Talk On Taking Refuge In The Dharma

So for the talk today I was thinking you know of what would be helpful as we begin the new year and the new year is a great time for us excuse me great time for us to kind of reflect and take stock of where we are and particularly to think about our intentions you know what's important for us in the time ahead.

And so I thought today a talk on taking refuge and particularly today taking refuge in the dharma in the in the teachings you know it's kind of has a broad range of meaning taking refuge and the teachings is kind of very specific aspect if you like of refuge but it more broadly it's taking refuge in the truth taking refuge in life itself the way things are and what I want to really get at today is emphasized today is the importance of taking refuge in the importance of putting our commitment to our spiritual practice really at the center of our lives how important that is for us.

So I want to share some reflections on that today and I'll begin just by saying that refuge in the dharma is in buddhist teachings is one of the three buddhist refuges many of you be familiar with that the three refuges but I'll just briefly name them and describe them.

First of all in buddhism a refuge is understood to be and this is much like it is in everyday kind of in our everyday understanding of refuge it's really a place of safety or security or well-being that one can go to particularly in times of difficulty or danger you know it's a something that we can you know rely on we have our our word obviously you know to be a refugee would be to find a place of refuge a place of safety away from war violence suppression etc all of the things that people you know are often escaping from and finding refuge and in the spiritual sense it has a similar connotation the sense of something where can we go in the midst of the turbulence in the midst of all of the challenges of the time we're living in what what is reliable what is safe what can we rely on what what what can be a refuge a genuine spiritual refuge for us and so that's what this kind of taking refuge refers to speaks of so the three refuges the first you know and each of these refuges can be looked at in both kind of more of an external way and more of or more of an internal or in a in a way so the first refuge is refuge in the buddha and that can refer to taking finding support finding safety if you like in in this this historical buddha this human being who awakened who you know struggled and sought to find the end of suffering and ultimately did awaken to the deepest freedom that's possible in this human life that's at least that's my understanding of his realization and that we can be inspired by that that we can see that as an example for us we say oh yeah this is the buddha and i can follow that path on an inner level a kind of more interior level refuge in the buddha can be understood as taking refuge in our own potential our own capacity for awakening you know taking refuge in the fact that we ourselves each one of us has the capacity to wake up and to actually do the work of waking up that's kind of more the inner internal level of taking refuge in our potential to wake up the second refuge which we emphasizing today refuge in the dharma is you know in one level it's taking refuge in the the buddha's teachings as a reliable path to freedom but also that we can actually embody these teachings we can transform ourselves through these through these teachings so that they you know that in that more internal way we can take refuge in the teachings and as i'll be talking about it's more broader than just the buddha's teachings it's all of the teachings that are that help us find freedom we can see as all of the wisdom teachings whatever the tradition and i'll talk more about that in a little bit it's really taking refuge in the truth as well the truth about taking refuge in life itself so i'm going to talk more about obviously about refuge in the dharma so i'll leave it there for now refuge in the sangha is finding refuge in the community it can be the community of practitioners committed to to the buddha's teachings and on a more of an internal level it's it's taking refuge in our interconnectedness with all beings and all of life seeing ourselves part of this web of of life the buddha you may may have heard you know he said all of spiritual life is sangha all of spiritual life is community and dr martin luther king recognized he said that we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny tied in a single garment of destiny he said whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly i can never be what i ought to be until you are what you ought to be and you can never be what you ought to be until i am what i ought to be this is the in interrelated structure of reality he said that this in the his letter from birmingham jail to pastors who were um not not not not uh not walking the talk as it were at the time back in the back in the early 60s so focusing today on the second of these refuges taking refuge in the dharma two questions i want to ask first what do we mean what do we really mean by finding refuge in the dharma and the second why is it important why is it important or perhaps even essential to take refuge in the dharma essential if we're going to realize freedom in this lifetime for me taking refuge in the dharma means to consciously recognize and internalize that the dharma that the teachings provide us with a pathway to freedom from suffering in this life so it's consciously recognizing this and really internalizing it in our lives that the dharma the so we can again we can say the buddha's