The Three Refuges and The Threefold Training
All of us want to be happy, but real happiness is very
difficult to find and even harder to keep. Too often our efforts
to find complete and lasting fulfillment are frustrated, and we
often wonder why we are unable to be the kind of people that we
want to be and to realize our dreams. Of course, even if we
succeed in finding happiness and keeping it, the day will
inevitably come when we will have to relinquish everything due to
old age, sickness and death. 2,500 years ago an Indian prince
named Siddhartha Gautama reflected upon these things. He realized
that the luxurious life he had been living and the promise of
even greater worldly power would not be able to help him find the
answer to the problem of finding a real and lasting happiness,
and breaking through the barrier of mortality. In order to find
the answer to this problem, he left the palace and lived as an
ascetic for six years, leading a life of self-denial in order to
discover the eternal bliss that his previous life of
self-indulgence was unable to reveal to him. In the end he found
that self-denial was not the answer, just as self-indulgence was
not the answer. He discovered the Middle Way that transcended
both, the Middle Way of setting aside the self and seeing life
clearly just as it is.
Once Siddhartha Gautama realized the futility of self-indulgence
and self-denial, he sat beneath a wild fig tree (a tree that
would later be known as the Bodhi Tree - the Tree of Awakening)
determined not to get up until he had seen for himself the truth
about life and death. So there he sat and through the night he
reviewed his life, and with a mind refined and strengthened
through the past six years of ascetic discipline and yogic
concentration he was even able to review all of his past lives
and the past lives of others. He traced the web of cause and
effect that led people to unknowingly create their own destinies.
Probing even deeper, he further realized the selfless nature of
all things. He saw that all beings, all phenomena, arise in
accordance with causes and conditions. All things are links in a
vast universal network of causes and effects. All that exists,
exists as a brief expression of a dynamic and interdependent
process that is the true reality of all things. This vast network
of causation was like a huge net that covered the universe, and
every person, every animal, fish, insect, plant, rock, cloud or
anything else one could think of were all gems hanging in the
knots of the net - each reflecting the whole and each reflected
by the whole. Upon attaining this insight, Siddhartha Gautama
woke up from the dream of being a separate self with all of its
suffering, vulnerability and inevitable demise. Now he was
liberated, awake, enlightened. From that moment on he was the
Buddha, which means “the one who is awake.” He would
also be called Shakyamuni, which means “Sage of the Shakya
Clan.”
At first, Shakyamuni Buddha was not sure that he would ever be
able to share with others the vision of life’s true nature
that he had awakened to. He knew that words could never do it
justice. Fortunately for us, the Buddha has the compassion and
the ability to try anyway, to use words to lead people beyond
words. At first he would have to explain what he had realized in
very practical terms. So he explained it in terms of Dependent
Origination. This is the idea that all things originate in
dependence upon causes. At its simplest and most abstract, this
means that if you have one thing, it will give rise to another;
and without the one, you will not have the other. This law of
cause and effect essentially means that we all reap what we sow.
If you have apple seeds you will get apples, if you plant weeds,
you will get weeds. If you do not have apple seeds, then you can
not grow apples, and if you uproot the weeds, they will not choke
your garden. In the same way, our lives are like fields and if we
sow seeds of greed, anger and ignorance - then we will reap all
manner of loss, violence and confusion. On the other hand, if we
sow loving-kindness, compassion, joy and peace - then we will
reap good fortune and kindness. Of course, life is not this
simple, and the law of cause and effect works itself out over the
course of lifetimes according to Shakyamuni Buddha. Still, the
underlying truth is that life is made up of causes and their
corresponding effects, so we need to recognize this and work with
it instead of ignoring it and bringing about our own suffering.
Now this was a new way of thinking to many people. Even today,
people tend to think that life is either random and meaningless;
controlled by impersonal forces of fate or destiny; or by an
inscrutable but personal God. In opposition to these ideas, the
Buddha taught that we ourselves create our own happiness or
misery through the causes we have set in motion. The Buddha
taught, “If you want to know what you did in the past,
observe the conditions of your present life; and if you want to
know how you will end up in the future, observe what you are
doing in the present.” The Buddha's Four Noble Truths were a
specific application of this law that he taught in order to help
people understand what they needed to do to free themselves from
the chains of cause and effect forged in ignorance of this law.
The first noble truth is that life is full of suffering - because
we rarely get what we desire and inevitably lose what we can
attain. The second noble truth is that suffering is the effect of
craving for what we can not have and the ignorance that prevents
us from seeing this. The third noble truth is that suffering can
cease. This is the liberation known in Buddhism as nirvana, which
is a word that means “to blow out.” Specifically, it is
the flames of greed, anger, and ignorance and the suffering that
they cause which are blown out or extinguished. The fourth noble
truth is the eightfold path which the cause that leads to the
liberation from suffering.
