Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 46-minute teaching, Lama Lhundup presents the second session of The Graduated Path, focusing on the Three Jewels as objects of refuge. He begins by exploring the qualities of the Buddha—his unconditional love, impartiality, and power to guide sentient beings—and shows how contemplating these qualities generates three types of faith: pure faith arising from recognizing the Buddha’s greatness, believing faith in his abilities, and aspiring faith, which is the wish to gain his qualities oneself. He then explains refuge in the Dharma through practice rather than mere intellectual assent, emphasizing reliance on the Buddha’s teachings rather than personal opinion to discern what should be cultivated and abandoned. He covers refuge in the Sangha as those with direct perception of emptiness, and distinguishes between causal refuge (the present Three Jewels) and effect refuge (the Three Jewels we will realize within ourselves). A practical section shows how to transform daily activities—eating, walking, encountering beauty—into merit-making through offering to the Buddha. The closing Q&A addresses the graduated approach to refuge across the three capacities of beings, from escaping bad rebirth to universal compassion, and whether to practice these levels sequentially or simultaneously.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 GP.mp3
UUID: 0ed2b6be-d254-4ddd-b4ac-ab5a8d394485
Teacher: Lama Lhundup
Collection: The Graduated Path (Lama Lhundup)
Date: 1987 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.9 minutes
Words: ~2,755
Even though we have this great love for ourselves, there are occasions when we actually dislike ourselves, when we want to hurt ourselves, when we put ourselves down. So whereas the Buddha’s Buddha’s love for us is such that whether we go for refuge to the Buddha or whether we don’t, whether we whether we help the Buddha or don’t, whether we harm the Buddha or don’t, his love does not diminish in the least. It’s always increasing. So the third quality of his mind was the quality of power or ability. He said that the the Buddha has the ability to place all sentient beings in the three realms in the Pure Land.
So, when we meditate, when we consider in our meditation, we should consider the qualities of the Buddha again and again. We should think about the fact that he spent three countless eons amassing his great qualities, how many times he gave away even his own body, his great practice of generosity, his great kindness. In thinking of all his qualities, of his love, for example, we will develop an irreversible faith in the Buddha. So In cultivating faith, So in developing faith in the Buddha, there’s three types of faith that we develop. The first is called It’s called I was trying to figure it out.
As pure faith. Pure faith or Pure faith. Pure faith. So, you know, this is generated by remembering, by seeing all the great qualities of the Buddha. When one develops this pure faith, it’s kind of happiness or joy in these qualities.
Then after cultivating and thinking about these qualities, for example, the body, speech and mind of the Buddha, one having confidence that he has in his qualities, one develops a believing faith. And then after that, one develops the one seeks to gain these qualities for oneself. Then so this seeking to gain these qualities of the Buddha for oneself is aspiring faith, or wishing faith. That’s wishing faith or aspiring faith. So, there is a need to go for refuge to free ourselves from fear, but merely the freeing ourselves from our fear is not the main need for going for refuge.
The main need for going for refuge is to realize the Three Jewels within ourselves. So the Buddha is gone for refuge too because he is the shower of the way or the teacher of the way of what is to be practiced, what is to be cultivated, and that which is to be avoided or abandoned. Therefore, we go for refuge to the Buddha as the shower of the way. So, an unerring teacher or a source of an unerring teacher showing exactly what is to be abandoned. Except for the Buddha, there is no unerring teacher who has shown exactly what is to be cultivated and what is to be abandoned.
The second object of refuge is the Dharma refuge. Dharma refuge, through practicing the Dharma, we are able to eliminate all thoughts and able to develop all excellent qualities, including the qualities of a Buddha. So what is the way of going for and how do we actually go for refuge to the Dharma? We go for refuge to the Dharma by practicing the Dharma, just as the Buddha practiced. So, the way of practicing Dharma is we don’t we don’t rely on our own opinions, but we rely on the teachings of the Buddha.
Because we don’t know unerringly what is to be cultivated and what is to be abandoned. Whereas the Buddha knows unerringly what exactly is to be cultivated and what is to be abandoned, therefore we should rely on him and have belief in his teachings. Since we don’t know unerringly what is to be practiced and what is to be abandoned, if we rely on our own opinions, then we can make mistakes. If we rely on practices, if we meditate, cultivate practices which the Buddha didn’t teach, then these practices will not eliminate our faults. But in fact, they will act as a cause to extend for us to continue in cyclic existence.
