Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute evening teaching, Ven Margaret McAndrew establishes reliable refuge by examining the specific qualities of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. She explains the two conditions for genuine refuge—fear of saṃsāra and trust in the Three Jewels—then systematically explores Buddha’s nature: his Four Kayas, his continuous manifestation in forms suited to guide each being, his omniscient understanding, measureless compassion, and effortless activity. She grounds this not as mysticism but as verifiable through understanding how Buddha’s teachings arise from enlightenment. She covers Dharma teachings and the Ārya Sangha as reliable guides, then concludes with practical instructions: reciting refuge prayers daily and respectfully handling dharma books and Buddhist images. For those beginning or deepening formal refuge practice.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 06 D and R 1999 08 12.mp3
UUID: ea393617-9ed7-4cc2-895c-ada7a2f85573
Teacher: Ven Margaret McAndrew
Collection: Evening with V M McAndrew (Ven Margaret McAndrew)
Date: 1999-08-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.5 minutes
Words: ~5,523
We need help to avoid these unwanted results and the, and also as we continue to find increasing happiness and eventually liberation. Liberation. So what we’re looking for is a person or a method that can be relied on, that will enable us to help help ourselves to get out of this situation. So we’re looking for qualities that we can rely on. And what we need is a system of thought that can explain our present condition and its causes our present condition of being in Samsāra in danger of falling into the lower realms.
I mean, not just our our present life, but our our our situation of not being safe from being cycling through all the different realms of Samsāra. And we have to look understand the causes and how to prepare for the future so that we bring about good causes. And as we’re following Buddhism, then we find that the three objects that we can rely on together are the the Buddha and his teachings, the Dharma, and the great followers, the Sangha, particularly the aryasangha. So in order to take refuge properly, effectively, effectively, we need to have two causes. And the first cause that we need to have is fear of suffering of saṃsāra, the general sufferings of saṃsāra, and particularly the suffering of the lower realms.
And so we’ve been cultivating that cause within ourselves by the previous meditations on death, of of suffering of of the of having the perfect qualities that are needed to help us to avoid these kinds of suffering. So the next topic is concerned with enabling us to have this second cause for refuge, the trust in the Three Jewels of refuge, the conviction that the Three Jewels of refuge can save us from this suffering. And there can also be a third cause for refuge. If you’re following the Mahāyāna tradition, then the thought of bodhicitta or the thought of wanting to save not only ourselves individually but other beings also from the sufferings of saṃsāra becomes a cause for refuge. And this makes refuge Mahāyāna refuge.
Refuge doesn’t necessarily have to belong to Mahāyāna Buddhism. All Buddhists have to take refuge as the basis for all Buddhist practice. And when we’re looking at the graduated path, refuge comes in the first section, the small scope. So as it’s explained in that section, the focus is mainly on the need to avoid the suffering of the lower realms. But in fact, we need to take refuge with the thought of attaining liberation from the whole of Samsāra.
And this is the foundation for all our Dharma practice and whatever level we’re practicing at. This taking of refuge is the the thing that differentiates Buddhists from non Buddhists. The the Tibetan word for Buddhist is, that means inner being or or literally, it means insider because Buddhists focus on inner methods, on purifying the mind, whereas the the Hindus focused on external methods such as bathing in the gang Ganga to purify their negativities. And according to Buddha, these methods can’t purify the mind. We have to do the we have to follow the practices set out by Buddha in order to effectively purify our mind of the negativities that cause our suffering.
Well, no. No. I can’t remember. I don’t I I go to jokes. Go to make a joke about spelling, like, something like or something.
But I don’t know. But it’s in in English, you could spell it in a n g. I’m not sure. I mean, if you wanted to really transliterate it, there might be extra letters in there that are silent. And I I don’t know about that.
But phonetically, it’s n a n g p a. So I had a thought here that in actual fact, a lot of Westerners like myself first came to dharma to see what it could do for us in this life. And, you know, we see so much suffering, we experience a lot of suffering in our lives, so we really start looking for Dharma to help us with that. But in actual fact, refuge isn’t complete until you start thinking about future lives and taking into consideration how you’re going to go into your future lives and meet them. Anyway, any questions?
