Message: #0 2026-01-24 
Buddhha, Dhamma, Sangha
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, but
sanditthikodhamma 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 to Nibbana, 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. |