Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammâ-Sambuddhassa. Buddha and his all teaching were always meant for everyone…not to own self only. And sharing of this dhamma post are ...for all beings..you may read, understand, like, share the post (may all be benefited from your sharing) and may you also be merited. Dear Dhamma Friends, Homage to Triple Gems..Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. From yesterday The Dhamma post are on with a new chapter “Now is the knowing” By Most Venerable Ajahn Sumedo. And yesterday we had started with Buddha, Dharma and Sangha…and today it is continuation from yesterday…dhamma post. Today in modern Britain we find that generally people are more sophisticated. They don’t take refuge in magic charms, they take refuge in things like the Westminster Bank — but that is still taking refuge in something that offers no safety. Taking refuge in the Buddha, in wisdom, means that we have a place of safety. When there is wisdom, when we act wisely and live wisely, we are truly safe. The conditions around us might change. We can’t guarantee what will happen to the material standard of living, or that the Westminster Bank will survive the decade. The future remains unknown and mysterious, but in the present, by taking refuge in the Buddha we have that presence of mind now to reflect on and learn from life as we live it. Wisdom doesn’t mean having a lot of knowledge about the world; we don’t have to go to university and collect information about the world to be wise. Wisdom means knowing the nature of conditions as we’re experiencing them. It is not just being caught up in reacting to and absorbing into the conditions of our bodies and minds out of habit, out of fear, worry, doubt, greed and so on, but it is using that ‘Buddho’, that ‘one who knows,’ to observe that these conditions are changing. It is the knowing of that change that we call Buddha and in which we take refuge. We make no claims to Buddha as being ‘me’ or ‘mine’. We don’t say, ‘I am Buddha,’ but rather, ‘I take refuge in Buddha.’ It is a way of humbly submitting to that wisdom, being aware, being awake. Although in one sense taking refuge is something we are doing all the time, the Pali formula we use is a reminder — because we forget, because we habitually take refuge in worry, doubt, fear, anger, greed and so on. The Buddha-image is similar; when we bow to it we don’t imagine that it is anything other than a bronze image, a symbol. It is a reflection and makes us a little more aware of Buddha, of our refuge in Buddha Dhamma Sangha. The Buddha image sits in great dignity and calm, not in a trance but fully alert, with a look of wakefulness and kindness, not being caught in the changing conditions around it. Though the image is made of brass and we have these flesh-and-blood bodies and it is much more difficult for us, still it is a reminder. Some people get very puritanical about Buddha-images, but here in the West I haven’t found them to be a danger. The real idols that we believe in and worship and that constantly delude us are our thoughts, views and opinions, our loves and hates, our self-conceit and pride. The second refuge is in the Dhamma, in ultimate truth or ultimate reality. Dhamma is impersonal; we don’t in any way try to personify it to make it any kind of personal deity. When we chant in Pali the verse on Dhamma, we say it is ‘sanditthiko akaliko ehipassiko opanayiko paccattam veditabbo vinnuhi’. As Dhamma has no personal attributes, we can’t even say it is good or bad or anything that has any superlative or comparative quality; it is beyond the dualistic conceptions of mind. So when we describe Dhamma or give an impression of it, we do it through words such as ‘sanditthiko’, which means immanent, here-and-now. That brings us back into the present; we feel a sense of immediacy, of now. You may think that Dhamma is some kind of thing that is ‘out there’, something you have to find elsewhere, but sanditthikodhamma means that it is immanent, here-and-now. Akalikadhamma means that Dhamma is not bound by any time condition. The word akala means timeless. Our conceptual mind can’t conceive of anything that is timeless, because our conceptions and perceptions are time-based conditions, but what we can say is that Dhamma is akala, not bound by time. Ehipassikadhamma means to come and see, to turn towards or go to the Dhamma. It means to look, to be aware. It is not that we pray to the Dhamma to come, or wait for it to tap us on the shoulder; we have to put forth effort. It is like Christ’s saying, ‘Knock on the door and it shall be opened.’ Ehipassiko means that we have to put forward that effort, to turn towards that truth. Opanayiko means leading inwards, towards the peace within the mind. Dhamma doesn’t take us into fascination, into excitement, romance and adventure, but leads to Nibbana, to calm, to silence. Paccattam veditabbo vinnuhi means that we can only know Dhamma through direct experience. It is like the taste of honey — if someone else tastes it, we still don’t know its flavour. We may know the chemical formula or be able to recite all the great poetry ever written about honey, but only when we taste it for ourselves do we really know what it is like. It is the same with Dhamma: we have to taste it, we have to know it directly. Taking refuge in Dhamma is taking another safe refuge. It is not taking refuge in philosophy or intellectual concepts, in theories, in ideas, in doctrines or beliefs of any sort. It is not taking refuge in a belief in Dhamma, or a belief in God or in some kind of force in outer space or something beyond or something separate, something that we have to find sometime later. The descriptions of the Dhamma keep us in the present, in the here-and-now, unbound by time. Taking refuge is an immediate immanent reflection in the mind, it is not just repeating ‘Dhammam Saranam gacchami’ like a parrot, thinking, ‘Buddhists say this so I have to say it.’ We turn towards the Dhamma, we are aware now, take refuge in Dhamma, now as an immediate action, an immediate reflection of being the Dhamma, being that very truth. Because our conceiving mind tends always to delude us, it takes us into becoming. We think, ‘I’ll practise meditation so that I’ll become enlightened in the future. I will take the Three Refuges in order to become a Buddhist. I want to become wise. I want to get away from suffering and ignorance and become something else.’ This is the conceiving mind, the desire mind, the mind that always deludes us. Rather than constantly thinking in terms of becoming something, we take refuge in being Dhamma in the present. The impersonality of Dhamma bothers many people, because devotional religion tends to personify everything and people coming from such traditions don’t feel right if they can’t have some sort of personal relationship with it. I remember one time, a French Catholic missionary came to stay in our monastery and practise meditation. He felt at something of a loss with Buddhism because he said it was like ‘cold surgery’, there was no personal relationship with God. One cannot have a personal relationship with Dhamma, one cannot say ‘Love the Dhamma!’ or ‘The Dhamma loves me!’; there is no need for that. We only need a personal relationship with something we are not, like our mother, father, husband or wife, something separate from us. We don’t need to take refuge in mother or father again, someone to protect us and love us and say, ‘I love you no matter what you do. Everything is going to be all right,’ and pat us on the head. The Buddha-Dhamma is a very maturing refuge, it is a religious practice that is a complete sanity or maturity, in which we are no longer seeking a mother or father, because we don’t need to become any’ thing any more. We don’t need to be loved or protected by anyone any more, because we can love and protect others, and that is all that is important. We no longer have to ask or demand things from others, whether it is from other people or even some deity or force that we feel is separate from us and has to be prayed to and asked for guidance. We give up all our attempts to conceive Dhamma as being this or that or anything at all, and let go of our desire to have a personal relationship with the truth. We have to be that truth, here and now. Being that truth, taking that refuge, calls for an immediate awakening, for being wise now, being Buddha, being Dhamma in the present…to be contd with Sangha...to be contd..
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 04:45:31 +0000
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