The Triple Gem

When we wish to become Buddhists formally, the first step is to go to the Triple Gem - the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha for refuge. It is an expression of one’s faith and determination in walking the Buddha’s path. Since the time of the Buddha, taking this Threefold Refuge has identified a person as a Buddhist.

Why Take Refuge?

If we observe the world carefully, we will notice much pain, suffering and frustration experienced by all. We will look for a way to end these distressing conditions just as a traveller caught in a storm seeks shelter. If he finds shelter in a strong and safe building, he will call out to the others struggling in the storm to join him in his refuge. Similarly, one chooses to become a Buddhist when he understands who the Buddha is and how the Triple Gem can provide him the way to end suffering. Out of Compassion, he also encourages others to take the same refuge.

The Buddha, Dharma and Sangha are called the Triple Gem because they represent qualities excellent and precious like a gem. Once we recognize these unique qualities after careful consideration and are confident that the Triple Gem can lead us towards happiness and Enlightenment, we take refuge in it. Therefore, it is not out of mere faith, but with an open-minded attitude and enquiring spirit that we begin practising the Buddha’s Teaching.

Buddha

The word "Buddha" means the "Fully Enlightened One", or the "Awakened One". It is the title given to those who have attained supreme and perfect Enlightenment. Buddhists acknowledge the Buddha as the embodiment of the highest Morality, deepest Concentration, and perfect Wisdom. The Buddha is also known to His followers as the "Perfected One" because He has eradicated all Craving, Ill Will and Ignorance, having overcome all unwholesome actions, putting an end to all suffering.

The Buddha is the Fully Enlightened One because He has realized the Truth and sees things as they really are. He knows through His perfect Wisdom, what is good and what is not good for everyone. Out of Compassion He shows us the path leading towards True Happiness.
The Buddha’s exemplary Conduct, perfect Wisdom and great Compassion make Him an excellent teacher. Using skillful means, He is able to reach out to all His followers so that they can understand His Teaching.

Dharma

The Buddha taught the Dharma solely out of Compassion for all who suffer in the cycle of birth and death. The Dharma is therefore taught without any selfish motives. It is well taught and completely good, by nature pure and bright like a light that destroys the darkness of ignorance. When the Dharma is studied and practiced, it brings many benefits now and in the future.

The Dharma is the Teaching about the nature of life. This Teaching of the Buddha is contained in the collection of scriptures called the Tripitaka. These consist of the sermons (Sutra Pitaka) taught by the Buddha, the disciplinary rules of the monastic community (Vinaya Pitaka) and the philosophy and psychology of Buddhism (Abhidharma Pitaka).

We get to know about the Dharma by reading the scriptures. We can also learn from the writings and explanations of qualified teachers. Once we have familiarized ourselves with the Dharma through reading and listening, we have to realize its truth for ourselves by putting it into practice. This means purifying our conduct and cultivating Mental Development until the Teaching becomes part of our own experience.

Sangha

The Sangha that a Buddhist takes refuge in is the community of Noble Ones who have led exemplary lives and attained extraordinary insight into the true nature of things. Their lives and achievements show others that it is possible to progress on the path to Enlightenment.

However, the Sangha also generally refers to the fourfold community of monks (bhikkhus), nuns (bhikkunis), men and women lay followers (though "Sangha" is usually used to address monks and nuns who have renounced the lay life to practice and teach the Dharma full time.)

Monks and nuns are respected for their good conduct and experience in meditation. They are also respected for their diligence, mindfulness and calmness. Wise and learned, they are able teachers of the Dharma, like trusted friends who inspire us along the path of Good Conduct.

The lay followers accept the Four Noble Truths and the other teachings of the Buddha and seek happiness and Enlightenment as their common goal in life. They also uphold common moral values. Thus a Buddhist can look to other members of the lay community for help and advice in times of need.

The Journey to Enlightenment

To better understand the idea of taking refuge, imagine a traveller who wants to visit a distant city where he has never been. He will need a guide, a path to follow and even travelling companions on the way. A Buddhist working towards attaining happiness and Enlightenment is like this traveller. The Buddha is his "guide", the Dharma his "path" and the Sangha his "travelling companions."

