Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this guided meditation on refuge, Thubten Chodron walks students through the conceptual and emotional foundations needed to turn toward the Three Jewels with genuine conviction. She begins by establishing apprehension about cyclic existence—recognizing that death is inevitable and that only our karmic imprints travel with us—which naturally propels the mind to seek protection and guidance. She then outlines the three causes of refuge: cultivating fear of suffering through review of past actions, building confidence in the Buddhas, Dharma, and Sangha by understanding their reliable qualities, and developing compassion for all beings caught in the same predicament. The teaching unfolds the meaning of each Jewel in turn, explaining that Buddhas are fully purified and developed guides, Dharma refers to direct realizations in the minds of noble beings, and Sangha comprises those who have directly perceived emptiness. She illustrates the relationship through a medical analogy: the Buddha is the doctor, Dharma the medicine, and Sangha the nurses. Throughout, the emphasis is on cultivating sincere openness and recognizing that the Buddhas’ compassion reaches equally to all beings at all times, waiting only for us to turn and receive it.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 19 GM.mp3
UUID: da67b7e9-42a1-4023-a34d-d3e429278231
Teacher: Thubten Chodron Guided Med
Collection: Guided Meditation (Thubten Chodron Guided Med)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~1,621
When we recognize that our death is definite, but the time of death is indefinite. And at death time, our body, our possessions, our friends, and relatives don’t count for anything. And that our mind stream goes on alone together with its habits and all the karmic imprints of the actions that we’ve done. When we think about this, we become concerned about where we will be reborn, especially when we look at how we’ve spent our life so far and ask ourselves if we’ve created the cause to receive another precious human life or not. So some apprehension about this may arise in the mind.
And at that time, we seek a refuge. We seek some guidance, some method, a way to direct our mind towards something positive. And so the meditation on refuge follows next. So taking refuge means to entrust our spiritual guidance to the Buddhas, the Dharma, and the Sangha. And by entrusting our guidance in this way, it opens our heart so that we can really hear the teachings in a different way and so that we can appreciate and apply the guidance that is being offered to us.
So taking refuge is a gradual process that develops over time. Our refuge increases the more we practice. And so to develop and increase our refuge depends on creating the causes for refuge. So the first cause of refuge is some apprehension about the possibility of suffering in the future. And so this comes from asking ourselves if we’ve created the cause for precious human life or not.
It comes from reviewing our actions and beginning to understand what actions are constructive and what are destructive. And when we see that we’ve put a lot of negative imprint on our mind stream in spite of our wish to be happy, then we may have a sense of dread or apprehension for the future. And this wisdom that recognizes danger actually propels us to find a solution to prevent it. So try and develop that sense of caution or apprehension about the future that will propel you in a good way to seek a solution by taking refuge. Another cause of refuge is developing confidence in the ability of the Three Jewels to guide us from this suffering.
And so here we think a little bit about the qualities of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha so that we have a sense of faith or confidence in their ability to guide us and in the fact that they are compassionate, wise, and skillful, and have the proper method to guide us to happiness. And then also to create the cause of refuge, we try and develop compassion for other sentient beings who experience the same problems as we do. And the more we have compassion for them and want to help them, then again, we want to seek a method to train our mind to make ourselves more capable of being of benefit. And so this compassion also turns us to take refuge in the triple gem. Before we actually take refuge, it’s important that we know what we’re taking refuge in.
Buddhism isn’t blind faith, but it’s based on knowledge and understanding. So the Buddhas that we take refuge in are any beings who have eliminated all the defilements from their mind streams. So all the ignorance, anger, attachment, self preoccupation has been completely purified so that it will never arise again. And the Buddha is also somebody who has developed all their good qualities to the fullest. So all the wisdom, compassion, love, generosity, joy, all the good qualities that we want to develop have been completed at the stage of Buddhahood.
So Buddhas are reliable guides because they’ve purified their minds completely and developed their qualities completely. Therefore, it’s possible to trust our spiritual guidance to them. And the Dharma is the actual refuge. So the Dharma refers to the last two of the four noble truths, true cessation and true paths. So the true paths are all the realizations in the mind stream of a noble one, somebody who has realized emptiness directly.
