Tara Brach - 2010-01-06 - Taking Refuge

Episode Date: January 6, 2010

2010-01-06 - Taking Refuge - The Buddha taught of three archetypal domains in which we awaken presence and realize freedom. In contrast to our habitual false refuges, these gateways of true refuge are dependable because they express the timeless truth of what we are. This talk shines a light on false refuges, guides us in exploring the meaning of each of the three Buddhist refuges and ends in a ritual of "taking refuge."

Tonight we are doing a refuge ceremony, and I'll explain more about it. We like to start the new year this way, and it's a beautiful, very living kind of ritual, one you can totally make your own. How many of you made New Year's resolutions this year? Just out of curiosity, how many people do that? It's a valuable thing, even though it's kind of arbitrary. Okay, here it is January 1st or whatever. to sense the shape of our lives and what matters. And I sometimes do these kind of casual interviews and say, well, what kind of resolution did you make? And I find that more and more

the resolutions have to do with one of two things. And one of them is being kinder, just being kinder to ourselves, to others. And the other that I see a lot is getting simpler, just simplifying life, not being quite so busy. How many of you found yourself falling into either of those categories on some level? Just help me with my survey here. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. We had a New Year's retreat, as many of you know, and a number of you, I'm looking around and seeing a lot of you that were there. And one of the themes that came up was that of spiritual life being really a about forgetting and remembering. That we are conditioned to forget what matters,

to forget presence, to forget. And we also have this capacity to pay attention and to wake up. And in Buddhism, there are three related gateways that support us in remembering, that support us in homecoming. And they're actually very archetypal. In fact, as I've started looking into this, because I'm writing now on the three refuges,

I'm finding expressions of them in many faith groups. And the three refuges, these interrelated gateways, are called Buddha Dharma Sangha. And what those poly words mean, and I'm going to reverse the order a little, one of the refuges, Dharma, which we'll be starting with tonight, is really taking refuge in the teachings and practices that free us, that heal us and free us.

And in the deepest inner way, it's taking refuge in moment-to-moment presence. Taking refuge in the Dharma means taking refuge in the truth of what's happening now. The second refuge that we'll be exploring is called Sangha, which has to do with spiritual friends. And in a broader way, taking refuge. in love in our whole experience of relatedness.

Very universal. And the third is that we'll explore as the Buddha, which could be an outer refuge in some being that expresses an awakened consciousness. But in the deepest inner way, it's taking refuge in this radiant, awake presence. That's what we are. So we're going to explore these refuges

and then the ritual will do, it's a ritual you find in Buddhism, but it's not Buddhist. It's something that everyone here, should you really want to put your whole heart into it, can use this as a way of deepening the power of your aspiration to carry you to freedom, by taking these three archetypal expressions

and sensing how they can be more alive for you. So one of the ways I like to start in exploring true refuge is with the language of false refuge. And I think it's really valuable because for each of us, to the extent we're suffering, it's because we've gotten in these habits and we are all conditioned to have these habits to leave presence. And I sometimes like the analogy of that we are peddling a bicycle away from presence. And at the more, more we feel something's missing or something's wrong, the faster we pedal to try to make things okay. But our very way of pedaling away from presence actually keeps us from the love and the intimacy

and the aliveness and beauty that we really seek. So false refuges are the different strategies we have for racing away from presence. I always find it's a good time of year to talk about false refuges because many people, not everyone, a lot of people were quite solitary over the last couple of weeks, but many people end up spending time with their family of origin and as it goes over 48 hours can bring up stuff, right? It does. It does. One person wrote to me, you think practice is going well, taking refuge and presence, spend over 48 hours with your family. And it's because the love is strong. and it brings up the attachment and the anger and the fear.

In fact, for many, there's a regression that's really obvious that we just kind of contract into our eight-year-old self or whatever it is. We can't help peddling in our decades-old reactive ways. We just go back to our old strategies. Somebody sent me this story. John invited his mother over for dinner. During the meal, John's mother couldn't help noticing

how beautiful John's roommate was. She had long been suspicious of a relationship between John and his roommate, and this only made her more curious. And watching the two interact over the evening, she really wondered if there was more to their relationship than met the eye. Reading his mother's thoughts, John volunteered.