So when we are meditating on the qualities of the Three Jewels of refuge, most of the explanation is set out in terms of the qualities of Buddha because it’s by looking at the qualities of Buddha that we can judge the validity of his teachings. If somebody was to tell us that they had wonderful methods for attaining happiness such as what was his name? Who taught Scientology? Yes. L. Ron Hubbard.
So you’d have to look at Ronald Hubbard. If he’s claiming to teach you how to get rid of your sufferings, then you’d have to look at whether Ronald Hubbard has actually overcome suffering himself, and I wouldn’t know about that. But anyway, the point is that we’re looking at the qualities of Buddha and the qualities that have been explained about Buddha in the teachings, and we’re looking for somebody who has actually, in themselves, gained very special qualities gone beyond the human limitations of our human existence. So also, of course, we’re looking at those who follow what Buddha taught because that shows that these teachings actually are workable. But looking at the qualities of Buddha, we see then that the path was taught by somebody who did have the valid qualities to show us his path, having found it himself, having actualized it in his own life, in his own mind stream, then we can understand that he can teach this path to others.
Because enlightenment actually involves omniscient understanding of everything, everything that can be known. Such a person has the qualities to guide us. So the Dharma was taught by Buddha, the Dharma is the actual refuge. So it’s the Dharma that actually releases us from our suffering. If Buddha hadn’t taught the Dharma, if Buddha had achieved enlightenment for himself but had remained silent, then we wouldn’t be able to achieve liberation.
And so the Dharma is the actual refuge. And then we have the Sangha also, those who show us, who help to guide us on the path after having themselves achieve the higher levels of the path. So, Dharma the path is eternal, always existing, but as the knowledge existing in the minds of beings of how to follow that path, it has to be shown by Buddhas. And for us in this world, in this historical era, it was Śākyamūni Buddha who showed us the path. So it’s said that he turned the wheel of Dharma at Sarnath.
And so those who have made great progress on the path can guide others, others, and particularly ārya beings, those who have gained direct insight into the absolute truth, can be reliable guides because they can teach us the means that we need to acquire in order to attain liberation by releasing ourselves from the deluded mental states. They can teach us how to attain this meditation ourselves. And so these beings are the Ārya Sangha, whether they’re monks or nuns or laymen and women, they are Ārya Asaṇga if they have attained this exalted state. And so Buddha is totally So these Ārya beings have released themselves from the delusions, the deluded mental states. And Buddha is totally released from both the delusions and from the subtle illusions, the subtle dualistic view, which is an obstacle to omniscience.
So Buddhas have these wonderful qualities, and we can look at Buddha’s qualities by checking in various ways. When we come to meditate, one way that we meditate on the qualities of Buddha is the four kayas, looking at what’s called the four kayas of Buddha. So I won’t go into this in detail now, I’ll leave that for a later teaching. But just in brief, it can be said that Buddha has four bodies or kayas. So two of those kayas are actually mental.
And these are the or wisdom truth body, it’s sometimes called. And there’s also the Dharma body or the the dharmakaya. Or the the sorry. It’s a little bit okay. I can’t remember actually how how does the gentleman do you remember that Diana?
How he who’s interest body? Nay nature body, I think it’s sometimes yes. Svabhavakaya is nature body, and dhammakaya is sometimes translated as truth body or wisdom truth body. But, anyway, these two kayas are the Svabhavakaya is particularly associated with the clear light nature of Buddha’s mind, And dharmakaya is Buddha’s omniscient wisdom. And then we have the sambhogakaya or the the enjoyment body, and we have the Nirmānakāya or emanation body.
And these are form bodies. But in actual fact, you can’t separate these from one another. So the Nirmana kaya the so the Sambhogakāya, first of all, the enjoyment body, is a special form of Buddha that appears only to bodhisattvas and which resides in pure lands. And the Nirmānakāya is the form of Buddha that appears in our world to show sentient beings the path and which appears to ordinary sentient beings of good karma. And so for us, Śākyamūni Buddha represents the Nirmānakāya.
And the Nirmānakāya is particularly important to us as it doesn’t only refer to Śākyamūni Buddha himself in that particular form, of that particular physical manifestation, but also to also that all the Buddhas are continually manifesting emanations of various various kinds of appearance. For instance, statues and tankas are considered as Nirmānakāya and visualizations when we visualize Buddha. The Buddhas are also manifesting in forms that appear to be ordinary beings or inanimate objects. There’s some question as to whether these emanations and Nirmānakāya sometimes it’s considered that these emanations, as ordinary beings, are not actually considered as Nirmānakāya but just as emanations, but that’s a technical point. There are also certain skilled craftsmen that are considered to be Nirmānakāya.
