Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 59-minute talk, Ven Wendy Finster introduces the Buddhist path of refuge and explores what it means to take refuge in the Three Jewels—Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. She clarifies that refuge ultimately means recognising our own potential for realisation within ourselves. Finster then shifts to the practical groundwork of Buddhist practice: taking the five lay precepts (non-killing, non-stealing, non-lying, non-sexual misconduct, and avoiding intoxicants), explaining how each precept functions and why intoxication is considered most damaging to meditative clarity. Using her own experience with mosquitoes, she illustrates how taking a vow creates mindfulness and gradually transforms behaviour, not through guilt but through sustained awareness. She concludes with the four opponent powers—methods for purifying broken vows—and warns against using precepts as a guilt trip. Pitched at newcomers exploring formal Buddhist commitment.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Refuge talk tape 1.mp3
UUID: f9235de7-5955-41c1-8991-0ea840c37c73
Teacher: Ven Wendy Finster
Collection: Refuge Talk – no date (Ven Wendy Finster)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 59.2 minutes
Words: ~2,382
First, can I talk about refuge? Basically, we’re talking about taking refuge as a non-being. The word Buddhist basically means a non-being, refuge in what’s called the triple gem or the Three Jewels. The okay. That’s just generally become Buddhist. When we start specifically looking at what is it that we take refuge in, after we have recognized that we are, in reality, taking refuge in our own potential, we are recognizing that within ourselves lies the key to understanding both Absolute and relative Dharma.
The Dharma is these are Sanskrit words, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, actually. So the the so the Sanskrit words, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Dharma is the word which means the path. The absolute Sangha, the Sangha again is a word, Sanskrit word, and generally means community. Absolute Sangha is any person who has attained realization of emptiness. One person.
The relative Sangha. You only need one person to be regarded as having attained absolute truth. So if they can guide, you know, they can include that. If you if you’re starting to look traditionally at how the word Sangha has been used, traditionally, one means four monks for Sangha, In practice, it is impossible for I think healthy skepticism is very good. I think that don’t know. There’s no reason I would expect that they would have valid things mixed with invalid things in in the scripture.
But you just leave it. Because there are times, particularly in deeper studies of the wisdom, that you come across concepts and and thoughts and ideas, which are really hard to handle. And the best way of handling that is to just not not necessarily The thing is that in within that ceremony, the same with the precept ceremony, it it’s it’s something within you. It’s something within you.
At the same point, there is a power that comes from the from the the teacher that conjoins. So there’s a the teacher difference between making a decision yourself and actually taking a vow because at that point, there is a power of your own intention. It’s actually a commitment to the Buddhist life. Yes. It’s guidance in a systematic way in unraveling that system within yourself.
Could be very odd. No. Could Not tricky. A bit here and a bit there. What did you say?
A bit of this and a bit of that. And, again, there’s nothing wrong with that if that’s the way you choose to be. In terms of the process of development, it’s not so fast. It’s a matter of making a commitment and once one makes a commitment, once one practices generally, anyone who has made a true commitment within obviously, the best the best offering is a pure body speech and mind. Right?
That’s that’s the ultimate offering. Right? And the the only offering which any any any teacher would be interested in in terms of of yourself as a practitioner would be the offering of your practice. That’s the ultimate offering to the offering of your the sincerity and and and the work, the energy of your practice. Now in terms of the relative, anything, you know, flowers, food, anything.
Just anything that you see is is relatively useful and beautiful. So usually, maybe even just some So, usually, the object that you’re offering at all. It’s actually symbolic of itself, and it’s got nothing to do with the privileges you’re offering. It’s actually the best offers are usually the ones you must attach to because of tears. When you do the mandala offering, Okay.
Presets. Yes, Sheila. He’s going to offer the five lay precepts. I’m not so I’ll just read read to go through what they are. So you’ll know.
I guess you make every attempt to try and find out who belongs to and then offer it to someone else. I don’t know. It’s basically you you you you see what each of these are set up for to stop you. Killings not to kill, not to steal. Next one’s lying.
Lying. And definition of that would be of when we consciously attempt to change another person’s mind to So it’s to change another person’s mind through your own action or body of speech to for them to believe something which is not what counts. And in terms of this precept, it’s defined as having sexual intercourse with a person who is committed to another person or if you are committed to another person in marriage or another commitment having intercourse with a friend. Level of energy commitment that you’ve initiated. And then the fifth one is the way that people have nice trouble with is intoxicants.
So it’s not to take any intoxicants. And I mean, toxicant is something, I guess, drugs or alcohol, which clouds the mind. And generally speaking, it opposes, it counteracts the clarity and the awareness which we attain through meditation. So that if we are sincerely striving along on the path and practicing, but yet also cloud the mind with intoxicants. We are counteracting everything that we’re doing in our meditative practice by using intoxicants.
It’s said that actually this is the worst out of all those five. This this this this one. The reason is that if you get intoxicated, you can do the other four. So basically, your mind’s out of control. Okay.
That’s just a brief definition of what the five precepts are. And one takes those precepts. One can take any one of them. You can take well, basically, you’ve got to take the first one to take the initiation. Yeah.
But you won’t kill them consciously. Yeah. But you won’t kill consciously. You can take any number of those precepts. You can take one, two, three, four, or five according to what you feel would be useful.
In this Tibetan system, the taking of vows is regarded as a way of assisting our own practice. So if there is one particular area that we feel that we want added strength and energy to work on, then the way to help us do that is to take a vow. Then automatic thing to say is yes, I’m going to There’s no need to take vows if you want to go home. The purpose of using vows is as an added strength of mindfulness and of energy to counteract a decision that you’ve already taken that you don’t want to do such and such. And then you find that that energy of taking the vow actually helps you gradually get to the point of refraining from doing it.