I know what you might be thinking, but I assure you that Carrie and I are just roommates. About a week later, Carrie came to John and said, you know, ever since your mother came here for dinner, I've been unable to find the beautiful silver super her soup ladle. You don't think she did something with it, do you? I doubted, he says, but I'll email her just in case. So he wrote down, Dear Mother, I'm not saying you did, or did not do anything with the soup ladle, but it's odd that it disappeared after the dinner. Do you know anything about this? Later, he

received an email from his mother that read, Dear son, I'm not saying that you do sleep with Carrie, and I'm not saying that you don't, but the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her own bed, she would have found the soup ladle by now. Love mother. The title of this the title of this story is don't lie to your mother. So under many, many circumstances, we unconsciously get smaller

and go into our old strategies. And I call it sometimes a selfing kind of trance. We just become a version of ourselves that's smaller and whether it's the tendency to feel judgmental or mistrusting or protective. So we're pedaling faster. We're in our groove. So I'll just mention a few of the false refuges because I'd like to invite you as part of this evening on deepening our awareness of true refuge just without judgment if possible,

as if you're this kind of benign witness to your own life, just sense. where it is that you are most habitually peddling away from presence. What's your false refuge? Now, for many of us, we can relate to this one, which is just the false refuge of staying busy, that we get addicted to phones and computers and iPods and accomplishing and checking things off the list. And I remember when I first encountered this by Thomas Merton,

how struck I was, he wrote, the rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form of contemporary violence. He said to allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone and everything,

is to succumb to violence. So that's one false refuge, is we violate our natural rhythms by this compulsion to stay busy in some way. This compulsion to be productive, which has to do with I'm not okay unless I check X, Y, and Z off the list, plus some. And even when we get our fix very quickly,

we have to do more to just still be okay. I remember for myself many years ago that I realized when people would comment on how busy I was, I felt the kind of flush of pride. And I remember being struck by it that I really had this equation that busy equal successful or important or special or good. And how over the years how much more clear it is that being engaged and active, it's great. It's alive. It can be creative.

But busyness, when I'm busy, my heart is not so tender and sensitive. It's why I've, and I say this a lot because it's so powerful, the symbol in the Chinese script for the word busy is similar to heart killing. False refuge. Then we take false refuge in and we know this one, how much we kind of chase after pleasantness fixes and avoid unpleasantness, whether it's accumulating material goods or overconsuming or numbing. In Asia they say sleep is a poor man's nirvana.

So some of us, attachment to sleep. For many people, the buzz of caffeine. I went to a conference on addictions, and one of the posters they had showed two homeless men on a park bench, and one saying to the other, I used to be CEO of a multinational, had three homes, private jet,

and then I switched to decaf. So you get the idea. And then another false refuge that most people, have to some degree is approval that we orient ourselves and what we present to the world and how we are in order to get a certain kind of response that we want to look good. And we also try to look good to ourselves. We do a lot to get approval. There's a sense always of maybe Freud would call super ego, but that in some way there's a monitor going on of how we're doing. Have you noticed that that

there's some part of our brain that's always saying, how am I doing now? And we're trying to please that part of our brain. Story that I always liked about a cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school in a lunchroom. So at the head of the table, large pile of apples, the nun made a note and posted it on the apple tray. Take only one. God is watching. Moving further along the lunch line at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies.

A child had written a note. Take all you want. God's watching the apples. So you get the idea. There's that monitor and false refuge trying to be the one who will get approval. And then we take refuge in

compulsive thinking. And most of us do. I mean, most of us leave. We peddle fast and faster and faster in our thoughts. And if we're honest, and we look at today or yesterday, huge swaths of time are spent planning and worrying, and only a small amount of them, if we were really sensing what was wise or skillful,

really had to do with the kind of thoughts that brought more healing or productivity or creativity or communications. It's a lot of stuff swirling around, figuring out things. And then, of course, in the more dramatic, and painful ways we take refuge in blaming and making war, that rather than sitting with discomfort, we lash out. So blame, which really any level of judgment is part of making war, is a really big one.

