Good evening and welcome. So I want to talk this evening about the three refuges, sort of as a preview of Alan Sanaki's talk here this Sunday, which coming up, which he entitles The Three Refuges, We Are All Refugees. It starts off by saying, Buddhism's three refuges in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha emerge from a life informed by Zazen. So I want to talk about taking refuge in the three refuges. And the whole idea of refuge. So to take refuge is to find refuge, to go to refuge, to take refuge, is to look for safety and protection.

[01:10]

And commonly in Buddhism, we talk about the three refuges, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. And we have formal ceremonies here, lay ordination or priesthood ordination, in which one takes refuge. formally in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. But actually, just doing this Zazen, which we've all just done, is to take refuge in Buddha, in Dharma, and Sangha. To come back home to Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. in some ways to take refuge from some difficulty, from the difficulties of the world. So we come to Zazen as a refuge in Buddha. So we're coming from something and we're going to something. So there is all of the difficulties in the world, whatever we call the world, in our own worlds,

[02:22]

in the confusion of our own work and relationships and family and so forth, and also in the world around us and what's going on in the world. And then we take refuge in something. We find sanctuary in something. So I wanted to use as a context some of the writings in Being Upright by my teacher, Rev. Anderson, who talks about this. And he talks about refuge in Buddha. He talks about different aspects of what Buddha is. Buddha, in a sense, is the awakened one, unsurpassed, complete, and correct awakening.

[03:25]

It's also the person who realizes this awakening. So all of the Buddhas in the world, the historical Buddha and other Buddhas. And Rev says it's also the transformation of beings. So there's awakening in all things. There's the potential of awakening all things in all things. And it has to do with transformation. So in Zazen, we sit like Buddha. We come home to Buddha. We find our way of expressing Buddha. And in our school, for Dogen, he talks particularly about the importance of, it's not just figuring out something or understanding something, it's actually expressing in our bodies, in this posture, on our seats, expressing Buddha. And what does that mean? Well, that's the question, but it's about something that is deep that we can take refuge in.

[04:30]

It's something that, we each find in our own way through expressing Buddha. But it's also, again, a refuge. It's coming back home to some deeper home, to some deeper reality. Reb says about this, I read what he said about Buddha, he says about Dharma, Dharma is freedom from any difference between ourselves and Buddha. Dharma is also the truth that is realized by a Buddha. and the transformation of that truth into sutras and other forms of teaching. So we say also in our Bodhisattva vow, Dharma gates are boundless.

[05:31]

We vow to enter them. Each situation, each difficulty is an opportunity to take refuge in the truth. Well, what is the truth? Anything we say about it isn't quite it. The meaning is not in the words, and yet it responds. There's something alive about it. So each of these refuges we come home to because they're alive, because they're a deeper reality. Sangha represents harmony. The community of those who practice the truth realized by a Buddha. and the release of beings from suffering and bondage to the world of birth and death. So Sangha has to do with release from suffering, freedom from suffering. So we take refuge in Buddha. And Al on Sunday is going to talk about these three refuges in terms of Western ideas like liberty, equality, and fraternity, and in terms of practices of Dr. Martin Luther King's beloved community, and other comparisons.

[06:49]

But I just want to talk about tonight as an introduction, these refuges as our actual practice of Zazen. So in some sense, Buddha is our true self. Buddha is that deepest home, that deepest reality that we can trust, that is about the truth. So this true self, this came up in discussion yesterday, this true self is not our idea of self. So there's this basic teaching of non-self. But there's also this teaching about returning to Buddha as the true self, as our deepest self. Reb says, to take refuge in Buddha means to take refuge in what you really are.

[07:50]

What you really are is already attained, always, every moment. What you really are is Buddha. You don't have to work at what you are. Part of what you are is what you think you are. But what you think you are is not all of what you are. So we have an idea of self. And non-self is about getting free from our idea of self, which is just an aspect of what you are. Being Buddha means being unattached to your thoughts about what you are. If you think you are a worthy person or an unworthy person, not grasping those thoughts is Buddha. But in fact, being a person who has such thoughts is a necessary condition for realizing Buddha. So we find our way to this practice of turning to Buddha, returning home to Buddha, returning home to Dharma and Sangha through our ancient twisted karma, which we have now fully avowed in our chant.