I’ll give you a nice example. And this again, talking about killing. First time I took the vows, I I used to have a lot of problems with mosquitoes. Mhmm. Mhmm.
That’s right. Now I sincerely really I mean, there’s no way that I could be convinced that it was going to kill anything. So I really wanted to stop there. So I took the vow and I went away to an island for a little bit. I I sort of I was really concerned because I didn’t want to break the vow that I’d taken but it really wasn’t it was all through principle.
It was on principle the vow that I’d taken. It wasn’t in terms of my hand. I was prepared. So what was happening was that I was very aware that by having taken the vow, I was very aware that I was taking a step towards fusing, bringing together my principle and my action, you know, what I really want to do and what I do. And what happened was that the first time I killed a mosquito, I I was shattered.
I I knew that I killed a mosquito. Whereas quite often, you know, I mean, if I hadn’t taken a vow, it’s just a habitual thing like that. So it gave me greater awareness automatically. It was on my mind. I’ve done it now.
So, yeah, there it was. Over a period of must have been a few days, I was very much aware of my behavior in relation to the mosquitoes. And what happened was that gradually, I think I only killed two or three before I got to the point of going like that and stopping and just going like that. And then gradually, getting to the point where I didn’t even want to do it. My hand had stopped automatically doing it, And there wasn’t even this resentment in inside of I wish I could, so I can’t.
So so that I guess that’s been my experience of how the taking of a vow, even though you break it, can help you achieve something you could not do. Now in terms of the Buddhist take taking of vows, it is not meant at all as a guilt trip. In fact, if you are if you are prone to having great guilt trips, be very careful about taking a vows because it’s worse to have a guilty mind because you’re going over and over and over making deeper and deeper impressions of all this negative stuff in mind. The purpose of taking vows is to use them as a technique, as a method for purifying the mind. Transform the mind instead.
If we take vows, it would be very irresponsible then to give vows without giving the means of purifying a breaking of those vows. So it is assumed that the the vows would be broken because, again, if you don’t ever break vows, you don’t need to take them. So the way of the four powers, opponent powers, are in the development of purifying the mind when we find that we have broken a vow. The method is as we’ve been doing in terms of the Śākyamūni Buddha practice. Then a determination a determination to never to not repeat it again. Now if it’s something that you are having a lot of trouble with, let’s say compulsive liar, There’s no point in making a determination at this point of saying I’ll never do it again because you know you will. You haven’t yet got it that habitual way of yet to know your system.
So if you make a it’s not true. You’re sort of trying to, yeah, trying to kid yourself, and it won’t have any effect. So what you do is you say, I won’t do it again for the next hour. Again for the next hour. You you you set yourself a reasonable, you know, attainable proposition.
Right? So that that the determination is the third part, to make a determination to So those four powers, four opponent powers oppose and purify broken vows or what’s called downfalls But remember that they’re not meant for any guilt at all. That’s not the intention. The intention is to help you move towards a state of mind in action. And remember, these are of the body, they could be the most gross.
We start looking at body, speech, mind. When we try to control and purify, the most gross level to do that first is the level of body. Then on after that, the level of speech, and then after that, we start looking at the level of mind. Are you certain in every situation that you wouldn’t do it? You see, the thing is that and, again, as with refuge, it’s a very different energy that’s given to you if you do this.
There is a conjoining of energies, your own energy And that’s the power of the teacher and the power of somebody who is already keeping those vows purely, somebody who is already keeping those vows purely, as opposed to somebody who is not keeping those vows purely. And there is a much, much stronger energy put into your mind strength by doing that than not doing it anymore. That’s for sure. And I don’t know the words to explain that. You decide that the Buddhist system is is your own principle.
But, of course, you get lots of you can get lots of ideas and and and energy from reading other books on it and doing other things and incorporating know. Yeah. Course. Yeah. Yeah.
No. It’s basically to stop the wandering mind. You know, like a supermarket. It’s sort of spiritual supermarket. You see what the ego does, basically, it’s all about delaying any of the systems, the valid systems that there are in spiritual development are all designed to counteract egocentric and this conceptual view of self belonging and that sort of stuff.
Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s great stuff. Lots lots to talk about to different people. You know? But will you end up with a clear path?
So it’s that it’s that kind of concept in in in terms of of what you wanna do and what you decided to do. But in terms of other things, perhaps you can talk to Will because he’s had recent experience with this. No. Two nights in.. An accident.
Yeah. So it’s a matter of being mindful and and trying to I mean, in Yes. That’s another heavy one. Usually, what my teachers say to that question is if you know for sure by killing it that it’s gonna go to a high rebirth, kill it. If you’re not certain.
Well, you’ve tried to leave pain. That’s what they say. Because, you see, it’s related to karma, in terms of how our life is connected at the moment with this body. My life is connected with this form. At the time of my conception, the length of that connection was determined according to my past karma.
If we want to transfer this kind of analogy to another one, see on the road. If we if if I’m if my life is taken before the the the karmic energy which propelled me to experience that has been finished, exhausted, then that has still been that has still gotta be experienced. Yeah. Yeah. In a in a in a suffering situation.
You see, the thing is, like, basically the answer to that, as I’ve always heard it from my teachers, is because of those intricate, profound levels of karmic law, if you’re an advanced being and can see the clarity that that Well, euthanasia is really I mean, it’s really euthanasia whether you