When most people think of the Buddha, it’s Siddhartha Gautama they picture: the prince, who it is said, was born 2,600 years ago in Nepal, grew up to attain enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, and then went on to teach the path of awakening for forty-five years. But this “historical” Buddha is just one aspect of what is meant when we say, “take refuge in the Buddha.”
“Buddha” means “awakened being,” and according to traditional Buddhist cosmology there are countless buddhas constantly manifesting in the trichiliocosm or multiverse. Theoretically, a fully awakened or enlightened being is one in which the roots of greed (clinging, craving), hatred (aversion, harbored anger), and ignorance (delusion and separation) have been permanently eradicated. Taking refuge in Buddha means committing to having faith in buddha mind—awakened mind, big mind.
To say, “I go for refuge in (or to) Buddha” is a declaration of faith. When I teach Buddhism for beginners, I say that Buddhism is a global faith tradition and may or may not be called a global religion because Buddhism is nontheistic. It is neither for nor against belief in a creator God or gods. There are many Christian, Jewish, and atheist Buddhists.
My understanding of “refuge” is not a bombproof bunker with climate control. Instead, it’s refuge in the sense of “nature refuge,” an area in which shortsighted beings aren’t allowed to interfere with the natural life of the native animals, plants, insects, and birds.
So, what does it mean to have faith in the Buddha? Many years ago, my great spiritual friend Ven. Bhante Suhita Dharma and I several times co-taught the annual people of color meditation retreat at Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center in New Mexico. Once, while giving a dharma talk, Bhante shared that he’d been a Trappist monk as a young teenager and before that a star altar boy in Texas. He said he still considered himself a Catholic.
In the question and answer period that followed, a woman raised her hand and said, “I’m so confused! What do you do if you want to meditate, and what do you do if you want to pray?”
Bhante Suhita considered this in relaxed silence, then he replied, “When I feel like meditating, I meditate. When I feel like praying, I pray.”
Thus, having faith in Buddha—taking refuge in Buddha as many awakened beings and awakened mind and the central myth of Prince Siddhartha—is not exclusive.
Also, bear in mind that buddhas don’t suddenly manifest and cure terminally ill people or feed starving people, at least not in my world. So, what exactly does taking refuge in the Buddha do for me, really?
As Shantideva, a renowned eighth-century Buddhist philosopher said, “The Buddhas do not wash unwholesome deeds away with water, nor do they remove the sufferings of beings with their hands, neither do they transplant their own realization into others. It is by teaching the truth of suchness that they liberate (beings).”
I first heard a version of this quotation as a poignant voiceover by the actor playing the young Dalai Lama in a scene in the 1997 movie Kundun. An epic film directed by Martin Scorsese, it depicts the 1951 invasion of Tibet by the Chinese and the death, cultural destruction, and imprisonment of many Tibetan Buddhist people.
The history of the world—and the present—is full of such violence and suffering. Plus, today, with killing heat caused by the climate crisis, we are, quite literally, on fire. I do not know what will save us.
Still, we have to do something. The Buddha needs to take refuge in us for us to take refuge in the Buddha. My understanding of “refuge” is not a bombproof bunker with climate control. Instead, it’s refuge in the sense of “nature refuge,” an area in which shortsighted beings aren’t allowed to interfere with the natural life of the native animals, plants, insects, and birds.
A refuge is an area in which beings are born, live, die, fight, and eat one another, but without arguing over religions and nationalities or destroying the earth or bodies of fresh and salt water. Bodies of water. Earth in the sense of soil, ground, and planet is also a body or many bodies, the fecund source of everything that we are.
The tension-filled Korean Demilitarized Zone (the DMZ) divides North and South Korea. With its heavily fortified fences, landmines, and listening posts, the zone is uninhabited by humans. So, although the DMZ is only seventy years old and 160 miles long and 2.5 miles wide, it has become a wildlife refuge, home to more than one hundred endangered animal species, plus many endangered plants. I think of the rare red-crowned cranes and Siberian tigers raising their young amidst endangered plants and trees, taking and making refuge for life to flourish in a tiny strip of land filled with land mines. It’s the habitat they have, and they’re going about their business of making it habitable.
When my son was little, I used to say, “We live on a planet called Earth Buddha.” He said, “This is why we are here, to protect Earth Buddha with all our thoughts of love.” Now that he is an adult, he and I know that thoughts of love need to lead to acts of love, and acts of love need to be informed by strategic wisdom. They need to be politically savvy to not waste our precious time and money. I’m determined to do what I can in the time I have left—to keep making and taking refuge in Buddha until the great work is done.
This article was originally published in Lion’s Roar. It is reprinted here with permission.