[09:07]

When you take refuge in Buddha, when you go back to being fully yourself, you begin to see how you are connected and depend on everybody and how everybody depends on you. In other words, the first refuge really contains the other two. And actually, I would say all 16 of our precepts are contained in just returning home to Buddha. finding some safety or protection, some true refuge. And it's not something that happens just once. So we come back to sit in zazen again and again and again to find more deeply or to sustain something that is deeply about this true self. And as Rob says, to trust that you are Buddha in some way. Not that your ideas of you are Buddha, but something deeper. So taking refuge is about finding some deeper home.

[10:18]

And again, there's what we return to and what we return from. When I finished my three-week Dharma transmission ceremony with Reb at Tassajara in spring of 2000, just as I was getting ready to leave, getting on the vehicle to leave to drive on the road out to Tassajara, he said to me, don't try and run away from yourself, or don't run away from yourself. How do we not run away from ourselves? How do we be willing to be the fullness of this self, which includes our idea of ourself, but it's not just our idea of ourself? How do we find that true self? How do we take refuge in that? So it's not about being virtuous.

[11:21]

It's not about being not virtuous. It's something that happens. There's something that happens in terms of Dharma and Sangha that is kind of call and response, like drumming and singing begin together. It's happening. It happens not as a result of our practice, not as a result of taking refuge in Buddha or turning towards Buddha. Or, you know, I remember seeing Buddha statues at some point in my teen years and saying, oh, there's something about that. That looks nice. So we have a Buddha statue in the middle of the room to remind us of what it looks like to sit calmly and upright and collectively. So not to run away from ourselves, but somehow I found myself this week remembering something Tom Dolan said to me. I worked with Tom at the NBC television station in San Francisco, and actually we had worked together at the NBC station in New York.

[12:29]

I was a film editor. I did documentaries, but I ended up doing a lot of television news. And so I worked on the Today Show at NBC and it worked in ABC. And anyway, when I came out to San Francisco, having worked in New York, I could easily get jobs in San Francisco. Tom Dolan was, at that time, maybe an associate producer or something. Anyway, as it happened, year and a half after I moved from New York to San Francisco, and I was sitting at the San Francisco Zen Center at that point. I had been sitting with the Soto Zen Priest in New York before that, before I moved. I had a very powerful Sashin. I just decided there were things going on and actually San Francisco Zen Center was expanding and they had greens and the bakery and grocery store, lots of businesses.

[13:33]

And I just decided I want to do that. I want to help support. You know, this was the first large, first established center in America. This was in 79, before some of you were born maybe. So I decided to quit my job and to quit working in film. I've been doing a lot of, I don't know, a while. I've been working as a film editor mostly, but doing various things in film. Anyway, I happened to tell a couple people when I gave notice that that NBC station, I mentioned to Tom, and I forget who else was there, that I was going to go work for San Francisco Zen Center. And he said to me, that's wrong. I thought news was in your blood. But I did it anyway.

[14:37]

And I went to work for Tassajara Bakery. But you know, Tom was right. I just Googled him. He's working as a consultant for finding jobs for people in television and stuff in D.C. now. We weren't that close or anything, but he had seen me working in New York and San Francisco and he said, I thought Newsworth was in your blood. Well, it turns out he was right about that. And it has occurred to me to wonder, Maybe I would have done more good if I'd stayed working as a journalist rather than going to work full-time in Zen and becoming a Zen priest and then a Zen teacher and all this. I don't know. But I feel bad for some of you because you may come here wanting refuge from the news.

[15:39]

And here's this guy who's got news in his blood who talks about what's going on in the world. So, you know, I'm sorry you're stuck. Not that that's all we have to talk about, but by any means. What does it mean to take, to find, to not run away from yourself, your true self, and all the selves, all the multitudes of selves on your seat right now? How do you include all of it? How do we find, you know, that which is beyond and beneath and around our ideas of self? So, you know, in some ways I feel like Tom saw me at that point, saw something. That's, you know, when I take refuge in Buddha, I have to not run away from myself.