teachings of freedom and i'm going to focus mainly on the buddha's teachings of freedom which we could call we could we call the buddha dharma the buddha dharma but the dharma is broader than the buddha dharma the buddha dharma is the buddhist path to freedom but it's not the only path to freedom and so you know when i think you know of if i think of rumi and his poem about welcoming the guests you know that for me you know that's dharma that's dharma that's kind of like that's a little nugget of a little jewel of of the teachings welcome the guests even if they're a crowd of sorrows who sweep your house empty of its furniture it's a kind of like oh yeah these what comes up for us can actually be welcomed as guests and that's that's potentially freeing so that's the dharma that's that's the dharma you know when rilke the poet rilke talks about always trust in the difficult always trust in the difficult again that's a nugget a jewel of teachings but because with when it it shifts things around we typically think the difficult is oh that's in my way that blocks me from where i want to go but when we look at the difficult as this is the place of waking up you know similarly you know make the obstacle the path the obstacle is the path we turn it around and in that turning around if we really internalize it that is a teaching of dharma you know obviously the teachings say of jesus you know love your neighbor turn the other cheek you know these again that they invite a kind of radical radically different way of looking at ourselves the world and others we're saying oh i don't have to go you know get a bigger stick to hit them with i can that's that's the way and obviously you know in terms of relating to others but it's more the inner you know inner letting go that i think is being pointed to in that teaching i think of mary oliver you know her poem the journey one day you finally knew what you had to do and began though the voices kept shouting their bad advice though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles etc you know how that you know is is for me is kind of a teaching of the dharma you know of how we can go from a place of you know tightness and contraction and listening to all the noise of the world and believing that's the only way things are to seeing oh we can embark on something new we can listen to those internal voices again this is the dharma um you know i think of carl jung you know it's saying you know talking about how what is not brought to consciousness comes to us as fate you know and again that we think oh yeah if we don't bring something into the light into the light of awareness we just keep acting it out unconsciously and we keep suffering again that's the dharma teaching so i'm i'm i'm thinking you know i'm talking about the dharma as any any teaching and life itself you know the way life can kind of teach us lessons every day of the week of when the eyes and ears are open even the leaves on the trees teach like pages of the scriptures i think hafiz said that or somebody said that um hafiz or one of those wonderful um sufi kind of poets and not not all sufis but um there are some of them there are other traditions but anyway all of these are all of these are teachings of the dharma i'm going to focus in you know for obvious reasons on on the on the buddha dharma you know and and how that can support us but i'm really talking about all of these teachings and how refuge in the dharma is recognizing that taking refuge it provides us a pathway to to freedom from suffering in this in this life so refuge in the dharma means being intentional about putting the teachings at the center of our lives we'll realize the benefits of the teachings only if we make them a priority and this is kind of the core of what i'm wanting to get at the way i frame it in my own mind is the dharma will support us if we support the dharma the dharma will support what i mean by that is that the benefits of the teachings will be available to us insofar as we give them centrality in our life if we don't then we're not going to be able to to to benefit or not to the fullness of the of what the teachings offering offer you know the the the teachings can't just be something we go to in times of trouble you know when when when things are difficult oh now i'm going to go to the teaching what do the teachings have to have to offer me that can help me get out of this mess that i'm in particularly if you know the way we're living our lives is disconnected from the teachings you know if we're if we're not putting the teachings at the center of our lives what we will by default be putting other refuges at the center of our life and typically these other refuges will be things that lead us to suffering like if we take refuge in drink or drugs you know those are a form of refuge and we're thinking oh yeah i'll be if i only have a drink or if i only have a drug or if i you know it may be taking refuge in fame and how we're our reputation oh how are people looking at me are they thinking good things about me you know or it might be money you know i've got oh i've got to have more money and then i'll really be safe and secure you know our possessions or we take refuge in what in our beliefs you know and our opinions about things and that that can be one of the most difficult refuges you know because we can get really attached to our beliefs and we hold on to them um i say that that that the teachings won't be available to us if we don't make them central and the reason for that is that the strength of our delusions will outweigh the strength of our practice you know if we're not putting the teachings at