The Three Refuges and Five Precepts.
 

Honoring the Buddha:

Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammāsambuddhassa
(Homage to the Blessed, Noble and Perfectly Enlightened One)

The Three Refuges:

buddham saranam gacchāmi / To the Buddha I go for refuge.
dhammam saranam gacchāmi / To the Dhamma I go for refuge.
sangham saranam gacchāmi / To the Sangha I go for refuge.

dutiyampi buddham saranam gacchāmi / For the second time...
dutiyampi dhammam saranam gacchāmi / For the second time...
dutiyampi sangham saranam gacchāmi / For the second time...

tatiyampi buddham saranam gacchāmi / For the third time...
tatiyampi dhammam saranam gacchāmi / For the third time...
tatiyampi sangham saranam gacchāmi / For the third time......

The Five Precepts

pānātipāta veramani sikkhāpadam samādiyāmi.
I undertake the training to refrain from destroying living beings.

adinnadāna veramani sikkhāpadam samādiyāmi.
I undertake the training to refrain from stealing or taking that which is not freely given.

kamesu micchacara veramani sikkhāpadam samādiyāmi.
I undertake the training to refrain from sexual misconduct.

musāvādā veramani sikkhāpadam samādayāmi.
I undertake the training to refrain from false speech.

surā-meraya-majja-pamādatthāna veramani sikkhāpadam samādiyami.
I undertake the training to refrain from taking intoxicants, which cause carelessness and cloud the mind.

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Most people on the internet don't really get it, but this bloke explains refuge pretty well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6rfIDRWAyU

Interesting to watch


Namaste

Thanks for the link Gem, I like what he says and it's a lived experience too.
I'm just looking around for some other stuff. Vince Cullen is interesting
from the recovery movement, what he says. Think I've told you about him
before.

https://5th-precept.org/fifth-precep...-vince-cullen/

He says that in his own experience 80 percent of suffering just dropped away for him and those around him by taking account of the 5th precept.
Also as many other teachers do, he stresses that there is no 'success' with meditation without the framework of the 5 precepts.

surā-meraya-majja-pamādatthāna veramani sikkhāpadam samādiyami.
I undertake the training to refrain from taking intoxicants, which cause carelessness and cloud the mind.


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I undertake the training to refrain from taking intoxicants, which cause carelessness and cloud the mind.

When I first started doing retreats, sila and refuge seemed like a ritual, 'say three times'. After a while it started to sink in that sila is about ending craving and refuge is about trust.

You trust in the enlightened quality of yourself, trust the way nature works and trust your spiritual community (wary about the third one). It follows that, as a community member, you have to be trustworthy and therefore moral, so sila. Otherwise, the sangha is not a safe refuge and you can forget the whole thing.

Maybe the bigger picture of truthfulness, purification, resolving sorrows and realising the enlightened quality of yourself is a better ambition - and the 5th sila is merely necessary to achieve any of that.

Hence I don't think Buddhism should be a 'recovery' strategy... but dealing with craving in the overall sense is pretty much what it's all about.

Thanks for your post Gem, Plenty to consider. Just a quick point for now about Sangha. The word Sangha has been used in different ways and contexts.
I think the 'hardcore' traditional meaning is a group of fully ordained monks, that go to make up the Sangha. That definition seems to be used alot still.

Then there are alot of other looser definitions of Sangha going all the way up to the whole human race in general. Any thoughts on this one ?
Also I was going to ask was your waryness around Sangha to do with power dynamics etc. etc. ? Thanks once again.

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I think context is important, so sangha can be different things in different contexts, but with the retreat thing there's teachers and the volunteers who make the food etc, so you rely on the sangha to support your own retreat.

It's about trust so it can't be 'all the people'. It's really reserved to the the teachers and/or the group of people you trust to mutually support each other along the spiritual path. Practice together and or belong to the same spiritual organisation - etc.

When you become a volunteer you become part of a peer group which is the sangha that people on retreat 'take refuge' in. We have codes of behaviour, daily meetings with teachers along with group metta meditations to make sure we stay more aligned with wholesome mind-states like compassion, forgiveness, understanding etc. - and don't get carried away with ill-will, animosity, gossip and so forth.

When it comes to sangha, people have to earn trust. Many schools out there are involved with corruption and degeneracy, and the monks and trustees are generally untrustworthy. They ask you to 'take refuge', but it's not a safe place to undergo purification.

An organisation has to be structured on a proper moral framework, have codes of behaviour based on moral foundations; and practices like group metta and continuous mindfulness are essential for the working staff. The staff have to work in dana, generosity, selfless service, to give and expect nothing in return. They are practicing, like, karma yoga, same as dana or generosity, so it's improper to pay or even thank them for all that they do. It's improper to charge anyone for retreat, but people who found value in the practice may give a donation if they want to help finance someone else's stay.

Once you pay for what you get, and get paid for what you give, it's going the wrong way from the start. That's how rare a really proper school is.

I know people aren't going to like it because we imagine spirituality as free and easy with petals, colours, smiles and hugs etc, but bringing about and establishing the right conditions for refuge is very important, and it's not simple.

REFUGE.
 

They go to many a refuge,
to mountains, forests,
parks, trees, and shrines:
people threatened with danger.
That's not the secure refuge,
that's not the highest refuge,
that's not the refuge,
having gone to which,
you gain release
from all suffering and stress.

But when, having gone for refuge
to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha,
you see with right discernment
the four Noble Truths —
stress,
the cause of stress,
the transcending of stress,
and the Noble Eightfold Path,
the way to the stilling of stress:
That's the secure refuge,
that, the highest refuge,
that is the refuge,
having gone to which,
you gain release
from all suffering and stress.
Dhammapada, 188-192

Thanks for your reply.Generally speaking it's not nice when it turns sour, like there can be lots of instances of Sangha rubbing up against each other on retreat.
However, someone said it can be like stones in a bag the more they rub each other up the smoother they become. In the context I'm speaking about it's do-able
but often the more long term members of a community or sangha have stuff going on behind the scenes, clashes etc that practitioners coming for a relatively
short term retreat don't see. So as you say there has to be such things in place as adherence to precepts and refuge.

There was once a guy who was placed in charge of building a stupa in a retreat centre I still visit. Was a big project, lots of concrete being poured etc. and wheel barrowing. Well he thought he was building Carnegie Hall or something. It was a bit of a Milarepa narrative too, much darkness drug dealing etc. The nun is charge at the time really made a huge effort and allowance to help him but alas they had to ask him to leave in the end as he couldn't handle the leadership and managed
to alienate the whole of the community more or less lol.

I hear what your saying about the trustees handling money etc. In terms of Dana that really has to carefully thought through. What is acceptable to pay and what is not. Interesting. Also what you say about the daily goings on or grind of a Sangha is not always pretty, looking back in retrospect I can see spirituality can be sold
to oneself as sweetness and light, or more often you end up reading books and sell the message of sweetness and easy goingness to yourself, I have done this. lol.

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I totally get what you are saying so I have only attended No speaking retreats.