Benefits of Taking Refuge

Taking the Threefold Refuge is the first step on the path to Enlightenment. Thereafter, through Good Conduct and Mental Development, self-mastery, Wisdom and Compassion is achieved. Even if Enlightenment is not achieved in this life, one who takes refuge in the Triple Gem is more likely to have favourable conditions for attaining Enlightenment in a future life.

Taking Refuge

One expresses intention of taking the Triple Gem as as refuge by repeating the following lines three times:

"I go to the Buddha for refuge.

I go to the Dharma for refuge.

I go to the Sangha for refuge."

These lines can be repeated by one alone before an image of the Buddha or repeated line by line after a monk. A Buddhist may repeat the Threefold Refuge daily to remind himself that he has made a commitment to attain the goal of happiness and Enlightenment through the guidance and inspiration of the Triple Gem.

Samsara

According to Buddhism, all beings are born into
an endless cycle of birth and rebirth which is called Samsara.



The first of the Four Noble Truths states that life is suffering. If one is destined to be reborn into this life of suffering at the close of their current life, then that cycle of rebirth is one of endless suffering. It is the goal of Buddhists to leave this cycle by reaching Enlightenment and entering Nirvana.

Samsara is this world, filled as it is with so much pain and sorrow. All beings in this world are subject to the law of Karma. Something you do, say, or think that is in fact in your control has moral consequences, called Vipaka, which means fruit. In traditional Buddhism, these consequences can occur in this life, or in a future life.

Most Buddhists believe in rebirth. A little more precisely, rebirth is nothing more than the transmission of one's Karma. Buddha likened it to the flame that passes from one candle to another. So, the idea of an immortal soul and/or a continuing personality is definitely not part of the rebirth idea.

The image above is the Tibetan Wheel of Life, which represents Samsara. In the very center, there is a rooster chasing a pig chasing a snake chasing the rooster -- craving, hatred, and ignorance. Around that are people ascending the white semicircle of life, and others descending the black semicircle of death. The greatest portion of the Wheel is devoted to representations of the six realms -- the realm of the gods, the realm of the titans, the realm of humans, the realm of animals, the realm of the hungry ghosts, and the realm of demons -- each realm looked over by its own Boddhisattva. The outermost circle is the 12 steps of dependent origination. The entire Wheel is held by Yama, the Lord of Death.

All beings have lived and died and been reborn countless times. Over and over again we have experienced the indescribable Clear Light. But because we are obscured by the darkness of ignorance, each of us wander endlessly in a limitless Samsara.

Impermanence

Change is a central feature of life. It can be exhilarating, frightening, exhausting, or relieving. It can spark sadness or happiness, resistance or grasping.

Insight into impermanence is central to Buddhist practice. Buddhist practice points us toward becoming equanimous in the midst of change and wiser in how we respond to what comes and goes. In fact, Buddhism could be seen as one extended meditation on transience as a means to freedom. The Buddha’s last words were: “All conditioned things are impermanent. Strive on with diligence.” The solution to suffering is to transcend the world of impermanence.

The Buddha approached suffering differently. He said that suffering is not inherent in the world of impermanence; suffering arises when we cling. When clinging disappears, impermanence no longer gives rise to suffering. The solution to suffering, then, is to end clinging, not to try to escape from the transient world.

One means of reducing clinging is to see the transient nature of what we cling to. This insight can either show us the futility of trying to find lasting happiness in what is impermanent, or it can encourage us to examine deeply why we cling.

Impermanence can be understood in three ways. First, is the obvious, ordinary understanding of impermanence. Second, is understanding from insight, from the intuitive, direct seeing of the nature of things. Finally, there is the way in which seeing impermanence can lead to liberation.

The ordinary understanding of impermanence is accessible to all; we see old age, sickness and death. We notice that things change. The seasons change, society changes, our emotions change, and the weather changes. Sometimes, realizing that an experience is impermanent, we can relax with how it is, including its coming and going. Other times, seeing that change is inevitable helps us to let go of clinging to how things are or resistance to change. And sometimes recognizing that we are all equal in being subject to aging, sickness, and death is the basis for compassion.

Beyond the ordinary experience of impermanence, Buddhist practice helps us open to the less immediately perceptible realm of impermanence, i.e., insight into the moment-to-moment arising and passing of every perceivable experience. With deep concentrated mindfulness, we see everything as constantly in flux, even experiences that ordinarily seem persistent.

