To go for refuge to the Three Jewels again and again, remembering their good qualities and the differences between them. 

This vow means remembering the qualities of the three jewels, we should continuously go for refuge.  Dharma is like a boat that can carry us across the ocean of samsara.  Buddha is like the skillful navigator of the boat.  Sangha are like the crew.

The most important thing to be clear about is the function of each of the three jewels.  We can only appreciate their function if we have a clear understanding of our problem.  At a very basic level, our problem is our uncontrolled mind.  Because our mind is overrun with delusion and negativity, we create all sorts of problems for ourselves.  Ultimately, there are no problems other than the ones we create with our mind.  Even physically, there is just a bunch of atoms swirling around.  It is our mind that imputes “problem” onto the particular combination of atoms, and on the basis of that mental projection we suffer.  There are many outer problems that require all sorts of outer solutions, but our problem is an internal problem – our mind.  If we can learn to relate to everything that arises with a peaceful and virtuous mind, then we will be happy all the time regardless of what disaster is unfolding around us.  We change our mind by cultivating new habits of mind – instead of deluded habits of mind we cultivate wisdom and virtuous habits of mind.  Dharma instructions explain to us how to do this, and the actual new cultivated habits within our mind are our actual Dharma jewels within our mind.  Buddha helps us by explaining to us what we need to do (his instructions) and by bestowing blessings.  Blessings function to activate virtuous karmic tendencies on our mind which make it easier for us to generate virtue.

In many ways, Sangha is the most overlooked of the three jewels, yet from a practical point of view it is our most important.  If we enmesh ourselves in a web of Sangha friendships, then we will become socialized into responding to whatever arises with Dharma, specifically wisdom and compassion.  We receive most of our teachings from Sangha (our spiritual teachers) and they are our companions along the path.  They encourage us, inspire us, and support us when we need it. 

To go for refuge again and again means to maintain a constant awareness of what our real problem is, and then to apply effort to turn to Buddha for instructions and blessings, to our Sangha friends for inspiration and support and to the Dharma to create those new wisdom habits of mind.  These new habits are our actual protection from all suffering.

To offer the first portion of whatever we eat and drink to the Three Jewels, while remembering their kindness. 

We should first recall how all our happiness is a result of Buddha’s kindness because his compassionate actions enable us to perform virtuous actions that are the cause of our happiness.  Without Buddha we would not know the real causes of happiness, or the real causes of suffering.  He taught us perfect methods for overcoming suffering and attaining happiness.  Every favorable condition we have comes through Buddha’s blessings and our following his instructions.  Buddha attained enlightenment to benefit all living beings, and manifests even as non-Buddhists teachers to help others.

Remembering this, every time we eat we should offer what we are eating to our Spiritual Guide at our heart.  There are many different ways of doing this, some of which are explained in Joyful Path of Good Fortune or in Guide to Dakini Land.  But the main point is to take the time to be thankful, believe your guru is at your heart, and then mentally offer the food to him.  A very powerful way of doing this is to imagine that while it may be French fries that appear to our mind, mentally we should imagine that it is by nature medicinal nectar that functions to increase our merit, heal our mind of all delusions, and bestow upon us uncontaminated wisdom.  If we strongly believe this to be the case, it actually will be the case because it is a correct imagination. 

The vow here says to offer the first portion, but we should not feel limited to just the first portion.  We can offer every bite.  Of course we just do this mentally.  We don’t need to pause before every bite closing our eyes, etc.!  If we are with others and it would be strange to close our eyes and recite some prayers before we eat, then just mentally do it while stirring your food, or putting salt on, or whatever.  Externally, just be normal; but internally, understand what you are doing.  Since we eat and drink so often in the day, if we can make this our habit it will become easy to remember the Dharma throughout the day and the night.  A senior teacher once said our biggest problem is not understanding the Dharma, but rather our difficulty remembering to practice it.  If we combine our eating with our remembering, it will quickly become a new habit.

To regard anyone who wears the robes of an ordained person as an actual Sangha Jewel. 