[16:46]

So here I am. This particular, each of us has our own particular way of expressing Buddha. And we harmonize that through Sangha, through all beings, through this particular Sangha. Here we have ancient dragons, Zen gate. We've been, next month, well, I'll get to that in announcements, in January we'll have our 10th anniversary in this zendo. But you know, at that point where Tom said that to me and where I went ahead and went to work for Tassajara Bakery, I'd already been, you know, in some ways I was taking refuge in Buddha in a more, I don't know. I don't want to say more complete. In some fuller way. We don't have businesses here.

[17:46]

So there's no way to take refuge in that way. But I'd already been sitting every day for five years. I'd already taken lay ordination four years before. What does it mean to take refuge in Buddha? And how do we do it in different forms, different times, maybe more and more deeply. Maybe taking refuge in Buddha would have been to stop, well, not stop sitting zazen, but not be involved in some certain organization, but just work as a journalist. I don't know. Could that have been taking refuge in Buddha more fully? I don't know. Of course, we have this non-residential sangha here where all of you have other things you're doing. besides being full-time zenies. How can those be ways of taking refuge in Buddha? What is it we are finding sanctuary from when we return to our deepest Buddha-ness?

[18:59]

What is it we, what is that, this thing that is, these depths that we turn towards that we can't get a hold of, and yet there's something that calls us. You're all here tonight. What is this deeper truth or reality or being, or I don't know, any word I use isn't it. The meaning is not in the words, but it responds. How do we find our response? So as refugees in the Buddha way, I think there is some, this word refugee is interesting and I used it recently in the context of the refugees coming from Central America that our president wants to keep out. and all kinds of other refugees. And how is it that we are refugees taking refuge in Zazen from something in our life that we need to feel more deeply?

[20:13]

we need to connect with more deeply. So refugees from Honduras and El Salvador and Guatemala are looking for refuge from the effects of our American war on drugs and all of the gangs that have developed after that. They're taking refuge from harsh governments installed by our American government or helped by our American government where they're not safe. And we have violence in the South Side of Chicago. We have violence gun shootings regularly in this country. So I don't know. Is this a place of safety? And also the migrants, refugees around the world now are refugees from climate chaos.

[21:19]

So I don't know how many people are fleeing California now from the fires or fleeing the East Coast from the floods. Some people had to leave their homes and many towns in California were evacuated. The people coming up from Central America are partly refugees because For several years now, the coffee crop failed due to changing climate. And so people had to go from the countryside where they were working as farmers to the cities and where they got caught up in gang violence and terror. And so now they're, well, is America a safe place to take refuge in? I don't know. But this whole sense of taking refuge on many levels What does it mean to be a refugee? All of us are refugees coming to Zazen, finding our way from whatever problem, whatever situation.

[22:25]

We feel like we need to go deeper. There's a, so I guess the day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday or something like that and everybody's supposed to go shopping. Is that a thing? There's a Zen group in Minnesota that's having a Blank Friday instead and people can come and sit all day. So how do we turn away from something in our life or in our culture that feels unfulfilled or harmful even, and how do we turn towards something where we feel like we can be helpful, where we feel like we can respond to suffering, where we can somehow avoid or try and decrease harm.

[23:27]

So all of this is part of just turning towards Buddha, coming home towards Buddha. And Alan on Sunday, I'm sure, Sunday morning here will, I'm sure, speak about this in a little different way. But I thought I'd introduce this as a way of previewing that. And maybe that's enough for me to say now, does anybody have any response or comments or part of The English word refuge, I guess the Sanskrit word has to do with finding protection and sanctuary. But refuge partly comes from returning and the idea of the fugue. And I don't know so much about music, but there's a theme and then it recurs and it comes back. So, again, this isn't like a one-time, okay, I'm going to quit my job and go work for Zen Center.

[24:29]

It's again and again, we return to Buddha-ness. So, okay, comments, questions, responses, anyone, please feel free. What is it to take refuge? While we're still alive, we like to think that our lives have been a deep progression from there to here.

