Taking Refuge by Pabongka Rinpoche
(By Tsem Rinpoche)
The One Hundred and Fifty Verses of Praise says:
Take refuge in whomever
Has absolutely no shortcomings,
Absolutely no blindness, and in whom resides
Every aspect of all good qualities.
When you think of this,
Respect those who praise him
And abide by his teachings.
In other words, when you think of how to distinguish between what should be your refuge, and what should not, you will want to take refuge in the Buddha, the teacher of Buddhism, in his teachings, and in those who abide by his teachings. The average worldly person seeks refuge in worldly creatures – spirit kings, gods, nagas, spirits, and so forth. Non-Buddhists seek refuge in Brahma, Indra etc. but these themselves are beings in samsara so they are not fitting refuges.
Who then is a fitting refuge? From The Seventy Verses on Taking Refuge:
Buddha, Dharma, Sangha
Are the refuge for seekers of liberation.
That is, the only refuge is the Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. But if we do not identify these three properly, we will not take refuge purely. We are not critical and so pretend to be Mahayana knowledge- bearers, yet when things go wrong, sickness comes and so forth, or when we have some important work to do, we seek refuge in worldly Dharma protectors, in spirit kings, local gods etc: we perform smoke purifications or carry wood talismans under our armpits; we rush off to the shrine of any deity. All this external activity indicates our inner state. Buddhists should entrust themselves to the Three Jewels. We may have actually gained admittance to a Monastery, but we do not even qualify to be Buddhists, let alone Mahayana knowledge-bearers.
Nagas, spirit kings, and others do not have these three qualities: omniscience, love and ability. They don’t even know when they are going to die. Normally they are categorised as animals or hungry ghosts, and their rebirths are inferior to ours. There is no worse method we could use than to rely on them. What means could be worse than to seek refuge in them? So far from protecting us from samsara and the sufferings of the lower realms, or even giving us a little temporary help, they may do us great harm instead.
Here is a story to illustrate this. A man with a goitre once went to a place haunted by flesh-eating spirits. A tax in flesh that these spirits paid to other creatures was due, so the spirits removed the man’s goitre. Another man with a goitre went to them and took refuge in them hoping for the same result, but the spirits did not destroy his goitre – they made it larger. Similarly, worldly gods and evil spirits are sometimes helpful, sometimes harmful; they can never be trusted.
Non-Buddhists make Brahma, Indra, Shiva, and so forth, their refuge. This is an improvement on the above, yet those gods are still not liberated from samsara and the lower realms so they cannot protect other beings. But Buddha, the teacher of Buddhists is not like these. Praise to the Praiseworthy says:
You proclaimed, ‘I am a friend
To you who are without protection’.
Your great compassion embraces all beings,
Teacher, you have great compassion,
You have love; you act by your love.
You are diligent, you are not lazy.
Who else could be like you?
You are the protector of all sentient beings;
You are a kind relative to all.
According to that section [the Buddha] has three magnificent qualities: omniscience, love and ability. Not only do spirit kings, evil spirits and so forth not have even a portion of these good qualities, but also the sum of the good qualities of worldly refuges, gods, nagas, and the like, cannot rival even the good qualities of a single Shravaka Stream Enterer.
Buddha is the ultimate refuge because he has taken the two benefits [benefit for self and for others] to their most developed state. Our teacher has eliminated all faults and possesses all good qualities.
Simply put, the ultimate jewel of Buddha is assumed to be the two dharmakayas, or ‘truth bodies’; the relative jewel of Buddha, the two physical kayas [the sambhogakaya, or ‘enjoyment body’, and nirmanakaya, or ’emanation body’].
The jewel of Dharma is as follows. The ultimate jewel of Dharma is anything that comes under the truth of cessation or the truth of the path – these are the [two] purifying truths [in contrast to the two truths of suffering and the origin of suffering] in the mind-streams of Aryas. As a guide,- we take the ‘truth of cessation’ partly to mean a freedom from [or the ‘cessation’ of some particular obscuration, this freedom being a function of a particular unhindered path. The ‘truth of the path’ is taken to be the means for Aryas to achieve these cessations and realisations in their mindstreams. People who have not studied the classics and who think at a lower level may instead identify the three scopes of the Lam Rim as a rough approximation for the ultimate jewel of Dharma.
