I don't know if you've been following the news lately - and no judgment if you haven't as it's pretty hard to take - but last Wednesday there was a killing of a 37 year old woman in Minneapolis named Renee Good by a Federal Agent. As far as anyone can tell from the phone videos the shooting was completely unjustified. And the leaders of our current Federal administration are staying consistent with their recent behavior and blaming the victim and actively subverting justice. So I wanted to name this. Renee Wood was married and the mother of a young child. So a moment of silence for her, for her family and loved ones, for all of those throughout the world struggling under oppression, threat, and violence. The three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion are right in front of us now.
[moment of silence]
I'm continuing on Wednesday evenings at our Dharma Seminar with the texts in our chant book. It's been interesting and felt important to me anyway to spend some real time with the shorter texts too much as I'm also looking forward to taking a fresh look at the Heart Sutra and Dōgen and so on later.
This week I'm on the Triple Refuge which is in our books three times actually. On the bottom of page 2 in the Pali language, written out in English for our morning service call and response with the kokyo and again all together.
Maybe some of you were here in mid December which Desiree gave a talk about the refuges which is well worth listening to if you haven't yet. I especially appreciated her bringing up that felt sense of safety, of being in refuge, in her own experience and her realization that taking refuge is an active thing - that it's a practice of vow and deep commitment.
And I wanted to do some exploring too. The three vows are such an old and central part of our all Buddhisms.
On and a moment of appreciation for our Program Administrator, Annie, who is getting the talks online so very efficiently - both on our website and on our YouTube channel which is so easy for listening/watching on the phone. A bonus on the website is you can also usually find the speaker's notes if it's helpful to read a bit too. My recent talks do have my notes about Chinese translation and stuff including the Chinese characters if you you want to geek out with me.
Here's a verse on taking refuge from a famous early Buddhist teaching poem called the Dhammapada:
They go to many a refuge,
to mountains and forests,
to park and tree shrines:
people threatened with danger.
That's not the secure refuge,
not the supreme refuge,
that's not the refuge,
having gone to which,
you gain release
from all suffering & stress.
But when, having gone
to the Buddha, Dhamma,
& Sangha for refuge,
you see with right discernment
the four noble truths —
stress,
the cause of stress,
the transcending of stress,
& the noble eightfold path,
the way to the stilling of stress:
that's the secure refuge,
that, the supreme refuge,
that is the refuge,
having gone to which,
you gain release
from all suffering & stress.
In the earliest Buddhist teachings it's said that the when the Buddha first formalized the process for ordination he pretty much just had ordainees recite the 3 refuges.
And they would have recited them in a language a lot more like Pali than English. The Buddha is believed to have spoken a language called Prakrit which had different dialects. He spoke the Magadhi form of Prakrit. Pali emerged a few hundred years after the Buddha.
But wow isn't it beautiful chanting the refuges in Pali. I think of some of our sesshin at the Samish Island camp - 40 or 50 of us or more in that tall ceilinged roof singing at the end of a long day of sitting. Out of a day mostly silent the sound of our voices singing that together would touch me so deeply.
The first formal ordination the Buddha did using the three treasures appears to have been with his son Rahula. The son he left behind with his mother when Siddhartha went off to pursue awakening. The scene, as it's depicted in the Pali Canon, is sort of sweet, sort of moving, and sort of disturbing.
Soon after returning home as the Buddha he meets his wife and son, and his father. His son is understandably shy and overwhelmed but his mother, Buddha's wife Yasodhara, urges him forward, telling him: "That is your father, Rahula. Go and ask for your inheritance."
So Rahula musters his courage and goes up and says to the Buddha: "Your shadow is pleasant, monk." What an interesting way to try to connect!
But it doesn't work, the Buddha actually starts to walk away.
And Rahula gets more direct, following behind him insisting, "Give me my inheritance, monk; give me my inheritance, monk."
So Buddha turns to one of his earliest disciples, Shariputta, and tells him, "Give him the going forth." Meaning, ok - ordain him.
Shariputra doesn't know how to do that, maybe is also a little shocked by his teachers conduct - I'd like to hope so, how about acknowledging your son? - but he asks, "How do I give Prince Rahula the Going Forth?"
And the Buddha explains, "We will give the going forth by means of the Three Refuges." First shave the head and beard, then put on a saffron robe, then "after paying homage at the bhikkus' feet" - doing full prostrations - with their palms together, they should say:
I go to the Buddha for refuge.
i go to the Dharma for refuge.
