Taking refuge is the traditional ceremony for becoming a Buddhist. Why would we take refuge? We come to this question through our struggles, internal and external, as we try to make sense of our lives. Doing this on our own, however, is difficult. Many of us start by reading about Buddhism, but we have read many books, and living those books is not so easy. The point comes when we do not want to keep making the same mistakes, hurting ourselves and others, over and over. This is when we are ready, not to read another book, but to start a spiritual path. 

Buddha was a human being, not a God, and he neither confirmed nor denied the existence of God. Buddha’s teachings are a guide for spiritual life, and you do not have to turn away from your religion to practice Buddhism. Buddha means one who is awake, and Buddha became awake through his own efforts. We too can awaken if we follow a spiritual path. Whether that path leads to God or to ourselves, is for each of us to discover.

There is a story of the Sufi wise man and fool, Mullah Nasrudin, where he sees a man walking through the forest carrying a carpetbag with all his belongings. The man is crying that he lost all his worldly possessions in a fire that consumed his house. Nasrudin grabs the carpetbag and runs away into the forest. Now the man is really distraught, because he has lost even what little he could carry in his carpetbag. Nasrudin places the bag by a tree along the path where the man is walking, hides behind the tree and waits. When the man comes upon the bag he is overjoyed, and exclaims that now he can start a new life with what he has recovered. Nasrudin emerges from behind the tree and says, “Funny what it takes to make us happy.”

Buddha taught a way to discover what we already posses, and he offered guidance to help us reclaim it. So what is it we are really taking refuge in? We have to admit that, if we could have figured things out on our own, we would not be in this fine mess. So while we can think of taking refuge as coming home to ourselves, we also sense that there is something in Buddhism that can help us find our way.

What is that something? It is called Dharma. Dharma is the Buddhist teachings, and the truth of life itself. The teachings are not laws or commandments, but proposals that we must test for ourselves. We study the Dharma because it gives us a framework for studying ourselves. And then there are the teachings of life, beyond the scriptures. In a revered Zen teaching called the Lotus Sutra, Buddha did not speak, he just held up a flower. It was communion without words. There comes a time, after absorbing the teachings, that we can leave them behind and learn from life itself. That is also Dharma.

There are three things we take refuge in, and they are called the Three Jewels. The first two are Buddha and Dharma, and the third is Sangha. Sangha was traditionally understood to be the community of monks and nuns. As Buddhism evolved, the meaning of community deepened to include all living things: humans, animals, and the earth itself. There is a belief among some Buddhists that there will be a future Buddha, another fully enlightened being, who will help guide us again.

There is another possibility, that the Sangha, people like you and I who are struggling to walk the path, are the Buddha of the future. There is already enough wisdom, in Buddhism and other cultures, to teach us what we need to know. What we need most, is to commit ourselves, with a lifetime of effort, to a path that leads to compassion and wisdom.

We know that our planet faces unprecedented challenges from global warming, poverty, injustice, and war. This is the time when we must seek what unites us, so that we can help each other - each in our own way - to save the biodiversity and people of this planet. We are the Sangha that must do this. There is no one else. So when we take refuge in the Sangha, we take responsibility to do what we can: whether it is to drive less, assist the homeless, or simply be kind and supportive to each other. When we join the Sangha, we dedicate our practice to serve others.

When we take refuge and commit to a spiritual path, we can reaffirm that commitment every day, in meditation and prayer. Some days we will do this in sadness, and some days in joy. As we walk the path of life, we carry the three jewels with us, forever.