Perhaps you have had an opportunity to bring mindfulness to a strong physical experience such as pain. We tend to see pain through our ideas about it. With very strong mindfulness, however, we find that we can't pinpoint pain; as soon as we think we have located the pain, it flashes out of the existence and reappears a millimeter to the side. It becomes a dance of sparking sensations located in no particular place. Pain that seemed solid is actually in constant flux. In this deeper experience of impermanence, we realize that it doesn't make sense to hold onto anything, even temporarily. There's nothing that we can hold onto because everything simply flashes in and out of existence.

We also realize that our clinging and resistance have very little to do with the experience itself. We mostly cling to ideas and concepts, not things or experiences in and of themselves. For example, we don’t cling to money, but to the ideas of what money means for us. We may not resist aging as much as we resist letting go of cherished concepts of ourselves and our bodies. One of our most ingrained attachments is to self, self-image, and self-identity. In the deeper experience of mindfulness, we see that the idea of self is a form of clinging to concepts; nothing in our direct experience can qualify as a self to hold onto.

As we see impermanence clearly, we see that there is nothing real that we can actually cling to. Our deep-seated tendency to grasp is challenged, and so may begin to relax. We see that our experiences don't correspond to our fixed categories, ideas, or images. We realize that reality is more fluid than any of our ideas about it.

Confronting impermanence profoundly, in this meditative way, can open us to liberation. Ajahn Chah once said, “If you let go a little, you’ll have a little peace. If you let go a lot you’ll have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you’ll have complete peace.” This release is sometimes called Mahasukha, the Great Happiness, which is said to be the only happiness that is ultimately reliable.

Karma and Rebirth

What Is Karma?

The Sanskrit word karma means "voli-tional act" or "deed." The law of karma is a law of cause and effect, or an understanding that every deed produces fruit.

Karma is created by the intentional acts of body, speech, and mind. Only acts pure of desire, hate and delusion do not produce karmic effects. Once set in motion, karma tends to continue in many directions, like ripples on a pond.

Karma is not mysterious or hidden. Once you understand what it is, you can observe it all around you. For example, let's say a man gets into an argument at work. He drives home in an angry mood, cutting off someone at an intersection. The driver cut off is now angry, and when she gets home she yells at her daughter. This is karma in action -- one angry act has touched off many more.

However, if the man who argued had the mental discipline to let go of his anger, the karma would have stopped with him.

What Is Rebirth? Very basically, when the effects of karma continue across lifetimes it causes rebirth. But in light of the doctrine of no-self, what exactly is reborn?

The classical Hindu understanding of reincarnation is that a soul, or atman, is reborn many times. But the Buddha taught the doctrine of anatman -- no soul, or no-self. The various schools of Buddhism approach this question in somewhat different ways.

One way to explain rebirth is to think of all existence as one big ocean. An individual is a phenomenon of existence in the same way a wave is a phenomenon of ocean. A wave begins, moves across the surface of the water, then dissipates. While it exists, a wave is distinct from ocean yet is never separate from ocean. In the same way, that which is reborn is not the same person, yet is not separate from the same person.

Article by Barbara O'Brien

On Being and Not Being a Buddhist

I am not a Buddhist. I am, as of this moment, a wanderer through the six realms of samsara. I avoid calling myself a Buddhist not due to the risk of being sized up as some kind of a post-flower child flake.

The primary reason is not making "I am a Buddhist" just another ego attachment. I have enough layers of self-identity to chip through without building another one. When I do say "I am a Buddhist" -- because to say otherwise would be a lie -- I do a little purification ritual in my heart.

I enjoy learning about Buddhism. I am becoming—carefully and with as much mindfulness as I can muster—more than what has been dismissively labeled a "bookstore Buddhist." To me, being a Buddhist means more than just saying you are one. It means placing yourself within the structure of a particular school, a particular lineage and a particular teacher. It means changing your life, not just changing your mind.

However, there's also a danger in wading too far into negation. The Madhyamika teachings of early Mahayana said that although phenomena -- including people -- are void of self-essence, it is incorrect to say that things and beings exist or don’t exist. As I understand it, form and appearance create the world of myriad things, but the myriad things have identity only in relation to each other. Thus, there is neither reality not not-reality; only relativity.

So, perhaps I shouldn't be so squeamish about saying "I am a Buddhist."