In general, this vow means we need to pay respect to ordained Sangha because they are keeping moral discipline, and this is something very rare and precious.  It is almost a miracle that there is such a thing as ordained Sangha in this world.  Ordination is commonly understood to be like a spiritual marriage, where the ordained person makes a life-long commitment to a certain way of life.  But it is actually much, much more than this.  If we think deeply about it, ordination is the voluntary leaving behind of one’s ordinary self so that one can quite literally take rebirth as a new person, a fortunate one (Kelsang means fortunate one). 

We should not underestimate how hard it is to be ordained.  Sometimes we think, “it must be so easy for ordained people, they don’t have all the responsibilities I do and they don’t have to deal with all the obnoxious people I do.”  But this is a completely mistaken notion.  Even at a superficial level, ordained people have tremendous responsibility.  In fact, they have assumed personal responsibility to work until the end of time doing whatever it takes to free each and every living being, including ourselves.  They also have to deal with all sorts of obnoxious people, and I don’t just mean all the people who stare at them funny when they go out in public.  I am talking about all us! 

But at a more profound level, whether we are ordained or not, it is our mind that creates our feeling of being over-burdened with responsibility and it is our own mind that creates all these “obnoxious” people.  If we have a stressed out mind, we will project that stress onto whatever is our daily life, even the least demanding one.  If we have a playful, open mind, we will project that child-like wonder onto whatever is our daily life, even the most demanding one.  If we have an obnoxious mind, we will project that obnoxiousness onto whoever we come into contact with, even if they are all prostrating at our feet.  If we have a loving mind, we will project a world filled with delightful people, even if they are constantly abusing us. 

I find it very helpful to consider the example of ex-Gen-la Samden.  The person that he was before ordination died and he was reborn as Kelsang Samden.  Through pure deeds and a sincere motivation, Kelsang Samden died and became Gen Samden.  Through pure reliance and a vast motivation, Gen Samden died and became Gen-la Samden.  Gen-la Samden gave some of the most powerful and pure teachings I have ever received, in particular his teachings on patient acceptance.  But how hard it must be to be a Gen-la!  Such a mind, the courageous mind to become a lineage guru dedicated to passing on the Ganden Oral Lineage to future generations, has to be one of the most daunting spiritual minds a living being can generate.  It runs directly counter to virtually every single delusion in our mind, and every day is a constant struggle to simply be such a being. 

Our delusions are very tricky.  They are extremely skilled at kidnapping our Dharma understanding and using it to rationalize behavior that is, in the end, completely at odds with the Dharma.  Some people can’t understand how somebody so realized can succumb to such base delusions, but this is only because we don’t understand the raw power of some of the deluded seeds on our mind.  Small spiritual motivations like we have kick up small deluded seeds on our mind that we struggle to work through.  Huge spiritual motivations like the mind that strives to be a Gen-la kick up huge deluded seeds on our mind that they struggle to work through.  Sometimes these seeds are so strong and so tricky that they deceive us literally to our death.  They trick us into committing spiritual suicide, often in ways we don’t even realize we are doing so.  Losing one’s ordination is literally dying.  The spiritual being that was Kelsang whomever quite literally dies, and they are reborn an ordinary being.  Sometimes this death process can be incredibly psychologically traumatic.  To fall from being a Gen-la to being an ordinary being must be no different than falling from the highest god realm to the deepest hell while preserving complete memories of what it was like before.  The regret must be so overwhelming at times it becomes easier to live in total denial, but such denial is merely a fig leaf covering up deep inner pain.  And this for a being who has helped us all in so many ways.

Now just to be clear, I am not in any way condoning what he did.  What he did was wrong, and Geshe-la openly and unequivocally called him on his behavior.  But what I am saying is even his greatest mistake can be, for us, his greatest teaching.  This doesn’t make what he did right from the side of his action, but it does make what happened beneficial in our own mind.  In fact, we can say our viewing his action as a teaching is a compassionate act on our part because it helps us protect him from accumulating even worse negative karma by it undermining our own faith, etc.

Ordained people deserve our respect.  When we consider what they go through for us, we owe them nothing less.  I still keep a picture of Gen-la Samden on my shrine to remind me of his story.  His dramatic fall is, in my view, his most powerful teaching to us all.  The holy being that was Gen-la Samden was killed by his delusions.  He was, for me, a holy being; but he, like other holy beings before him, was killed – not by a bullet, but by something far more deadly – by delusion.  Just as we honor the memory of our fallen soldiers, so too I think it is important that we honor the memory of all the different fallen Kelsangs.  We need to understand the unique struggles of the ordained and the ex-ordained and we should thank them from the bottom of our heart because they are going through it all for us.  What kindness!