the center then our unconsciousness will be much stronger than our consciousness much stronger than our awareness and in times of difficulty you know i think the teachings won't be available to us or won't be available to us in a deep way and i'm going to talk in some personal ways of how i came to understand this really strongly in recent years it's said that in tibetan buddhism that there are 84 000 dharma doors obviously don't they we don't it doesn't mean that literally 84 000 it's actually 82 720 you know i just um but 84 000 that's obviously a symbolic number but dharma doors really mean teachings that help us help us to wake up there are many many many different teachings i highlighted some of the kind of non-buddhist ones and there's i could pick a hundred others as well as probably you could too but one teaching is at the very center of all of the buddha's teachings and that's the buddha's teaching on suffering and the end of suffering the four noble truths two the buddha talked a lot about suffering and the end of suffering he said i teach one thing and one thing alone suffering in its end he also and there's a very well-known quote he said about the four noble truths he said friends just as the footprint of any living being that walks can be placed within an elephant's footprint so too all wholesome states or teachings can be included in the four noble truths so everything comes back to this teaching about suffering and the end of suffering he also said one who understands clinging and non-clinging that's the second and the third noble truth one who understands clinging and non-clinging understands all the dharma so essentially if we if we really understand the teaching of the four noble truth of four noble truths about suffering and how we find an end to suffering that is that all the teaching we we need i don't mean that the the rest is irrelevant but that will that that is enough to move us from suffering to freedom really understanding and knowing the four noble truths means not just understanding conceptually or cognitively that we can find freedom by letting go of clinging we have to know we have to get to know these teaching very deeply that when we cling to anything we suffer we it has to become a really an embodied knowing knowing through our direct experience knowing in our bones really teachings have to go go deep so at the heart of these four noble truths is the recognition that when we cling to anything we suffer whether it's clinging to our possessions to our views and opinions clinging to the people that we hate you know that's another form of clinging whatever we cling to whatever we resist and push away whatever we identify with we suffer or whenever we identify with anything we suffer there's suffering this is this is the heart the teachings and when we let go of clinging we experience freedom you let go of you know it's it's very simple it i think it's simple to understand that i think we all know that when we get caught up you know addiction is a very clear kind of extreme example of it of where we get into that you know got to have but there's many many other expressions of clinging you know including the pushing away things and i think we can get this and and also get how when we when we kind of open our fists as it were we kind of let go um then we experience freedom some of you may be may be familiar with the story and i think that this is true that in i think in india maybe other asian countries they have these um they have this way of uh capturing monkeys you know that were doing damage and stuff and and the way they do this is they there's a one of these big seeds that has a hole in it and they make the hole big enough just the right size for the monkey to put its hand in and they put some juicy fruit in there and so that when the that monkey puts its hand in the hole and grasps the the juicy fruit it tries to pull its fist out with the juicy fruit and it can't but it won't let go but it won't let go of the juicy fruit doesn't want to let go of it so it gets captured and i love that image and it actually i believe it is i think i've never seen it personally but i've heard that this is actually what what the way they can capture monkeys and we're not really that very different maybe different by a couple of million years but you know not very not very different you know when we hold on you know in this way we suffer and yet when we can open our hands and to and to just withdraw ourselves from that thing that we're clinging to then then we'll when that we experience freedom and this is the heart of the teaching it's it's kind of easy to say in a way i mean it's fairly simple and not too hard to understand but when we have to do it in our own lives you know when we have to let go of find a way of letting go of our anger or hatred towards a politician who we think is doing harmful things you know for some that may be an issue you know that that it's it's not may not be quite so easy to do it easy to understand but not necessarily easy to to do so our task with each of these and i'm i'm highlighting the buddha's teachings of the dharma and i'm highlighting within that you know for simple you know because it's the central teaching and because you know to give an example the four noble i'm highlighting the four noble truths there are many other teachings that help us to wake up i'll just give you a couple of other examples of made major teachings that help us to find find freedom out of the 84 000 you know the one is you know whenever we're suffering and whatever we're experiencing at any time that moment that experience can be the doorway to freedom from suffering so