And until we are willing to pause and notice that as a false refuge, that we're trying to get away from something, we're actually participating again in the violence on the planet. planet. So these are some. I mean, I could spend the whole time just talking about our different ways of peddling away from presence, our habitual ways that sometimes we're aware of and often we're not, the ways we consume, the ways we try to get others to look at us, our busyness. And what is poignant is that they don't serve our deepest aspiration. If any of us were talking about, well, okay, it's the end of your life.

and you're looking back what would have really mattered, the things that would really matter to us, of loving well without holding back, of being creative, of appreciating the moments, the beauty that's here, of in some way serving and really bringing joy or healing, the false refuges don't serve that. They reinforce a sense of being separate

and needing to scramble, needing to pedal. So you might just take a moment and we'll check it out I just share one of my favorite cartoons I've shared in here before has a graveyard and the bubble that's coming up is coming from under a tombstone

and it says now I think I know what I want to do with my life and the caption is Ed pushes the late bloomer envelope to surprising new limits so false refuges

so take a moment if you will, before we reflect on true refuge, just to bring a clear and kind attention just to know that this conditioning in us to peddle away from presence is universal, and that we each have our versions of false refuges, and that judging them locks us in them. In fact, judging false refuge is adding a false refuge to false refuges. Do you know what I mean? It's another false refuge.

So see if you can break the cycle and just sense for yourself. How much do you leave presence with judging, with some way of overconsuming, staying busy, trying to present yourself in certain ways to others. How much do you leave yourself with addictive thinking? The beginning of waking up out of these habitual strategies, of pedaling away truly is just to notice them.

Our wisdom notices them and in that awareness is less hooked in. So just feel your own intention to be awake to false refugees. That's enough. The more we become mindful, the more we see that they don't work. Behind the false refuges, in fact, behind all religions, at William James wrote, all religions start with the cry help. That in some way there's a sense of feeling off balance, feeling we need something, feeling something's wrong.

And we're trying to take care of things. And yet we find that the false refuges actually lock us in. So the inquiry really becomes, how do we pay attention? How do we take true refuge so that we, instead of pedaling away from presence, really arrive in the fullness of love, of freedom? You can open your eyes if you'd like. And the first of the three arctypal refuges, refuges are really, it sounds like they're saying something, like, where can I go into a cave to find safety? But that's actually a false refuge.

A true refuge has to be something. something that's true. It has to be reality. The only real safety is in reality. Otherwise, something in us knows that we're hiding and we can't really relax. So the first of the true refuges that I'm going to describe called Dharma is really what I call taking refuge in truth. And I've always loved the way Zen master Riyokan put it. He says, if you want to know the Buddhist law. Drift east, drift west, come and go.

Entrusting yourself to the waves. The word law is a strong word and what it's saying is that if you really want to know the truth, the Dharma, the way to the truth is to entrust yourself to the waves.

Stop peddling. In any moment that there's this, it's very profound that you say stop. Just stop controlling everything. It doesn't mean that you can't move through your life and try to make certain things happen and try to navigate it,

but it means have the capacity to just say stop and learn what it means to really allow the waves to come and go, to entrust yourself to the waves. Another way of saying this is that we're learning to stay with what is. And it's pretty much the most essential training we do here, in meditation. We have the first part of our training that we do when we gather and you hear the instructions

is we quiet down some. Okay, feel your body, feel your breath. You're going to go off and thoughts, it's okay, just come back when you can. We quiet down. The deep training is to step out of the storyline and open up

to the ways of the moment. Just let it happen. So we keep doing that over and over again, opening up out of the storyline. And then there's the inquiry that brings us here. Dharma inquiry, this refuge, has two questions. And hopefully some of you are familiar with them. What is happening inside me right now? Okay, just feel that question. What is happening inside me right now? That's the first question of this refuge. And the second part of it is, can I be with this? Can I let this be?