Not to harm others. 

This vow means instead to treating others badly we should try, with the best motivation, to benefit them whenever we can.  First we need to practice with respect to those close to us.  We then extend our practice to include all living beings.  It is a very odd thing of modern life that most of us are the nicest to the people we rarely see and barely know, but can be downright nasty with those whom we live with.  I point this out not to imply we should do the opposite, but rather to say a basic minimum should be we treat those we live with with the same basic courtesies we show perfect strangers.  This change alone would bring quite a revolution in our home and work life.

It is rare these days for us to physically harm others, unless it is by accident.  In modern times, our main instrument of harm is our words.  We get angry, frustrated and say all sorts of hurtful things to others.  We quite often put some people down in an effort to get other people to like us – we are bound together by our mutual disdain for judgment of some people.  We talk behind people’s backs or laugh when others do the same.  As a general rule, we should “never say anything bad about anyone ever.”  This is an enormously vast practice, especially in the workplace.  At home, we should principally guard against saying mean or spiteful things, or at a minimum not communicate to others that their very presence is frustrating for us. 

At work, we may be in a position of some power or authority where the decisions we make affect others.  More often than not, there is no decision we can make where somebody won’t be harmed.  All samsaric decisions necessarily involve trade-offs, and that means some people will be harmed and others will be helped.  This does not mean as Kadampas we should avoid positions of authority.  Rather, it means when we have to make decisions, we should follow some basic principles.  First, we should make sure our decision does more good than it does harm taking all things into consideration.  Second, our decision should be as impartial as possible, not favoring one group over another.  Third, if some people are harmed from our decision but it is nonetheless one where the winners win more than the losers lose, there should be a way to structure some sort of compensation mechanism where the losers are compensated for their losses while still leaving enough for the winners that they are better off.  If we struggle to make difficult decisions, we should request wisdom blessings to make the best possible decision we can.

To regard all Dharma scriptures as the actual Dharma Jewel. 

This vow means since we cannot see actual Dharma Jewels with our eyes (because they are internal realizations) we need to regard Dharma texts as actual Dharma Jewels.  Actual Dharma Jewels arise in dependence upon the meaning of Dharma texts.  We need to respect every letter of the scriptures and explanations.  We need to treat them with great care and avoid walking over them or putting them in places where they might be damaged or misused.

This begins with some very basic things like keeping our Dharma books and sadhanas in a special place separate from all our other books.  It means not putting them on the floor, etc., and instead to treat them with respect like we are holding something precious.  Over time, this practice can become quite vast.  We can view each word of a Dharma book as the actual speech of a Buddha much in the same way we see beyond the metal of a statue to imagine the living Buddha there.  When we read Dharma books, we should not think of them as inanimate words on a page, but rather as a direct telephone line to the Buddhas.  They literally speak to us through Dharma books.  The way this works is quite magical.  If you have some problem in life or conundrum to resolve, close your Dharma book, close your eyes, and then sincerely make the request, “please reveal to me the answer to this problem.”  Then, randomly open the book to some page, and it is guaranteed that the answer to your problem is on that page.  Geshe-la explained once that he blessed his books in this way where you could do this and get answers.  In particular, Joyful Path of Good Fortune is blessed in this way.  It may not be immediately obvious how what you read is the answer to your question, but that will primarily be because you are still grasping at your outer problem being your problem.  Your problem is your mind.  The answer to your problem is on the page.  Request wisdom blessings to realize how, and as you read the words imagine their meaning is penetrating deep into your mind bestowing upon you the wisdom necessary to answer to your problem.

If we are a tantric practitioner, we can train in viewing all sounds we hear as being mounted on mantras.  Even if somebody is yelling at us, internally we can view their screams as being mounted on mantras, and as the words enter our mind the mantra does as well blessing our subtle inner energy winds, healing them with the function of whatever mantra we imagine.  With training, all sounds from honking horns to the rustling of the trees in the wind will be, for us, eloquent explanations of the Dharma – personalized teachings every moment of every day.