[25:38]

And this is it, right? Except that this is never good until we have passed on. And then we're whatever, whatever's happening. go live in a monastery for a period of time, and then maybe that changes us in some ways, or maybe it changes us in such a way that we decide that we're not going to live in a monastery for a while after that. But it's, I don't know, it's kind of mysterious. I was also thinking about the concept of the sorting hat from the Harry Potter story. Oh yeah, good. You know, you put on the hat, and Supposedly, it tells you which of the four houses you're supposed to be in.

[26:40]

But one interpretation I heard of that is that the hat just tells the person, the house you belong in is the house that you really want to be in. That's how it worked out for Perry. The hat kind of pointed out, we have all these possibilities, but this is the one for you. And we can take that. Yeah. So your friend's pronouncement of this is wrong, you've got news in your blood. You might have news in your blood. You might always have news in your blood. But maybe those determinations of our true place in Buddha's way can't be made by someone outside of us. Or maybe they can't be made by us either. There's a process where we meet. So this is maybe what Sangha is. Things happen in our lives.

[27:44]

We move to a new house. We take a new job. We end a relationship or start a relationship or, you know, things happen. And it's not the thing, the dramatic things have to happen either, you know. But, you know, as Life shifts. How is each shift part of the process of taking refuge? And can we intentionally, part of it, there's an intention involved. We want to turn towards, I won't even say the word Buddha. We want to turn towards something deeper, something more whole, more true. And SOSN, I think, helps us find that. But it's not like somebody can tell you, oh, you should do this. You know, sometimes people come, I've said this before, there are times when people come to me and they have a life decision to make and they have to decide between A and B and what do they do. And of course, there's always C, D, and E to consider.

[28:48]

But there's some idea that I have to make the right decision. You come to the fork in the road and you have to take it one way or another. And I've had this less, but it used to be that people would kind of have the feeling like there's one right way and somebody up there knows it. And I'm supposed to be doing this. It's like predestined or something. I don't think so. if I hadn't encountered my first teacher in New York and didn't know about, if I hadn't started doing Zen, I don't know, that would have been okay. I would have had some other life. But how can we, whatever, whichever, turn road we take, how can we intentionalize and intensify that as a part of a process of coming home, of turning towards and turning away, turning away from something unsatisfactory or frivolous, turning towards something more meaningful or helpful.

[30:00]

Anyway, yeah, thank you for that, Ashen. Other comments? responses, questions, please. Yes, Douglas. I mean, that's Matt. Yes. But then there's also the, what you said, that gets your problem set by a manager. So there's something about that. Yeah, not running away from self might be taking refuge in going into some dangerous situation.

[31:12]

Firefighters, for example, who take refuge in a job in which they're constantly going to help people in danger and risking something. There are many other examples. Journalists who go to war zones or dangerous places. for example, but it doesn't mean, so I think that's an interesting thing. Thank you for that. It's not just taking, so taking refuge in Buddha is not about finding a safe refuge. It's about maybe finding something that is more deeply about not running away from yourself. It might mean going to some place that's more dangerous, but you're returning to the self that wants to be helping relieve suffering, for example. So yeah, thank you, that's interesting. What does it mean to go towards this deepest self?

[32:33]

Ed? Well, you know what you just said. to turn away from the self that we know, that feels safe when we think we know who we are, to turn towards that which is maybe unknown, where maybe we know something's happening, but we don't know what it is. There's something going on. And yet, what taking refuge is might be moving towards the unknown as well as the unsafe.

[33:39]

So our Zazen may help us move towards what is deeper truth for this Buddha or this Zazen person? Yes, Akasha. Nope. Leap. I was like, at this point, I'm just going to wait.

[35:24]

Thank you for that. Yeah, great. Great comments tonight, everyone. But yeah, it's like, Yeah, so we go through these changes in our life, but what's underneath those? So you could have one job or another job. But that which is deeper, that which is the refuge, that which is the Buddha house somehow, maybe is there in both of them, or it could be there either. And yet, life takes us through these shifts. It's interesting. And we'll keep doing it. And maybe that's enough for tonight. We'll close with the four bodhisattva vows.

[36:55]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