the you know one way of putting it is the present moment whatever we're experiencing that can be the gateway the doorway the portal to freedom from suffering we simply have to open fully to our experience so what we were doing in the meditation of just allowing whatever is present to be here to come and go to see its impermanence to let go of clinging to anything as i on mine um letting go of our the mental stories and narratives and staying directly with our experience this is the doorway to freedom you know this is what the buddha spoke of as mindfulness as the direct path to liberation mindfulness as the direct path to liberation so that the present moment awareness in the present moment of our experience is is the doorway is the doorway to freedom eckhart tolle put it this way he said you can always cope with the present moment but you cannot cope with something that is only a mind projection you cannot you cannot cope with the future so emphasizing that the present moment so this is the teaching of the teachings of mindfulness you know the four foundations of mindfulness is another central teaching that that you know is is a gateway to freedom we can include um or to the heart practices the practices of you know the the what called the brahma viharas or the divine abodes loving kindness compassion appreciative joy and equanimity these teachings are crucial because though it's often said it's like the a bird needs two wings to fly right similarly in our practice we need the teachings need two wings they need the wing of wisdom and the wing of compassion the four noble truths is fundamentally the the wisdom teachings the insight the understanding teachings the heart practices are the heart teachings the compassion teachings the other wing of wing of the bird so those are these are just some of these are some of the central teachings of the buddha which we call the buddhadharma that help us find freedom in our lives you know maybe it's a little freedom excuse me maybe it's a lot of freedom maybe it's complete freedom as arjun char said you know let go a little you know experience a little peace little freedom let go a lot you'll experience a lot of peace let go completely and you'll experience complete peace your struggle with the world will be at an end so what i want to do in the final part of the talk today is having laid out something of the kind of this is what taking refuge in the dharma means and some thoughts on why why it's important to take take refuge in the dharma take refuge in the i want to talk about a personal experience that really taught me the importance of taking refuge in the dharma and it really taught me through failure through not being able to find refuge and so the insights that i gained through this experience came with a lot of a lot of difficulty i had an experience a few years ago some of you may you may kind of remember some this time where i found myself overwhelmed by the amount of work that i had taken on and not knowing how i would be able to do it all i felt i just didn't have the resources to be able to respond to all the demands that i felt were coming my way and what came up for me was a lot a great deal of fear and anxiety and you know what would you say if i were to say well how do you work with with fear and anxiety when they come up or where how do you work with anything you know anger or grief or whatever what do you do you know i think probably most of you say well well the teachings tell us we we should turn towards that experience and allow ourselves to really feel it and be present with it everything i've been saying in the last 25 minutes or so that's the way of turning to it to our experience and that's ultimately the way of finding freedom in the midst of whatever we're experiencing but did i do that no no i had a better way my response to this sense of kind of overwhelm and burnout and you know whatever what name i want to give it was to resist this wasn't something i wanted to have happen and i tried to hold on for dear life and kept on pushing through it was as though you know i i thought if i keep on pushing if i keep on pushing forward i'd somehow come to the other end of this unpleasantness and everything would be okay do you think that happened um you know but the more i pushed the more tight the more contracted the more anxious and fearful i became i remember i remember very clearly having images in my mind of driving on a freeway and seeing an exit sign that said exit here exit here get off stop just stop but did i stop no i didn't stop i kept on pushing and i kept on pushing literally until in the end i couldn't push anymore and i just you know it basically my body said no and i had to give up but this wasn't the kind of you know giving up that you might talk about as let you see as kind of spiritual surrender you know where we really do let go and we say god or whoever it might be you know you're in charge for me i'm letting go of this it wasn't that kind of letting go it was it was a sense of failure and it came with a lot of um shame uh yeah definitely a sense of failure and you know i for a while i was in a very dark place you know a kind of a lot of feeling of depression and one of the hardest parts about this experience was that i couldn't access the teachings i knew them in my head but i couldn't internalize them and i couldn't really practice them um i could i couldn't access the practice of meditation i could kind of go through the the what do you what do you call it go through the um words lost my word you know go through the as though i were doing it but it wasn't wouldn't be real go through the motions you know you know