Not to allow ourself to be influenced by people who reject Buddha’s teaching. 

This vow does not mean that we should abandon these people, merely that we should not let their views influence our mind.  Without abandoning love and consideration, we need to be vigilant and make sure that we are not being led astray by their bad habits and unsound advice.

Once again, maintaining awareness of the distinction between our outer and inner problem is our ultimate protection.  It is very rare for non-Dharma practitioners to make this distinction, so their advice to us will not be the answer we need.  They may have very sound advice when it comes to how to solve the outer problem, but we should keep the counsel of the three jewels for solving our inner problem. 

It is said that about 80% of communication is non-verbal, 15% is the tone we use and only 5% the meaning of our actual words.  This is really important to keep in mind in the context of this vow.  It means 80% of how others are influencing us comes from simply how they are, what they strive for and how they behave.  We very easily become socialized into the norms and habits of those around us, for good or for ill.  If we find ourselves surrounded by people who routinely are making wrong choices, we need to be extremely vigilant to not simply avoid following their advice, but also to not become socialized into being just like them.  Social osmosis is probably one of the most powerful forces in the world and is something that is largely invisible to us.  This does not mean we should avoid these people, rather we should just remain mindful of all the different ways they have the potential to influence us, both verbally and non-verbally.  When somebody verbally gives us bad advice, very often their bad advice itself can be a powerful teaching because hearing it reminds us of why it is wrong and therefore it teaches us what is right.  In the same way, if we remain mindful of our Dharma wisdom, seeing people’s wrong behavior can function for us as a powerful Dharma teaching.  With such mindfulness, we can circulate among anybody, even the most degenerate, and instead of being dragged down we will feel lifted up.

The refuge commitments lay the foundation for all the realizations of the stages of the path.  Realizing this, we should not regard them as a burden, but practice them joyfully and sincerely.  The principal function of our refuge vows is to maintain the continuum of our Buddhist path without interruption between now and our eventual enlightenment.  In other words, by training in the refuge vows we will create the karma necessary to maintain this uninterrupted continuum of our practice all the way.  It is like we enter into a karmic slip stream which carries us to our final destination. 

The second main benefit of keeping our refuge vows is we open our mind to receive the blessings and help from the three jewels.  On our own, we lack the necessary power to complete the path.  We lack not only the necessary horsepower, we lack even the gasoline.  Our effort plants the gasoline of karmic seeds on our mind, and the blessings activate these seeds and give our spiritual journey horsepower.  With them, there is nothing we can’t accomplish.  Without them, there is almost nothing we can accomplish.  Ultimately, we can learn to rely upon the three jewels for all our actions, from giving teachings at a festival all the way to flossing our teeth.  We can eventually learn how to have our every action of body, speech and mind be the three jewels working through us.  For more on the benefits of the refuge vows, please see Joyful Path of Good Fortune.

Some people mistakenly think we only focus on our refuge vows at the beginning of our practice.  No, our refuge vows remain the foundation of all our other practices all the way until the very end of the path.  There is never a time when we do not need to maintain this basic foundation.

The refuge vows will now be explained:

Not to go for refuge to teachers who contradict Buddha’s view or to samsaric gods. 

This vow means we should not go for ultimate refuge to anyone who contradicts Buddha’s view.  Ultimate refuge roughly means here “who has the final say.”  Throughout our lives we will be exposed to countless different ideas, each of which will have their own degree of validity.  But, if we are keeping this vow, we consider the definitive word to be that of Buddha.  There is a good reason for this.  Only Buddha explains the radical view of the Prasangikas, which explains (in fact proves) that everything is a karmic dream.  Only this view is free from all ignorance.  Any view short of this will be contaminated, even if only marginally, with a wrong understanding and therefore will not provide us with the final word on any given subject.  This vow does not mean that we can’t still receive ordinary help for ordinary things from others, such as a lawyer or a dentist. 