So when we are encountering difficulty to take refuge in the Dharma, the outer Dharma is that we turn to the teachings that we really trust, we turn to the any practices we really trust. The inner Dharma is entrusting ourselves to the waves right in this moment. Now my examples of taking refuge in the Dharma, and that's the term, we take refuge in what's true. My examples in my own life often have to do with the challenge when I hit a physical challenge. And on and off through this fall, I've been very, very addicted to taking my hikes on the river. And when I start having knee problems, I clutch. It's like not only does it feel bad right now, my mind fast forwards into how for the rest of my life I'm going to be a cripple and never be able to walk on the river again and never getting extra. If I can't get any extra,

then it won't have energy, and if I don't have energy, I won't be able to think, and I won't be able to keep, you know, proliferation, right? So I had a bout of it last month where I was in pain physically with my knees, I had a hard time being able to walk

without being uncomfortable. And not only was I fast forwarding, but I got very irritable, and then I got down on myself for being grumpy. So it was like, you know, the insult to injury, So I said, okay, refuge in Dharma, what does this mean? And what I found was anything that had to do with the future in my mind was a setup for suffering.

It didn't matter that it was probably going to be fine again. All that mattered was if I went into the future, I was setting myself up for trouble. So refuge in the Dharma was kind of like nailing the attention right to the right to this moment again and again, shepherding it back and committing to just this moment. And what I found was in just this moment, it was all very manageable. It was, you know, ache or pain or this or that. But as long as my mind didn't create a terrible future, there was plenty of space in this moment, not only plenty of space, but a sense of compassion and a sense of sensitivity and wherever

I happened to be, even if I wasn't on a long walk, I was able to take it in again. One of the ways of understanding refuge in presence is a term that Ajun Samedo, a American monk who is an abbot of a monastery in England uses. And he says, it's like this. Whatever's going on, if you want to take refuge in truth, just say it's like this. It's firm and yet absolutely compassion and gentle that you're not trying to negotiate with reality. It's like, okay, life is like this, this moment. And in that moment, there comes a tremendous tenderness and presence. I saw over and over again in this last week at our retreat, we had a, as I mentioned, many people from our community. There are 120 people and we did these group interviews and group meetings where

people would share about what was going on. And towards the end of the retreat, many, many people had gone through this same process of first fighting with what was happening inside them and then reminding themselves, oh, okay, refuge in truth. It's like this. And finding a way to bring a kindness and a care to just this moment. And in any moment that they were able to stop peddling away and say, it's like this, the whole sense of who they were changed. Rather than being the self that's taking false refuge and trying to control life, they became the awareness that was just right here.

They're being enlarged. So let's take a moment and we'll do a brief. reflection on this refuge. We'll do it on each of the refuges so that when we do the ritual, you'll have already tapped in for yourself. Okay? So we're going to take a moment to investigate refuge in Dharma and truth. And if you'd like to try it out by sensing a situation in your life where you'd like to, rather than controlling or peddling away, take refuge in truth, You can let one be in your awareness, some situation that you typically react to. It might be some reaction that happens when you're in a conflict with somebody, not understood, being judged.

It might be when you're feeling stressed at work. Any life situation where you'd like to remember a little bit more tomorrow the next day, to turn towards the Dharma, towards truth, towards presence. And like me with my knees, notice how you might typically react, what goes on in your mind, the stories you tell yourself, what's going to go wrong. To take refuge in truth means to let go of the stories and commit yourself to the actual experience right here and now.

so maybe there's fear under the story or sadness or anger it's okay notice what happens if you bring a very kind presence it's like this

noticing what's happening and letting it be there entrusting yourself to the waves so that right in this moment you might be aware of sensations in your chest or your throat of your breath or of sounds the poet danafalls expresses a sense of refuge and truth she says there is no controlling life try corraling a lightning bolt containing a tornado dam a stream and it will create new channel resist and the tide will sweep you off your feet

allow and grace will carry you to higher ground there is no controlling life try to corral a lightning bolt contain a tornado dam a stream and it will create a new channel resist and the tide will sweep you off your feet allow and grace will carry you to higher ground so that's the first of the arctippal refuges what we call taking refuge in truth or in Dharma. The second is Sanga, which originally 2,500 years ago in the Buddhist tradition meant the community