For instance, the story of Buddha emanating in the form of a very skilled musician in order to humble the pride of a very proud musician who is so proud of his playing, that his pride was preventing him from listening to the teachings. And so Buddha appeared as a guitarist or played some sort of stringed instrument so that this man’s pride was totally humbled. And so he was able to then to take the teachings in. So, anyway, this is a very important point because it’s through these emanations that the Buddhas are always reaching us, and we should see our own teachers as being emanations as Buddha. Yes.
Well, Khensur Rinpoche is definitely an emanation of Buddha. So Buddha is holy and also, of course, we should try to practice all sentient beings as being emanations of Buddha because or at least as being possible emanations of Buddha because, in fact, we don’t know which of them could be emanations of Buddha and which ones are not. And in fact, if we start looking at center of beings as Buddha, then we can find that we can receive teachings from all sorts of sentient beings and even inanimate objects. If we have some sort of with some sort of interesting encounter with some sort of inanimate object, that could be a Buddha manifesting in some way. That’s yes.
That was Asaṇga and Maitreya Buddha. Yes. And Asaṇga couldn’t see him as Maitreya. First of all, he saw him as a dog. And then when he bent over to try to remove the worms with his tongue, he he felt there was you know, he sort of couldn’t reach the dog, so he opened his eyes again, and there there was Maitreya Buddha there.
That was after he’d done a lot of meditation. There’s a long story about it. So, yes, that that story is frequently quoted as the example of how we that we are surrounded by Buddhas, but because of our ordinary view are incapable of recognizing them for what they are. In Buddha’s time, there were quite a number of human beings in the world who were capable of recognizing Buddha, and so he appeared in this world. Later on, the karma of the beings degenerated a little bit, so they were only able to receive the lineage of the teachings, but not to have his direct physical appearance.
Going on to the qualities of Buddha’s holy body, speech and mind, this is another way to meditate. Rūpakāya is sort of term for both the form bodies. Rupakai means form body. And that term is used to include both the enjoyment body in the pure lands and the nimanakai or the emanation body. Yes, that’s the Sambhogakāya.
And also the term of dharmakaya is sometimes used to include both the nature body and the wisdom truth body. Sometimes they talk about two kayas, sometimes they talk about dharmakaya and rupakaya as though there are two ksas. Sometimes they talk about three kayas, And then down the kayas is counted as one, and then they count the two form bodies separately, the emanation, the enjoyment body and emanation body. And sometimes they count four kayas. Yes.
So it just depends. There’s just different ways of counting them up. But if you want to count the most number, then there’s four. But they’re all the same, really. It’s just a way of dividing it up.
Yes. Enjoyment and emanation bodies. Rupa means form. Like when we do the offering, we say, and things like that. You know?
And that’s offering beautiful the the only one the invisible form. But in actual fact, Buddha’s body and mind are not separate. His body is mind and his mind is body. So Buddha’s aren’t like ordinary beings. We have a mind which is formless and is separate from our physical form, which is gross matter and subtle wind and which is sort of, except for the very subtle wind, is left behind at the time of death.
So our body is our mind is associated with the body, but there’s this distinction. But with Buddhist Buddhas, there’s not this distinction. So his body is omniscient also. Anyway, to talk about Buddha’s body, his body is perfectly beautiful, but it’s not made of ordinary matter. It’s not made of atoms.
So it’s a mind body, created out of mind. It might appear to people with a more ordinary type of karma to be a sort of body of ordinary physical form, but it’s not made in that way. And also his mind is body. So Buddhas are able to transform into countless forms, as I already mentioned. And bodhisattvas can do many emanations also, although not as many as Buddha’s.
Buddha’s are totally unlimited in the number of emanations they can do. They can do countless emanations. Bodhisattvas who are getting close to Buddhahood can do an awful lot of emanations. And so at the moment of enlightenment, both the form body and the wisdom body are attained simultaneously. And so at the moment that the mind becomes dharmakaya, all these emanations become emanation bodies.
Before that, they were very fast with emanations, and now they’ve become emanation bodies of Buddha at that very same instant. Thought you might like to know that. Yes. Case you’re wondering whether Buddhists first will become enlightened in the Dhammakaya and then start emanating Nirmānakāya, it’s not like that. In actual fact, they already have their emanations, and the emanations just get transformed into Buddha’s emanations.