I go to the Sangha for refuge.
For the second time, I go to the Buddha for refuge.
For the second time, I go to the Dharma for refuge.
For the second time, I go to the Sangha for refuge.
For the third time, I go to the Buddha for refuge.
For the third time, I go to the Dharma for refuge.
For the third time, I go to the Sangha for refuge.
And then you're a monk. Done. You might recall from Seishin or Raizelah's ordination that was a part of the ceremony but it's a lot more elaborate now.
To finish our scene from the Buddha's times: then the Buddha's father Suddhodana, Rahula's grandfather, actually gets upset. This is too much he says, he lost his son to this new religion - the Buddha in front of him - and his nephew Nanada too, and now his grandson Rahula?! He says, "It's too much. Love for our children, Lord, goes deep. It cuts into our skin, cuts into our flesh, cuts into us down to the bone. And that pain never goes away when we lose our children. It would be good, Lord, if the venerable ones did not give the going forth without the parents' consent."
And then Buddha gave an inspiring little Dharma talk about how wonderful the Dharma and going forth in the Dharma is, which seems to have helped Suddhodana - he withdrew peacefully from the scene. The talk itself isn't included in the old records, but it was inspiring it says.
And then, the Buddha created one of the first monastic rules.
You know how now the monks and nuns in most Buddhist countries have hundreds of precepts they have to abide by? Our Bodhisattva precepts are a much shorter and more flexible list. Anyway the more formal rules were usually created in response to some problem in the sangha. Something would go wrong, the Buddha would explain why that was a bad thing and to prevent it in future he'd create a new rule.
Well here's one of the first of those rules, and the person committing the infraction that inspired it was the Buddha himself!
He said to the small but growing sangha, "Bhikkus, you should not give the going forth to children without their parents' consent. If he does this he commits an act of wrong doing."
The Buddha was fully awakened and one of his titles was "the perfect one" but clearly he was also still human in some way and made mistakes. It's almost like there were two Buddhas in this story. The human Buddha - perhaps ashamed for having abandoned his family and trying in this odd kind of way to make things right again - and the wise awakened Buddha who realized that he'd done that in kind of wonderful-awful way by ordaining his son on the spot at their first meeting after his time away.
That this was the original ordination process is poignant as what Buddha had Rahula chant is exactly word for word what we're chanting when we change the refuges in Pali at the end of the evening.
- Buddhaṁ saraṇaṁ gacchāmi (I go to the Buddha for refuge.)
- Dhammaṁ saraṇaṁ gacchāmi (I go to the Dharma for refuge.)
- Saṅghaṁ saraṇaṁ gacchāmi (I go to the Sangha for refuge.)
And maybe it's good to know the Buddha messed up sometimes.
There's some interesting details in the wording in Pali. Not that I know much about the Pali language but to share what I've learned
Buddhaṁ, Dhammam, and Sangham are the Pali for Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Pali and Sanskrit are often quite similar. Oh not it's Dhammam for when we chant this. There is no "r" sound there.
saranam means refuge or shelter, this is from a Pali root word √sr (to protect). It can also mean a "dwelling" or a place of safety. So we have Buddha refuge, Dharma refuge, Sangha refuge.
The verb is at the end gacchāmi is from the root word √gam (to go). The "-āmi" suffix turns out to indicate the first-person singular ("I").
So it's pretty literal in English: Buddha refuge, to this I go; Dharma refuge, to this I go; Sangha refuge, to this I go.
This going, √gam, can mean both going somewhere physically and also understanding, attaining, or "reaching" a realization. So √gam can also indicate "learning."
So actually maybe there is a little friction in how this was translated into English where we use the verb "to take" - I take refuge in Buddha has a little different feeling from "To Buddha I go for Refuge" especially understanding that it also means something like I'm learning that Buddha is my refuge.
And as I'm sure you know, or have guessed, the 2nd and 3rd time through when the line starts with Dutiyampi and Tatiyampi that means for a 2nd time and for a 3rd time. There's some overlap here from the ancient roots with dual and triple - two and three of something.
Repeating things three times was always seen as powerful in ancient Indian culture. That's when you really mean it. There are many stories of someone asking the Buddha something once and being ignored, but you ask three times and then, yeah, he's right there with his full Buddha powers for you.
Our other formulation of the refuges - I take refuge in Buddha, before all beings, immersing body and mind deeply in the way awakening true mind. Is another standard Sōtō Zen verse translated from Chinese into Japanese into English.