of monks and nuns. Contemporary version is really the whole realm of our spiritual friends is our Sangha, our community. I think in the broadest way it's the community of all beings really. So the traditional story

is that the Buddha was asked by his follower and helper assistant Ananda aren't good friends half of this holy life and the response and this is a lot of the interplay between the Buddha andanda he says not so Ananda

good friends are the whole of this holy life what did he mean I think it's such a powerful statement good friends are the whole of this holy life what does he mean and my understanding is that the very expressive of enlightenment, the expression of being awake is loving relatedness. That you can't

really separate love and awareness. That when we're really awake, there's love. And so the false refuge is our story that we're separate, that were less than or that we're superior to others. And that as we the outer refuge of relationships, as we've become more conscious in our relationships that dissolves. We start finding this incredible nourishment and healing in realizing our belonging with each other. So how do we take refuge in love, in relationship? And we do it with our friends by having an agreement to become more and more conscious, to speak truth, as one writer said, that our love is really correlated

to the deepening truths we tell each other. Isn't that powerful? That we be real, that we do that with our friends, and that in this community we have Kaliana Mita groups or spiritual friends groups that are really dedicated

to conscious communicating, to saying, how does this practice wake me up in my life? So we have these spiritual friends groups groups and in a similar way we have our affinity groups, the people of color group and we have our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender questioning group. We have a number of other special focus groups, all for the same reason. Wake up out of feeling separate. Touch the connection. That connection frees us. We saw it at the retreat. We had 120 people. It wasn't the best

facility. It wasn't the best circumstances. And out of the quiet and out of the respect and out of the deepening attention to the moment, there was a sense of community that developed that was incredibly sweet. I see it when people in this community serve together, whether it's on board committees or volunteering in some way that that's the potential, that connection. There's so many ways we can deepen it. Let me read you this. This is a Sufi master. He's beloved by many and he goes to his favorite coffee house. He's always surrounded by students and people are drawn to his radiant, compassionate nature. And whenever they ask him how he became so holy, he responded, I know what is in the Quran. Every time. Finally, one day, a kind of crazy guy came in and when that question was

asked and the master said, I know what is in the Quran. The guy said, all right, what gives? What's in the Quran? Challenged him a little. This is the response. He said, in the Quran are two pressed flowers and a letter from my friend Abdullah, the whole of the holy life. That we do not practice this path by going off to a cave. We might go to a cave for a while. but one of the triple gem, these three refuges, is to wake up in our relationships with each other. There's the outer form of it, and I've named some of them, being involved with service and being involved with spiritual friends groups

or our 12-step groups or whatever it is that reveals our connection. There's also a way of taking refuge in an inner manner when we take refuge in loving relatedness. and this is what we'll be doing in a few moments, which is where we reflect and remember the goodness of others. And we reflect and remember the vulnerability. And I love the word namaste. We see how the sacred is living through all beings.

We meditate on that. So let's do our second practice of the evening. And this is just to give a taste of what does it mean to take refuge in Sanga, take refuge in love. So in this pause, just sense that you can connect with what's happening. We start with refuge in Dharma with the truth of this moment. Just feel your breath. Feel yourself coming home to presence. And let yourself bring to mind someone that you love, that you feel belonging with, connection with, and as uncomplicated a relationship as possible.

and that could include a pet, can include someone that's no longer alive. Bringing this being to mine, sense what it is you love about him or her, sense the goodness that you perceive, sense the way you might feel loved by this being. You might imagine the eyes and really the message you receive

when you look at those eyes of acceptance, of care, of enjoyment of you so that as you really sense this let it be visceral, sense how your heart experiences connection the felt sense

of loving. Forms can drop away and you can sense kind of a field or space of caring of warmth and in this field you can bring in another person that this evening you'd like to reflect on that you care about and you'd like to be awake to your caring. One other person. Somebody in your life you'd like to be aware of your connection with. As you bring this