Samsaric gods in this context has two meanings.  The first is literal, meaning we don’t turn to beings who themselves are still in samsara for help in getting out.  A drowning person cannot save another drowning person.  Of course, we can still turn to beings within samsara for help with things in samsara, but they can’t provide us ultimate refuge for getting out.  The second meaning is metaphoric.  Our true samsaric gods that we are willing to sacrifice everything to are the eight worldly concerns.  In simple terms, this refers to attachment to pleasant feelings, praise, a good reputation, etc.  Everything we generally do in life is aimed at securing these things or freeing ourselves from their opposites.  These are the gods we follow.

We most frequently break this vow by mixing Buddha’s teachings with non-Buddhist ideas.  We can most easily keep this vow by making a clear distinction between our outer problem and our inner problem.  If our car breaks, it is not our problem, it is our car’s problem.  Our problem is the unpleasant feeling in our mind that comes from our delusions.  To fix that problem we turn to the three jewels.  As long as we make this distinction in any given situation, there is little risk of us going in the opposite direction of this vow. 

To regard any image of a Buddha as an actual Buddha. 

This vow means whenever we see a statue of Buddha we should see it as an actual Buddha, regardless of its quality of craftsmanship.  We should make offerings, prostrations and go for refuge to it.  For those with a Christian background, this vow usually raises some serious eyebrows about idolatry.  Of course, it would be foolish to pray to a piece of metal.  Metal can’t do anything for us.  That is not the meaning here.  The meaning is we should not believe the ordinary appearance of seeing the metal, but instead we should “see beyond it” and imagine that there is actually a living Buddha there.  This is a correct imagination because Buddhas pervade everywhere and the ultimate nature of all things is a Buddha.  So we don’t view the metal as a Buddha, rather seeing the metal reminds us to see with our wisdom eyes a living Buddha actually sitting there.

Each time we see an image of Buddha, it plants an pure – or uncontaminated – karmic seed on our mind that can never be destroyed and that functions to take us out of samsara.  There are three types of karmic seed:  negative, virtuous, and pure.  Negative seeds ripen in the form of rebirth in the lower realms, virtuous seeds ripen in the form of rebirth in the upper realms of samsara, and pure karma ripens in the form of rebirth outside of samsara.  Geshe-la said one of the primary reasons for building temples around the world is busloads of children and vacationers come and see, and each Buddha image they see plants the karma on their mind to find the path of Dharma in the future and eventually take rebirth outside of samsara.  The more Buddha images we see, the more such pure karma we create.

For this and other reasons, it is a good idea to always be in the presence of a Buddha image to serve as a constant reminder.  For myself, I have on my desk at work a 3-fold picture frame that has images of my guru, yidam, and protector.  When I work, I occasionally look up from my computer and see them.  At home, I have an image next to my bed, and of course there is my shrine for my daily meditations.  I knew this one woman who quite literally wall papered her entire room with different images of Buddhas!  While this may not quite be “remaining natural while changing our aspiration,” it is frankly not that bad of an idea!

Most of us know the teachings Geshe-la has given on the correct attitude to have towards our vows and commitments, but sadly we don’t ever seem to really believe him when he explains it.  We still tend to think of them in absolutist, black and white terms, when in reality each vows has many, many different levels at which we can keep it.  We think in terms of our ability to “keep” our vows instead of viewing them as trainings we progressively engage in over the course of our lives.  When we go to the gym, there are all sorts of different exercise machines.  Each one works out a different muscle, and each person who uses the machine uses it at a different level (different amounts of weight, different number of repetitions, etc.).  But everyone in the gym uses the same equipment.  It is exactly the same with our vows.  Each vow is something we train in, not something we are already expected to be able to do perfectly at the maximum.  Each vow focus on strengthening different mental muscles, but doing all them strengthens the whole of our mind.  We each train in the vow at different levels according to our capacity, but we know the more we train the more our capacity will grow.  Everyone in the spiritual gym trains with the same vows regardless of our level.  In almost every way, the correct attitude towards a physical exercise regimen is exactly the same attitude we should cultivate towards our spiritual exercise regimen of our vows and commitments.  I often find it helpful to read the sports training literature, especially that of long-distance tri-athletes.  Our journey is very long and will require almost unthinkable stamina, but we must recall every Iron Man Champion was once a baby who couldn’t even lift their head. 