So how is time going? We haven’t got time to meditate on that. So I won’t go into a lot of detail on Buddha’s qualities, but we there are he has a lot of qualities that we should think about and study and learn about. And so his body essentially has these qualities. Speech has the quality of being extremely charming, has a very powerful effect on our mind.
When we hear Buddha’s speech, we automatically feel convinced by what they say. You get this with great teachers. You feel that they know totally what they are talking about. When they talk about profound topics such as emptiness, you feel that they are speaking direct and somehow can convey more meaning than just the words. Also, Buddhas only have to speak one word to be understood in any language.
And according to the hearer’s level of mind, one word can answer many, many different questions and things that people need to know. His voice has of bringing great pleasure and peace to the mind, and it releases from greed, hatred, ignorance, suffering. And so these these actually you find some of these qualities in lama speech when when you hear lama speaking is when you hear lama speaking, it’s really special. And then Buddhas have many special qualities of their holy mind. And in particular, they have the qualities of omniscient knowledge or perfect understanding.
So Buddhas understand the totality of both absolute and relative existence. In other words, they understand emptiness perfectly, they have perfect insight into emptiness, and they have omniscient understanding of every possible object of knowledge of the past, present, and future. There’s not a single thing that’s not the object of Buddha’s omniscient mind. And not only that, but they have the special quality of having these special knowledges simultaneously. So they don’t have to go in and out of meditation on emptiness like other beings do.
These other ārya beings, such as ārya bodhisattvas, have to alternate between meditative equipoise on emptiness and their other activities, engaging in conventional activities. But Buddhas can engage in Buddhas can engage in conventional activity, working for the welfare of sentient beings. At the same time, their mind is in total, perfect, meditative, composure on emptiness. And at the same time, perfectly aware of everything that’s going on, even if Bodhisattva can’t do that, a great Bodhisattva. Even an arhat can’t do that.
That’s why arhats can’t be as much help because they choose to remain in the meditative equipoise on emptiness and not to come out of it. So then the other quality, the next quality is compassion, perfect compassion, totally impartial, measureless compassion towards every single sentient being. They have equal the same compassion, love, and care and concern for those beings who are kind to them as those who are who are trying to harm them and who have negative feelings towards them. And this is something that we find very difficult ourselves. But for Buddhists, this is and it’s also infinite.
I mean, there’s not a single thing you’re being that escapes Buddha’s knowledge. So bodhisattvas have great compassion both towards beings who are good towards them and beings who are bad to them, who try to harm them, but their compassion is limited by the number of sentient beings that their consciousness can reach to. But Buddhas are totally unlimited in the number of sentient beings that their consciousness can can reach. So and also they have this great quality of perfect, skillful means of of understanding or of of powerful means. So Buddhists can understand exactly the right means to lead every single sentient being.
Every single sentient being is an individual with their own individual karma who needs to be led specifically in a way that is suited to themselves, sometimes in some very strange ways. And Buddhists can see so they don’t try to apply the one sort of approach to everybody, but they can see what each individual sentient being needs and give them the guidance that they need. And they can emanate in forms that are suitable to guide these sentient beings individually. So they have the powers. So the only thing that limits Buddhas from helping us is our own receptivity to their help.
They have the means on their side. Whenever we are receptive to their help, Buddhas have the means on their side to reach out to us and give us that help. And so by meditating on the qualities of Buddha, by developing this faith and trust, and this understanding of the ways that they can help us, then we can open ourselves up to their help. And so that’s why we need to do this. It’s It’s not just thinking nice thoughts.
It’s actually enabling us to be in contact with this guidance of the Buddhas. Any questions? So I think I sort of lost my place a little bit. So then we have understanding of Dharma. That, yes, the anyway, another point about the actions of Buddha.
The actions of Buddha’s body, speech and mind are essentially the same. The actions of his body are also the the actions of his speech and his mind because there’s no distinction between Buddha’s body, speech, and mind. His body is also his speech and mind, and so on. So these actions are completely intuitive and effortless and unceasing. And Buddha’s actions Buddhists don’t have to put any effort, any sort of pre planning into their actions for others.