person to mind in the same way, sense what you appreciate, sense this person's goodness, how he or she wants to love and be loved, the aliveness that you see in this person's eyes or being's eyes, how here she expresses happiness or love, maybe also the vulnerability of this being, this person or beings disappointments or fears. So you can just see the humanness or the beingness there. As you reflect, just sense in your

heart the felt experience of loving, of care. So that if you let the idea of another drop away, there's kind of a field or a space of tenderness. And you might sense who you are when connecting

with this tenderness. Who are you? What's your sense of your own being, when you're feeling that kind of connection with others, that field of tenderness. Know that as you pay attention like this, you are taking refuge in Sanga in loving relatedness. Okay, so we've done two of the refuges, refuge in truth or Dharma, refuge in love or Sanga. The third is refuge in Buddha or Buddha nature. And the outer refuge, the way we take refuge in the Buddha in an outer way is we bring to mind any being that expresses to us the enlightened heart mind. It could be the Buddha or Jesus or the bodhisattva of compassion, Kwanian,

or any being living or mythic, any spiritual figure that in some way represents that to us. And the way that we then take refuge is to imagine that being's love and that being's awareness and then let ourselves sense how that lives through us. I remember being at a retreat many years ago and one of the teachers asked, how many of you here trust that you're an awakening Buddha? And the kind of the arm went like this. It was like not sure.

And inside me, I went, sure, well, sometimes. And the reality is that many of our moments we live in this trance of a very small and limited self. many of our moments the idea of an awakened being is outside of us down the road, something exotic so when we talk about taking refuge

in Buddha nature it seems abstract and yet this refuge is so powerful so liberating if you imagine for a moment how your life would change every day of many times a day in some way you glimmered that this

radiant awareness really is your very essence. That in a way this whole spiritual path is undoing that trance. It's stopping pedaling away. When we stop pedaling away, we come home to an amazing amount of space and aliveness and awareness. And yet, as we know, it's an idea when we're living in these stories of a self way-woo-wise says 98% of what you do is for yourself and there isn't one so and yet we we have this we keep on telling ourselves stories about who's here I often use the metaphor of an ocean and waves we sense that what we are we hitch

our sense of self to a familiar pattern of waves of feelings and thoughts and activities and and and forget the ocean this that really is what we're made of. We forget that vast, mysterious presence. That's what we are. So we come back to our Buddha nature by quieting down our mind. It's one thing to talk about no self, but the only way to realize the fullness of our beingness is to quiet our mind. Our mind keeps us in stories that contract our reality. So taking refuge in Buddha nature, the mind. For some people taking an outer refuge, calling on some figure that expresses Buddha nature. And then this was the way the Buddha did it. He sat under the Bodhi tree on the night of his

enlightenment. He committed himself to staying present and he looked into his own mind. He basically asked, who am I? Over and over and not in a cognitive way. He asked that question in a deep way and then just let go. These are the words of Sri Ramakrishna. O longing mind, dwell within the depth of your own pure nature. O longing mind, dwell within the depth of your own pure nature. Do not seek your home elsewhere. Your naked awareness alone, O mind, is the inner

exhaustible abundance for which you long so desperately. So we forget and we remember. And when we get quiet, what we remember is the awareness that's always and already here, this vastness, this openness, that's what we are. So we'll do a last reflection before we do our ceremony together. And this is the refuge in Buddha nature, refuge in what I call awareness itself. So again, just sit in a way that's comfortable. If it helps to close your eyes and just gather your attention with a few full breaths, please do that. And as you arrive right here, just begin listening. Listen to the space in this room and the more distant sounds. Listen to and feel the sensations and aliveness in the body.

Just entrusting yourself to the waves. Just let it happen. Not controlling anything. Sense the whole world that's happening in the foreground, the sounds, the sensations, changing experience. And see if you can sense in the background

your own presence. That which is aware. There's sounds, listening to sounds, and there's that vast awareness that's aware of sound. You might even ask what is aware right now and without being cognitive or making up a story just to sense yourself relaxing back into the awareness that's right here. Of longing mind well within the depth of your own pure nature. So we take refuge in truth

and the moment to moment experience of what's here. We take refuge in love. We take refuge in love sensing that tender, warm field of heart that suffuses our experience and we take refuge in the one that's aware in that pure awareness that's our very source. When we leave, we sense that we've left home and we sense the longing to remember. It's as Rumi puts it,

sometimes you hear a voice through the door calling you, As a fish out of water hears the serfs come back. This turn toward what you deeply love saves you. Now we're going to in a few minutes take what we've just done and build it into our ritual, our refuge ritual. I just want to say a few words on it as before we do it. Again, is anybody without one of these red, what they're called is protection corps?