Such things as the twelve divisions of Scripture are the generally accepted idea of the jewel of Dharma.
The jewel of Sangha is as follows. The ultimate jewel of Sangha are Aryas who have any of the eight good qualities of the liberated mind.
A group of four ordinary beings holding the monk’s full ordination vows is the generally accepted idea of the jewel of Sangha. If we help or harm these beings we will receive virtuous or non-virtuous karmic results in relation to the Sangha.
One doesn’t need all three of these refuges in order to be protected from some types of danger; each of the Three Jewels can protect one. Once a man in Dokham petitioned Avalokiteshvara while he was being dragged off by a tiger. The tiger immediately put him down and the man was freed from all danger.
After Purna became ordained and gained arhatship, some relatives and merchants went to sea to obtain choice sandalwood, but their boat began to disintegrate. The relatives petitioned the Arhat Purna [in their prayers] and were saved from the waters.
The king of nagas caused a rain of weapons to fall on King Prasenajit; Maudgalyayana turned it into a rain of flowers.
However, all Three Jewels are needed to protect one completely from samsara and the lower realms. To cure a patient of a severe illness, three things are needed: a doctor, medicine, and nurses. Similarly, in order to be freed from the serious illnesses of the sufferings of samsara and the lower realms, the danger of the peace [of Hinayana Arhats], or [samsaric] existence, one definitely needs all these: the Buddha, the teacher of the liberating path, who is like the doctor; the Dharma, the liberating path of the three scopes, which is like the medicine; and the Sangha, the friends of the Dharma practitioners, who are like the nurses. So, these three are things to take refuge in.
This teaching is an excerpt from Liberation in the Palm of your Hand by Pabongka Rinpoche
There is a famous story of how Heruka actually appeared to Pabongka when he visited Cimburi in Tibet, where there is an image of Heruka. This is where the Blood drinker’s mountains are and this name refers to Heruka – Drinker of Blood. Apparently, Pabongka went to this place three times during his lifetime. When he first went there, this image spoke to him, opened its mouth and a tremendous amount of nectar came out. Pabongka collected the nectar from the mouth of Heruka while in the presence of sixty or seventy people. This nectar was then made into nectar pills. The Gelugpa’s current nectar pills originate from there. It is also stated that this very same cave in Cimburi where Pabongka received the nectar from the Heruka image was the place where Heruka promised him the following: “From now on, for the next seven generations, whoever practices my teaching, I will protect and help.”
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The Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha should be our only refuge. Buddha is like a doctor, Dharma is the medicine and Sangha is the nurse. We need all three to cure our severe sickness in our body, just like we need the The Three Jewels to liberate us from the sufferings of samsara and the lower realms. This is a path for our self-development and at the same time learns to benefit others too.
Thank you Rinpoche for the sharing.
Taking refuge is the first step we take towards the path of enlightenment. By taking refuge, we will not lose our freedom, but instead, it is a gateway to total freedom. Is like getting a passport for us to travel further.
We can only take refuge with the 3 Jewels. Buddha has achieved enlightenment and he gave us 84000 teachings that can help us to achieve the same too. Our Guru, who is the closest to us and most compassionate, cos a Guru teaches us Dharma, show us the way to do it, correct our wrong doings and guide us towards the ultimate goal of enlightenment. With strong Guru devotion, we will be able to achieve the ultimate goal.
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for this short valuable teaching on Taking Refuge. It is a good post to revisit every now and then to refresh our memory and strengthen our faith in the objects of our refuge.
With folded hands.
Thank you Rinpoche, for this short and sweet teaching.
I understand better on refuge now.
The three precious jewels of which a perfect and precious Mahayana Guru also embodies is what we can safely rely on. The Buddha is most precious because they have extinguished delusions and self interest within his mindstream, hence he is the most qualified to benefit sentient beings.