And the true cessation, so all the stoppages of the various disturbing attitudes and defilements that those noble ones have. So we take refuge in these realizations in the mind streams of others so that we can develop these same realizations in our own mind stream. And we also take refuge in the Sangha. And here, the Sangha that is the object of refuge is any person, monastic or lay, who has perceived emptiness directly, who knows the nature of reality from their own direct experience. So this person is a reliable guide who can also lead us to that same realization.
And then the question arises, how do we relate to the triple gem? So here, an analogy is very helpful. We take the analogy of somebody who is sick, who goes to the doctor to be diagnosed and to receive a prescription, who then goes and gets the medicine and takes the medicine with the help and support of nurses. And thereby, that person can recover from their illness. So in the analogy, we’re like the sick people.
We’re suffering from the disturbing attitudes and our karma and all the various problems we experience again and again in cyclic existence. And we really want to be happy. We want to be well. So we go to the Buddha who is like the doctor. And the Buddha diagnoses our disease and sees that it’s caused from the disturbing attitudes and karma and so prescribes the medicine of the Dharma.
So the Buddha will give us the teachings, show us the way to practice. But just as the patient needs to actually take the medicine, we need to actually practice the Dharma. Just having the Dharma won’t cure us from our suffering just as a patient won’t recover simply by having the medicine and keeping it on their nightstand. But sometimes the patient needs some encouragement to take the medicine. They need to understand the instructions better and to know how to do it.
And the nurse provides that guidance. So in a similar way, as we start to practice, we may need some fine tuning in our practice, some encouragement, some additional guidance. And so we turn to the sangha who are like the nurses who provide that for us and enable our practice to go ahead smoothly. So think about that example. Try and have the attitude of a person who’s suffering from an illness and wants to recover.
And try approaching the objects of refuge with that kind of attitude, that sincerity, that humility, that openness to follow instructions and to recover. Knowing why the Buddhas are suitable guides enhances our faith. And so here we can consider that the Buddhas are free from the extremes of cyclic existence and self complacent peace. So a Buddha is free from all the disturbing attitudes and karma that cause cyclic existence. And, also, the Buddha is free from attaining liberation simply for his own welfare.
So the Buddha has the wisdom that frees them from cyclic existence and the compassion that frees them from being self complacent in their liberation. And so thus the Buddhas can work limitlessly for the benefit of all living beings. And when we think about that, it helps us develop a lot of confidence and faith in the Buddhas. In addition, the Buddhas are very skillful, and they have the effective means to free us from all of our fear. So even beings in the past with incredible attachment, incredible ignorance, or overwhelming anger and hatred, Śākyamūni Buddha was able to guide those people to liberation during that very lifetime.
So if the Buddhas have the skill to help people who are so extreme like that, then they certainly are able to guide us. In addition, the Buddhas have equal compassion for everybody regardless of whether we have faith in them or not. So the Buddha’s willingness to reach out and help us doesn’t depend on whether we have faith or make offerings. The Buddhas all the time are trying to help us. Whether we can receive it or not, of course, depends on our state of mind.
But from the Buddhas’ side, they’re always reaching out, trying to guide and help. And the Buddhas fulfill the aims of all the beings whether or not those beings have helped them or not. So this shows that the Buddhas don’t play favorites. It’s not that they help some people and don’t help others. It’s not that they help us when we behave properly and don’t help us when we don’t.
But from the side of the Buddhas, their compassion goes out equally to every living being. And so when we think deeply about this, it really gives us a feeling of being supported by the Buddhas, of knowing that their guidance is always there as soon as we turn our minds to receive it and follow it. And so in conclusion, when we meditate on refuge, our heart begins to open. We develop a lot of receptivity and warmth towards receiving the teachings. We become eager to practice.
We feel that there’s some sustenance in the universe that we’re not all alone in some cold, impartial world, but that there’s lots of beings around who really look out for our welfare and are trying to help us and show us the path to liberation. So this makes us feel encouraged, and it makes us have some faith in our own potential. And it invigorates us to actualize that potential. So try and generate those feelings.