Anybody missing one right now? Okay. So let me give you a little background on this ceremony that in Buddhist Asia and in Hindu countries, this thread is a symbol of blessing and it's a red thread from the robe of a monk. It's said that in the marketplace then you become a monk or a nun in drag.

Okay? So what are you're going to do is you're going to be wearing this. But it's like you just, all you need is a remembrance and this is the remembrance. It's called a protection cord, and as I explained at the retreat we just had, there was a question that went to Chowgam Trunkba, to bed and teacher, about what exactly these cords protect us from? And I thought his answer was really instructive.

He said, why yourself, of course. And what he meant was not, they don't protect us from who we really are. They protect us from our stories. They protect us from our reactivity. They protect us from the way this self takes false refuge. They're a way of remembering. And so in this ceremony, what we'll do is we'll reflect together on each of these archetypal refuges,

these ways of turning towards reality. And with each reflection, I'm going to ask you to tie a knot in the cord. And then you'll, with the help of a partner, have the cord tied around your neck so that you can wear it and have a way of remembering. You can wear it into the marketplace. And if you choose to instead have it around your wrist,

that's fine or put it somewhere, that's fine too. So with that, take your cord and you might hold it in either hand like this, hold the ends. And if you'd like to, just to close your eyes and I'm going to name each refuge and as I name the refuge and they say that this refuge

is where we rest our heart as I name each refuge sense what it means for you in your life make this truly a living ritual that can hold your life and help you remember what matters so we begin and sense what it means to take refuge in the Dharma

to take refuge in truth to take refuge in the reality of our moment-to-moment experience. And when you sense your aspiration to take refuge in truth, when you sense what that means to you, your commitment to it, please tie the first knot into your court, reflecting on what it means to take refuge in the sangha, are in love, what for you and your life is cherished about that, what your commitment is,

what your longing is. And as you sense the meaning of refuge in love, refuge in Sanga, please tie the second knot in your cord. And refuge in Buddha, refuge in Buddha nature. again sensing for yourself what this means to turn towards the awakened heart mind to sense how it lives in an awakened being and how this awareness shines in your own being as you feel your dedication to taking refuge in the awakened heart mind please tie the third knot when you've done to take your cord and put it around your neck so the two ends are in front of you and this next part requires taking refuge in the sangha which means to find one person if you will

and in silence to take turns completing the cord tying a final knot around the front but please do have someone else do this it's part of actually the ritual to have the person complete the cord and tie the knot for you and then you do it for them and if there's no one right around you can wait and then find someone nearby to help you out you be in threes or whatever and when you're done come sitting again and have your sheet for the chant because we're going to end with this chant the threefold refuge sheet okay so we're going to be chanting this in polly which is the original language that the buddhist teachings were and you'll see the English underneath,

but you'll find that once you start just reading it and chanting, you'll get the knack of it. Taking a moment to again arrive in presence, to feel yourself here, and we'll begin. Namotasa, Bhagavato,

Arahato, Sama, Samasam budasa. Namotasa, Bhagawato, Arahato, Samasam Bhutasa. Namotasa, Bhagawato, Arahatau, Arahatau,

Samasam Bhudasa. Budam Saranam Gautami, Damam Seraam, serenang gau chami Sangam Serenam Gau

Gautchami Dutti Amp Bhudam Seraanam Gau Chami Dutiampi

Dhamang Seraanam Gau Chami Dutianp Sengam Sagan Seraanam

Gau Chami Tatiampi Bhudham Sarenang Gau Chami Tatiampi Dhamangang Sarenangha Mawami. Tatiampiangipi Sangam Sarenanghao Gautchami Namaste