but it wasn't i it wasn't really i couldn't really meditate in a genuine way even though i'd been practicing for almost pretty much daily for 30 years i couldn't access the teachings so it was a very very painful place to be it wasn't that i'd given up on the teachings but it was just that it was like i was over here on this land here and on the other side of the teachings with all that they had to offer but there was a raging river in between that i couldn't you know that's just you know given a give it in an image i could see how helpful i could understand and had experienced in the past how helpful the teachings were and could be but they weren't available to me at that time you know over time i came to see how my resistance to stopping you know that keep on pushing was a false refuge that that i'd kind of i'd taken refuge in thinking that i could push through i'm i'm reminded of that i when i was thinking of this last night i'm reminded of a quote from beautiful quote from annias nin that you might be familiar with she says and the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom that's the kind of positive end of it is when we realize that it's harder it's more painful to stay in the tight place than to blossom but where i was at this time was i i didn't recognize that i thought the place of refuge a place to hold on to was that tight place this was kind of the fearful place i was in that i would just hold on and i could just push through push through you know whatever things earlier in my life would condition me to do that you know my mother was an example with nine kids you know bringing you know of that kind of determination and it has a good side obviously you keep going and you survive but it also has a shadow side and this i was stuck in the shadow of this i was not you know on that that quote you know from annias nin the the bud risking to blossom you know risking blossom ultimately i found my way you know to back to both you know psychological psychological well-being and and and to the dharma and to be able to access the dharma obviously you know i found my way back to that and i learned a great deal through the suffering and one of the most important things i learned was that my my suffering was avoidable if i had truly taken refuge in the dharma in the teachings in what life was telling me and what all those signals that were coming to me of like stop get off get off and yet i pushed and pushed you know i think a lot of the time we learn through suffering perhaps most of the time our learning our insight comes through suffering but when we take refuge in the dharma we have the potential to avoid the suffering the more i you know retrospectively if i had invested more deeply in the dharma in the teachings and not you know and not allowed the conditions to arise to kind of become disconnected from them then i could have avoided that situation from arising now i in the larger sense i feel completely understanding i'm not beating myself up about it and i understand that that's what i had to learn and that's the way i had to go through it but as i if i step up to a meta level i can see that you know the more we invest in the centrality of the teachings the more we're able to avoid what the buddha talked about preventing the arising of unwholesome states and to be able to really take the signals and when you see the the billboard that says get off here you know please get off then to get off rather than you know driving ahead until you hit the the wall in the end so i shared the story in the hope that it will be helpful a helpful pointer to the importance of really taking refuge in the dharma taking really investing our time our energy our heart and spirit in the dharma in the teachings the teachings of the buddha the teachings of the other wisdom teachings that help us find freedom from suffering um you know the alternative is that we'll we'll find false we'll seek for and find false refuges and we'll continue on that cycle of suffering so where i want to finish is with a maybe just a couple of minutes of reflection for us all here on taking refuge in the dharma and you can if you want to you can close your eyes for this and just let your attention come inward and i want to just ask the question what would what would it mean for you to take refuge in the dharma to really give it centrality and importance in your life we're living in we all know we're living in very difficult and challenging times and we we need the refuge of wisdom of the wisdom teachings and compassion teachings the teachings of those who've walked the path before us and can point out the potholes and the exits and remind us to pay attention so it it it's easy to recognize that on a cognitive level but what i'm wanting to get at is what would it mean to let that understanding go really deep for you you know what would what would taking refuge in the dharma mean to you would it mean changing anything would it mean doing anything different in your practice and i'm not asking this in any way from the standpoint of shoulds you know i should do this i should it's not should you know not not about shoulds at all but about what will serve me what will serve me to you know to let go of holding on to let go of clinging and to to find to find greater freedom in in my life particularly in these you know very difficult times that we're living in where there's so much so much to trigger us so much to get us caught up in in various kinds of of dukkha and maybe just take a quiet minute to to just sit with that so thank you thank you for your kind attention and i hope that's helpful maybe some food for thought grist for the mill