So the third object of refuge is the jewel of the spiritual community. Who is the or the Sangha. Who is the Sangha? Is whoever is practicing the Buddha Dharma and has attained the direct perception of emptiness. So the way of going for refuge to the Sangha, the spiritual community, is that taking them as an example of the way to practice, we take them as a way, as an example and try to emulate, try to practice in the same way that the spiritual community is practicing.
With respect to the Dharma refuge, the actual Dharma refuge are true cessation and true paths. True cessation are the cessation of the pacification of all the afflictive emotions. The way we bring this about is the path we use or the methods for attaining the true cessation. We use true paths, the methods for attaining these true cessation. We can also include in true paths all the various practices of the beings of the three capacities, small, middling, and great capacity beings, their various practices.
So, whatever you know, in going for refuge, we’re experiencing, whether happy or whether we’re having suffering, having difficulties, we should always be developing We should always, in our mind, be going for refuge. Whether things are going well or not, we should always be going for refuge. So, you know, in trying to gain realizations, it’s necessary that we create a great deal of positive potential, that we create merit, and also we have to rely on the blessings of the Three Jewels. Without these two factors we’re not going to gain realizations. And without without gaining these realizations, then there’s going to be no end to cyclic existence.
If we actually go for refuge to the Three Jewels from the depths of our hearts, that we develop faith, and we receive the blessings of the Three Jewels, then we will be able to easily subdue our mind, that in our practice we will develop a great deal of courage, a great deal of confidence in our practice. Whatever difficulties we may encounter in our practice, any obstacles, it is through the power of this faith that they can be pacified, they can be eliminated. We should we need to create a great deal of merit, and going for refuge is one way of creating a great deal of merit. Even a simple example, when we are going to eat our food, if before we eat our food, just for we take one minute and remember the excellent qualities of the objects of refuge, and we offer our meal, our food to the objects of refuge. So, if we offer our food, it’s as if we are offering the food to the Buddha himself.
If we can offer the food by thinking that for the benefit of all sentient beings I’m going to eat this food and offer it to the Buddha, then it’s said that we create immeasurable merit or positive energy from this offering. So we can think about who is a Buddha. We really think that as a person who has no faults and has collected, who has attained all the excellent qualities. So, you know, we wherever we want to meditate on the Buddha, it’s whether we can meditate on the Buddha, for example, in front of us, on top of our head, at our heart, and any of these places are acceptable. So by meditating on the Buddha at our heart, we purify a great deal of negative actions, the impressions made by negative actions, and receive the blessings of the Buddha.
So normally, our minds are are impure. So normally we are only looking at garbage things. But at the moment we meditate on the Buddha, during that moment our mind is completely pure. The the the our suffering comes from an impure mind.
You know, as we get more and more acquainted with the pure nature of mind, as we see more and more of the pure nature of our mind, we are going to suffer less and less, and we are going to gain the happiness that we are seeking. By seeing this pure nature of mind, we purify the negative. By having direct perception of the pure nature of mind, we purify the negative mind, and there is no suffering. So, you know, this is a very it’s an easy way to create a great deal of merit. It’s not so difficult.
We shouldn’t just all at once dive into it. Because we haven’t cultivated this method, we haven’t habituated ourselves to it, it seems difficult, but actually it’s quite an easy way to develop a great deal of merit, and that before we eat our food, take a moment and offer the food instead of just diving into it. So we eat often during the day. We also have we can have tea during the day, and we should take these opportunities to make an offering. We can just we don’t have to if you we don’t have to have the appearance of a Buddha, but that’s if we can have the appearance, we can imagine a Buddha before us, that’s even better, and just take these opportunities throughout our day and offer whatever it is, or food or tea, to the Buddha. Likewise, when we go for a walk, we can we see If we go for a walk, example, go to a park and we see some beautiful flowers rather than developing attachment for these flowers, we should take the opportunity to offer these flowers to the Buddha.
So the is the way we think. Our life is determined by our attitude. So, Dharma is the way we are able to turn around, to turn from our attachment to only the happiness of this life, to only the to seeking the pleasures within cyclic existence. And we use the Dharma in order to reverse this process and in order to create the give us positive states of mind. So the way we can do this is, for example, if you see a handsome person, a beautiful person, and you start developing desire attachment, then you can immediately imagine that you’re offering this person to the Buddha, and this will pacify this attachment which was arising.