They would never have chanted the refuges in Pali in a Zen temple in Japan by the way. Turns out it came into the American Sōtō Zen liturgy in the late 1970's brought by a really interesting American priest named Ananda Claude Dalenberg - a very early American Zen student and an older member of the beatnick crowd including having a character in Kerouac's Dharma Bums based on him - he'd already been practicing for years before meeting Suzuki roshi who ordained him and he spent time in India. Anyway he introduced chanting the Pali refuges - the Ti Sirana is the title in Pali - to San Francisco Zen Center. I don't remember it being done at Green Gulch or Tassajara when I was there in the late 1980's and early 1990's but it was around and Norman brought it in consistently, chanted to end the day at sesshin mostly. And so we chant it here. Another little way we've added to what we received from Japan.
Our "regular" English from the Japanese/Chinese Zen tradition is a little loose but close enough. Here's a literal translation:
Screen share in Ananda / Dharma Studies / Liturgy / Triple Refuge translation
| Sino-Japanese |
Transliteration |
Literal Translation |
Ours |
| 自帰依仏 |
Ji kie Butsu |
I take refuge in the Buddha |
I take refuge in Buddha |
| 当願衆生 |
To gan shu jo |
May all sentient beings |
Before all beings |
| 体解大道 |
Tai ge dai do |
Embody the Great Way |
immersing body & mind |
| 発無上意 |
Hotsu mu jo i |
And give rise to the supreme mind |
awakening true mind. |
|
|
|
|
| 自帰依法 |
Ji kie Ho |
I take refuge in the Dharma |
I take refuge in Dharma |
| 当願衆生 |
To gan shu jo |
May all sentient beings |
Before all beings |
| 深入経蔵 |
Jin nyu kyo zo |
Deeply enter the Treasury of Sutras |
Entering deeply |
| 智慧如海 |
Chi e nyo kai |
Gaining wisdom as vast as the ocean |
The merciful ocean of Buddha's Way |
|
|
|
|
| 自帰依僧 |
Ji kie So |
I take refuge in the Sangha |
I take refuge in Sangha |
| 当願衆生 |
To gan shu jo |
May all sentient beings |
Before all beings |
| 統理大衆 |
To ri dai shu |
Support the Great Assembly |
bringing harmony to everyone |
| 一切無碍 |
Is-sai mu ge |
In harmony, free from all hindrance |
to everyone, free from hindrance. |
Ours seems pretty close. One different which I remember a colleague of mine complaining about is the second line in each one "To gan shujo" doesn't say "before" at all. It's super literally "must(imperitive that) vow that all sentient beings..." so the literal columns "May all sentient beings..." is a lot more accurate.
Desiree mentioned in her talk how deeply into her bones the taking refuge in Japanese during sewing practice - sewing her rakusu - got. And I feel the same. There we chant "namu kie butsu" Namu meaning "to honor" so we were chanting something like "honoring and taking refuge in Buddha".
In my sewing I would often do all three treasures, saying to myself "namu kie bustu, namu kie ho, namu kie so" and that's part of a verse I say to myself now when I offer incense for us.
The actual verse here is Ji Kie Butsu not Namu Kie Butsu. Two different versions.
Ji is the word Sino-Japanse voicing for the word for "oneself" so it's literally I take refuge.
AND just like with gachami, kie doesn't literally mean "to take" - that's just a translation convention for both of them - it sounds fine in English, "I take refuge" - but take really is kind of weird there if you think about.
ki-e is a two character phrase that literally means "return and rely".
So it's more like "I return to Buddha, I rely on Buddha."
Which is also much in keeping with Desiree's explorations, too!
So what does all of this mean. What does it mean to take refuge - to return and rely on Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. I don't know that there is any one answer and I'm excited for us to have some time to explore how that is for each of us. I guess for me if I had to say something now it's be something like: get out of my own way and live in harmony with Buddha, informed by Dharma, and supported by Sangha. Ideally I'd say "get of my own way" all three times I think!
I've been enjoying some a TV show set on the Navajo Reservation which actual Navajo actors and there's something in their culture I assume to be real about walking the blessing way. The word is something like hózhó. That sure sounds like taking refuge.
What is taking refuge for you? Let's monolog in groups of three - I think we know what to do. Keeping it quiet as we arrange ourselves is a support for the inquiry. And remember if you ever want to sit one of these out that's totally fine, literally just sit zazen and you'll be also supporting the investigation in that way.
