when I was look-ing to blame
others and I was desperately trying to think of the faults of my parents, I
really had to work at it. My generation was very good at blaming everything on
the United States, and that is a really easy one because the United States
makes a lot of mistakes.
But
when we meditate it means we can no longer get away with that kind of lying to
ourselves. We suddenly realize that no matter what anyone else has done, or how
unjust the society might be or what our parents might have been like, we can in
no way spend the rest of our lives blaming anyone else — that is a complete
waste of time. We have to accept complete responsibility for our life, and live
it. Even if we did have miserable parents, were raised in a terrible society
with no opportunities, it still doesn’t matter. There is no one else to blame
for our suffering now but ourselves, our own ignorance, selfishness and
conceit.
In
the crucifixion of Jesus we can see a brilliant example of a man in pain,
stripped naked, made fun of, completely humiliated and then publicly executed
in the most horrible, excruciating way, yet without blaming anyone: ‘Forgive
them, Lord, they know not what they do.’ This is a sign of wisdom — it means
that even if people are crucifying us, nailing us to the cross, scourging us,
humiliating us in every way, it is our aversion, self-pity, pettiness and
selfishness that is the problem, the suffering. It is not even the physical
pain that is the suffering, it is the aversion. Now if Jesus Christ had said,
‘Curse you for treating me like this!’, he would have been just another
criminal and would have been forgotten a few days later.
Reflect
on this, because we tend to easily blame others for our suffering, and we can
justify it because maybe other people are mistreating us or exploiting us or
don’t understand us or are doing dreadful things to us. We’re not denying that,
but we make nothing of it any more. We forgive, we let go of those memories,
because taking refuge in Sangha means, here and now, doing good and refraining
from doing evil with bodily action and speech.
So
may you reflect on this and really see Buddha Dhamma Sangha as a refuge. Look
on them as opportunities for reflection and consideration. It is not a matter
of believing in Buddha Dhamma Sangha — not a faith in concepts — but a using of
symbols for mindfulness, for awakening the mind here-and-now, being
here-and-now.
Ajahn Sumedo!!