Geshe-la explains there are four main causes of the degeneration of our vows and commitments.  These are known as the ‘four doors of receiving downfalls.’  He says to close these doors we should practice as follows:

1. Closing the door of not knowing what the downfalls are.  We should learn what the downfalls are by committing them to memory.  We should learn how they are incurred.  We should make plans to avoid such situations.  In this series of posts, I will try explain all these things for each vow.
2. Closing the door of lack of respect for Buddha’s instructions.  We can protect ourselves from this primarily by training in the refuge vows.  Refuge is not a difficult concept.  When we have a toothache, what do we do?  We turn to the dentist.  When we have a legal problem, what do we do?  We turn to a lawyer.  When we have an internal problem with our mind, what do we do?  We turn to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.  Dentists can fix our teeth and lawyers can solve our legal problems, but only the three jewels can help us with our inner mental problems.  Geshe-la said we should contemplate as follows:

“Since Buddha is omniscient, knowing all past, present, and future phenomena simultaneously and directly, and since he has great compassion for all living beings without exception, there is no valid reason for developing disrespect towards his teachings.  It is only due to ignorance that I sometimes disbelieve them.”

3. Closing the third door of strong delusions. For our Pratimoksha, and Bodhisattva vows, we should principally try to overcome our delusions by practicing Lamrim.  If by practicing Lamrim we are always able to maintain a good intention, there will be no basis for incurring Pratimoksha or Bodhisattva downfalls.  At the end of the day, our Pratimoksha vows come down to one simple concept:  do no harm (to ourself or to others).  Likewise, our bodhisattva vows come down to one simple concept:  put others first.  If we do these two – do no harm and put others first – then we will be directly or indirectly practicing all our Pratimoksha and Bodhisattva vows.  For our tantric vows, if by practicing generation stage and completions stage we overcome ordinary appearance and ordinary conceptions, there will be no basis for incurring Tantric downfalls.  Again, to keep things simple, what does this mean:  It means we ask ourselves one simple question, “what would Heruka do?”  Heruka sees everyone and everything as pure, not because they objectively are pure but because maintaining this view functions to draw out the purity in everything until eventually it becomes our living reality. 
4. Closing the fourth door of non-conscientiousness.  We should repeatedly bring to mind the disadvantages of incurring downfalls, and the advantages of pure moral discipline.  These have been explained in the previous post, and the specific karmic benefits of each vow will be explained in the explanation of each vow.

In brief, Geshe-la explains, we prevent our vows from degenerating by practicing the Dharma of renunciation, bodhichitta, correct view, generation stage, and completion stage. 

It is important to be skilful in our approach to the vows.  We should not have unrealistic expectations or make promises we cannot keep.  It will happen to all us in the early stages of our Dharma practice that when we are at some festival and feeling very inspired, we make these outlandish vows that we (at the time) intend to keep our whole life.  Then we get home, try at first, but eventually are forced to abandon the vow.  Venerable Tharchin says when making promises, we should ask ourselves, “what can I do on my absolute worst day?”  We promise only to do that.  On any given day we will most likely do better than our promise, but then we won’t actually break it.  It is a bad habit to make spiritual promises which we later break.  We will all make all sorts of what I call “beginner’s errors” with this one.  It doesn’t matter.  When you break the promise, realize your mistake, recalibrate your promise and try again.  Eventually you will get the right balance. 

We should adopt the vows gradually, as each can be kept on many levels.  In this way, we can gradually deepen the level we are able to keep the vows.  If we are a teacher, we should explain the vows well and not encourage our students to promise to keep them all perfectly from the start.  Getting the correct attitude towards our vows is well over half the battle.  But keeping the vows gradually does not mean that we can temporarily put to one side the vows that we do not like.  We have to work with all the vows, gradually improving the way we observe them.

Finally, Geshe-la says we should begin to practice all the vows as soon as we have taken them.  Then we practice them to the best of our ability.  Geshe-la says we should never lose the determination to keep the vows perfectly in the future.  He says by keeping the intention to keep them purely in the future we keep our commitments, even if along the way we repeatedly fall short.  I can’t remember who, but some wise person once said, “the day you can keep all your vows and commitments perfectly is the day you will no longer need them.  It is because you can’t keep your vows and commitments perfectly that we do need them.”  This is useful to always keep in mind.