They just spontaneously see the need, and instantly, the the action is there without effort. This is their great powers. Other sentient beings have to put some effort in other beings have to put effort into helping others. Bodhisattvas have tremendous qualities. As they develop, they are able to help more and more beings, and the ease with which they can do it becomes greater and greater.
But it’s only at the attainment of Buddhahood that this work for others becomes totally perfect and effortless. So if you feel that there’s so much hard work involved in achieving Buddhahood, there is a lot of hard work involved. But the good news is that when you do achieve Buddhahood, although Buddhas are doing so much work, it’s totally effortless. So you can relax. Buddhists are very relaxed.
In fact, even Bodhisattvas are pretty relaxed. So you don’t have to you you can look forward to becoming a Bodhisattva also. So that was Buddha’s mind. So now we’re up to the qualities of Dharma. Page three.
So all of these qualities anyway might sound a bit strange at first. And we have to reflect on all of these qualities and try to study them and understand them better as we go along. And don’t just think that we’re being asked to take a lot of mystical stuff on blind faith. We need to know about these things, and we have to rely on what we’re taught about Buddha’s qualities. But we need to know about these things so that we can understand Buddha’s qualities and rely on Buddha’s guidance.
And we’re getting into territory that’s outside the scope of the ordinary mundane person here, so we’ll only fully comprehend some of these things as we approach Buddhahood ourselves. But if we can open up our minds to receiving Buddha’s guidance by thinking about these things and developing this trust, then we can actually start to see in our own practice how this receiving this guidance is something that grows in our practice. We can see the results coming into our lives. So it’s something that we can start to have more and more confidence in as we go along. Does this make sense?
You know, if you talk to some of the older students, they all have stories. I haven’t got time to tell a lot of stories tonight, but all the older students will have stories about how they’ve received special guidance at some time, how they’ve receive some sort of special communication perhaps from their teachers or then help in some way that couldn’t be explained just on the ordinary mundane level. So, Dharma, Buddha explained what we need to know, all the things that we need to know in the Four noble truths, what leads us from suffering, the cause of our suffering, the fact that we’re in fact, the the first noble truth is to understand our suffering state, then to understand the cause, then to understand cessation of suffering and how to attain cessation of suffering. So he taught us what we need to know leading to temporal and ultimate happiness, to higher to fortunate rebirth and to liberation and enlightenment. And to start off with the essential point that we need to understand is avoiding negative actions, observing karma, and especially actions that harm others.
And so this is the essential quality of Dharma, is that it is what leads to happiness. And so we will be studying the topic of karma next week, and we will be learning the essential practice of observing karma. And also Sangha, the Ārya Asaṇga, these great beings who can guide us on the path because they have this knowledge from having followed the path themselves and reached at least the level of the path of seeing where they gain this direct insight into into emptiness or into the absolute truth. And so they have this exalted power to guide us. And so we contemplate on the qualities of these Three Jewels of refuge.
And there are also some instructions instructions that we need to carry out when we take refuge. So taking refuge is essentially a state of mind, but we have some instructions to carry out. And also, it’s often considered very beneficial to take the refuge ceremony in front of a Lama. And Khensur Rinpoche will, I think, be possibly giving refuge and precepts on the turning day. In any case, we should check whether this is going to happen.
So keep in touch about what’s actually, I think Becky said something to me today that made me think he is giving refuge in precepts, but I didn’t double check with her. But anyway, from time to time, Khensur Rinpoche does give refuge in the lay precepts on special holidays. So we’ll see whether that’s happening and if anybody is interested in taking this ceremony. But the main thing is to have this attitude of taking refuge in the Three Jewels of refuge in the mind. And if we don’t have that in the mind, then the ceremony doesn’t have any significance.
So first of all, we have to take refuge three times a day when we when we have one of the things is to start the refuge prayer three times a day, or maybe it’s three times in the morning and three times at night. Does anybody remember? I think it might be three times in the morning and three times at night. Yes. Okay.
So I haven’t got up here in front of me. But we also have some other things to observe in terms of respecting representations of the Three Jewels. Statues of the Buddha, whatever material they’re made out of, whether they’re made out of gold or mud, should shouldn’t be should be respected the same as representations of the Buddha. So we shouldn’t say, oh, that’s an ugly statue. I don’t like that one.