The eightfold path consists of right views, right intentions,
right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right
mindfulness, and right concentration. I will not go into each of
the eight here. To simplify things, I will explain them in terms
of the threefold training of discipline, meditation, and wisdom.
Discipline means that we refrain from killing, stealing, sexual
misconduct, lying, abusive language, divisive speech, or
gossiping, and those forms of livelihood which depend on such
things. Instead, we should try to assist others and treat them
with love and kindness. Meditation means that we should control
not just our actions but our minds as well. Instead of a
wandering and distracted mind, or a rigid and narrow mind, we
should cultivate a mind that is strong, open and generous, and
which is able to concentrates on what is going on around us and
within us in order to discern truth from falsehood. Finally,
through cultivating self-discipline and meditation we are able to
see the truth about life. We are able to see that the impermanent
self and those things outside itself which are equally
impermanent are incapable of bringing us lasting satisfaction.
Through wisdom we are able to gain the perspective we need to let
go of our false dependence upon the self and the world. In doing
this, there is liberation, freedom, and joy. In doing this we are
able to enter into a new relationship with ourselves, with
others, and with the world. A new relationship that is not
spoiled by false expectations but is instead characterized by
creativity, compassion, and a selfless giving of oneself to all
of life. This threefold training, which is the eightfold path, is
the way whereby we can live in accord with the law of cause and
effect by refraining from bad causes, by making good causes and
by purifying our minds.
Since the time that Shakyamuni Buddha taught dependent
origination and the four noble truths, those who have been
inspired by the insight and practicality of these teachings have
shown their confidence and willingness to follow the threefold
training by taking the threefold refuge. The threefold refuge
consists in affirming the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha as
the three treasures which can enable us to free ourselves from
suffering and to find real happiness for ourselves and others. In
taking refuge in the Buddha, we are affirming that it is indeed
possible for a human being to awaken to the truth about life and
to find real happiness, and that if Shakyamuni Buddha was able to
do it, then so can we. In taking refuge in the Dharma (the
Buddha’s teaching) we are affirming that what the Buddha
taught is indeed based upon his direct insight into the truth and
that it will enable us to see the truth for ourselves as well. In
taking refuge in the Sangha (the community that upholds the
Buddha’s teaching) we are affirming that these teachings
have been passed down as part of a living tradition which has
upheld and lived these teachings and that now we can become a
part of that living tradition ourselves.
Here at the San Jose Nichiren Buddhist Temple, we have also taken
refuge in the three treasures and we strive to uphold the
threefold training. It is our intention to share the three
treasures with others and to help all who wish to follow the
threefold training. What I have spoken of so far is true for all
Buddhists, but Nichiren Buddhism specifically trusts in the final
and ultimate teaching of the Buddha as taught in the Lotus
Sutra and as passed on to us and exemplified by Nichiren
Shonin, a monk and religious reformer in the 13th century in
Japan. The Lotus Sutra taught two very important
teachings, which we can take confidence in as we try to follow
the Buddha’s teachings. The first is that all people
(actually all beings - but that is another topic), whatever their
capabilities or background, have the Buddha-nature within them.
In other words, all people have the ability to wake up to the
truth and attain liberation just as the Buddha did. The second is
that the Buddha’s enlightened life is not confined to the
past, but is an integral part of reality itself regardless of
time and place. The Buddha’s enlightenment is also our own
enlightenment, and when the barriers of self-consciousness and
doubt are dropped, we will realize that Buddhahood transcends
birth and death, self and other. It is the non-dual reality of
the dynamic and interdependent nature of all things that
Shakyamuni Buddha awakened to as he sat beneath the Bodhi Tree.
In Nichiren Buddhism, we realize that this insight is not the
product of intellectual speculation, or moral perfection, or any
act of self-sacrifice. It arises simply through faith. Not faith
as blind belief, but faith as confidence and trust in the true
nature of reality - confidence and trust that what the Buddha
taught in the Lotus Sutra was true and that his
awakening is also our own awakening - our own true nature. That
is why we chant Namu Myoho Renge Kyo - “I take
refuge in the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Flower
Teaching.” This simple but profound phrase is an expression
of the awakening in our lives which allows us to truly realize
the greatness of the three treasures and fulfill the threefold
training - not in order to attain awakening, but to express an
awakening which is already the deepest but until now unrecognized
truth of our lives.
|