Dharma words spoken by the Samyak Sambhuddha are the most potent words that can allow us to to practice and develop causes to overcome samsara. Sangha beings, those still on the spiritual to help us , inspire us and at times help us be a bridge for us to the dharma.
Thanks to Rinpoche for the sharing.
What a coincident, i just read the Chinese version of Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand by Pabongka Rinpoche.
I feel very fortunate that i take refuge to my Guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. And especially i am in the linage of Pabongka Rimpoche himself!!.
Thanks to Rinpoche again for bringing inDharma to Malaysia and set up Kechara. Without Rinpoche i won’t be able to learn dharma from such a wonderful Guru and all the Linage Masters.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing the inspiring teaching from Pabongka Rinpoche. Once we have taken the refuge from Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, we must continue to share with the non-Buddhists about the good qualities in the Three Jewels.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful excerpt from the Liberation in the Palm of your Hands book. It is a wonderful book. I think that it is possible to become enlightened if you are capable of practicing whatever is in the book.
Thanks for Rinpoche’s sharing. We should seeking right person for taking refuge and this is will help us towards correct path.
Thank you for sharing & reiterating this jewel of at leaching. This makes it very clear who, what & why we are taking refuge. The subtle differences of truth of cessation & truth of path from truth of suffering & origin of suffering has to be distinguished. The ultimate quality of the 3 jewels in contrast to other worldly spirit kings must be realised. Om mani pedme hum _/|\_
feels like weep for such a wisdom. thank you rinpoche
When we are studying the Lamrim, there are many debates and views on the criterion of proper refuge and do we need them all. When some one in the group mentioned that Rinpoche had summarized it into “Ultimately you take refuge in your Karma”.The debate immediately ended.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing this with all of us here. Through this it allows us to know better what does it mean to take Refuge and what/who we should be taking refuge in.
It clearly explains to us in details all these fundamental dharma knowledge that we should know about.
Dear Rinpoche,
Thank you for giving me this teaching. It is from the Three Jewels, i have gain some knowledge about where the negative emotion came from, about Karma and knowing that i am “sick” and i need a “Doctor” to give “medicine” to me. I am glad i have the opportunity to learn the Dharma.
It is from H.E Tsem Rinpoche, i have the opportunity to know Dharma from Lama Tsongkhapa. It is from H.E Tsem Rinpoche, i have the opportunity to study Lamrim. And, able to understand Dharma in more easy way. It is from H.E Tsem Rinpoche, i understand why the sang-ha members is important. Other than taking refuge in The Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, without A Guru i can’t even enter to a correct path, listening to Dharma- listening from an authentic pure lineage.
I remember Rinpoche said during the Refuge, H.E is more interested to see how much transformation after the Refuge. Not just stayed status quo after the Refuge. i keep this in mind and push myself to do.
Thank you Guru. With holded hand -/\-
We take refuge in Three Jewels because of the good qualities in them, because they are able to guide us to the freedom of sufferings, not because they can give what we want. The differences between wordly gods and Buddha were also clearly explained here. Buddha is concerned of our spiritual practice and results while this is not the consideration of any wordly gods.
Thank you Rinpoche for sharing the very fundamental Dharma knowledge with us.
I´m back *lol* because some of my words are not correct: “I´m no Buddhist” – sometimes in my heart I´m Buddhist too, I´m Taoist too, I´m all.. cannot announce it. äh…
Sounds better: I don´t practice dharma ways, with one exception: tonglen practice somethimes.
and now I´m stop thinking, byebye *g*
Dear Rinpoche, thank you for this inspiring words from Pabongka Rinpoche. Found out: his book is translated to german. I will read it. I´m no Buddhist, but I know I can learn from you, anyhow. My refuge and master is Christ, but I have some “spirit-friends”, too. Yours faithfully bybeat
Dear Bybeat,
Thank you for posting here on Rinpoche’s blog. I am paraphrasing Kyabje Pabongka Rinpoche. Beware of spirits especially if we are propitiating them. They may appear benevolent but can betray us in the end. I have heard of many many cases where they demand offerings for boons granted. Even if you were careless and skipped an offering, they will get you. I have heard of a few of such cases.