I’m going to throw it out. But this one’s beautiful, so I’m going to keep it on my altar. We should respect all statues, particularly those that have been blessed, that have been consecrated. And should they should be kept in a high place and treated as if they were the actual Buddha. Because in this way, they actually make a focal point through which we can make contact with Buddha.
And by making offerings in front of statues of Buddha, it’s the same as making offerings to the actual Nirmānakāya aspect of Buddha. And, also, we shouldn’t put them on the floor or on lower places and so on. The same with Dharma books. Any letters used to explain the teachings, even if it’s just the word Buddha House on an envelope, we should regard that as Dharma teaching and not just throw it in the garbage with other dirty things. If we have to dispose of these materials nowadays, in Tibet, they would always keep any materials with printing words on it and place them in a high place, maybe in the hill somewhere in a cave or something.
But nowadays, we have so much printed material that that’s not practical, so it’s okay to burn it. You should think, there’s some sort of visualization that we should do, anyway, reciting the mantra or some. I think something like thinking that it’s fire offerings to the Buddhas. Does anybody remember that? I did come across an explanation somewhere recently, but I forget exactly what the visualization was.
Right. Yes. That’s right, yes. That’s where I must have seen it. So it’s in Wisdom Books, how to dispose of dharma material.
Yes? We don’t recycle diamond books, but we generally it is okay to recycle printed matter in general. We will prefer to recycle printed matter rather than just throwing it in the garbage. But that seems to be acceptable. Or you can use it to mulch the garden.
But not your dharma material. You should sort out your Dharma books, anything with Dharma, anything anything in it. I I’m always, yes, a little bit wary with newspapers because sometimes nowadays they often have something about Buddhism with them. So I like to scan through and pick these things out. Yes.
Things like yes. You know, you, anything well, here, of course, it’s Buddha House. Everything that comes to it has Buddha House on the envelope. So, you know, you have to even keep your envelope or at least tear out the address. Anything that has, for instance, Khensur Rinpoche’s name or any Dharma, or any sort of Dharma teaching in it, even if it is just one or two words, be if you can be aware of it, pick it out and keep it with your Dharma material to burn.
That’s right. Yes. Yes. Well, I’ve got a way with doing it out in the backyard, you know, container. Yes.
Yes. You have to go. Alright. Don’t forget the tapes. Yes.
So yes. So that’s and also with your dharma books, you shouldn’t put them on the floor, even your own dharma notebooks and so on. Not just the prayer books, but also anything that you write your notes in, anything like that is dharma. Strictly speaking, we shouldn’t even put our books on a sitting cushion without putting a cloth or something underneath to protect the book from the cushion. So it’s a good idea to have book covers or I’ve been looking at I’ve been talking to Christy about getting some material that we could just sew up into little mats so that people can put the mats on their cushions so that if they don’t think of bringing a book cover with them, then they have got something to protect their books from because it’s a bit of a problem here not having little tables or anything to put your books on, then you basically have to put them on something.
And, essentially, these things should be regarded as being a representation of the real Dharma and should be respected as the real Dharma. And we don’t step over them or put other things on top of them. We shouldn’t even put a Buddhist statue on top of a Dharma book because the the book also represents Buddhist speech, and that’s rated higher than the Buddha’s body because it’s the speech that helps us the most. I haven’t well, in Thailand, they’re always very, respectful of any Dharma objects. I don’t know very much about the details of it.
Without the clock. Yes. Well, must be a yeah. Well, it does seem a bit odd, you know, because in yes. I mean, presumably, it’s more of a thing, but it does seem very odd to me that they would actually put it straight on the floor.
Yes. Yes. I don’t know. You’d have to ask if there needs that. No.
Well, you’d have to ask if there you’d have to be careful who you ask or how you ask. And yes. So yes. And if we if we disrespect Dharma teachings also, are creating cause to be ignorant. So one of the great Tibetan teachers said, we have enough ignorance already, no need to create more.
So Sangha, monks and nuns are sort of regarded as representing the real Sangha. So that doesn’t mean we’re anything special, but just that sort of token because the Sangha community doesn’t mean there’s monks and nuns individually are necessary or anything, but the Sangha community is specializing or concentrating on maintaining the continuity of the tradition. And so they’re respected for for for being representatives of the actual Sangha. And also because among the the Ārya Asaṇga, there will be some who are the Ārya Asaṇga. So if you respect the Sangha and its members as being the representative of the Sangha.
But then it’s time I stopped.