So in our practice of the Buddhadharma, we’re going to have many obstacles, many difficulties, and therefore it is extremely the way to pacify these is through our refuge. Therefore, taking refuge, going for refuge is extremely important. So, the object of our refuge are the Three Jewels. The cause for going for refuge, that was, we developed faith in the Three Jewels, that they have the power, that they have we develop faith in Three Jewels. The way we develop the faith in the Three Jewels, that is, the causes for actually going for refuge are developed through a development of fear.
The first cause for going for refuge is fear, that is fear of the sufferings of bad migrations and fears of suffering of cyclic existence in general. And so we develop a fear of the future sufferings, but in the second cause for refuge is the development of faith. It is the belief that the Buddhas have the power or the ability to eliminate this fear, and therefore these two factors, the development of fear and the development of faith and belief in the power of the objects of refuge, are the actual causes for going for refuge. So there are different types of refuge. Each of the beings have three levels of capacity.
The being of small capacity their refuge, the being of middling, and great capacity also have their individual refuges. So each of the levels of capacities of beings have their individual refuge. The refuge of the being of small capacity, small scope, is that the objects of refuge have the power to eliminate the sufferings of bad migrations and future rebirths. Therefore, this is their refuge. The being of middling capacity takes this refuge that the objects of refuge have the power to free from the sufferings of all of cyclic existence in general.
And therefore, this is the way he conceives of his refuge. And the being of greatest capacity conceives that the objects of refuge have the power through their compassion, whereby they can eliminate the sufferings of all sentient beings, and this is their refuge. So cannot immediately develop the refuge of the being of greatest capacity. We have to do it in order that we begin cultivating the refuge of the being of small capacity, and then middling capacity, and then great capacity. So what we’ve been talking about So the objects of refuge that we’ve been talking about up to now is the So we’ve been the object of refuge, which has been discussed up to now having these excellent qualities and realizations, are what I refer to as the causal refuge.
That is, the present Buddhas, the present Dharma, and the present spiritual community. But also there is the future objects of refuge, the Three Jewels that we will generate within our own self, within our own mind, and this is referred to as an effect refuge. And this is also our object of refuge. So we should meditate on what are the causes for going for refuge, what are the actual objects of going for refuge, and the various qualities that each of these objects has for making them a reliable source of refuge. Do have questions?
Why doesn’t that happen? So the Buddha has such an ability, but from our side we have to create the conducive conditions for this ability, for this power be completed. For example, milk has the potential to produce butter. Cheese and butter, we can get that from milk. Why doesn’t milk have why don’t we have when we have milk, why don’t we have cheese and butter?
In order to make cheese or butter from milk, we have to churn the milk, or we have to process the milk in order to make cheese. We have to create conducive conditions to bring these effects about. So the Buddha has this ability from his side. From our side, if we complete the necessary conditions, such as developing the faith in the Buddha, and through the power of this faith, correctly engaging in the practices which are to be cultivated and abandoning that which is to be gotten rid of, in one minute we can attain Buddhahood.
Lama, how how do you recommend that we practice the refu the three refuges of the three different types of beings, low beings, middling, and and high being sequentially or in order?
Does that mean each time we take refuge or each time we think of the Buddha, we start, first of all, we realize the importance of, you know, we realize of saving ourselves, for our suffering. And then we consider future suffering, and then we consider everybody else’s suffering. Yeah. Yeah. Like, each time go through those different levels.
Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you do that. Which each each level, which more better your with your mind. It seems selfish to sort of start with your own suffering.
It seems almost, you know, that you should start with your First, stop. First, you stop is better. So, in beginning, we should think about the possibility of our own self. If we die, then immediately, what’s going to happen? We’re going to fall down into a bad migration, hell, etc.
In such a situation, we’re only going to suffer. We can’t even benefit ourselves, let alone benefiting others in such a position. In the beginning, it’s necessary to think about our own future sufferings. So, you know, we have to think about the various negative actions that we are creating, act as causes for taking rebirth and bad migration, and we should develop fear that we have created these bad actions, and that these will have fruition of taking rebirth in bad migrations. And therefore, through this fear, are going to stop creating these negative actions.
Without ceasing our own afflictive emotions, we actually can’t be of benefit to others. Only a person who has actually ended his own afflictive emotions can really benefit others. Meditate for five minutes.