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The Meaning of Conversion For many in the West, the word conversion conjures up images of missionaries armed with a Bible and the promise of salvation, heading off into new lands to do God’s work, or the persistent door knocking of other faith/belief types intent on saving you from one hell realm or another. This is obviously a very primitive conception of conversion. The dictionary definition will show us it means simply ‘turning around’. When one turns around within the context of conversion it involves a double movement. We need to turn away from something and turn towards something at the same time. The experience of conversion is of the greatest possible importance, because it marks the beginning of our Dharma life. The meaning of conversion therefore deserves our closest attention. There have been many studies as to the nature of conversion within mainstream theistic religions but little has been documented in relation to the practicalities of converting to Buddhism. This is because it is generally seen as a very simple matter. For most, it is just a case of changing the label. If they were a belief/faith type within their former religion they will bring those faculties with them into Buddhism. But it is not really that simple. If we look deeper into what conversion means in Buddhism, we find that it is multi-layered and far from simple. In a sense the act of ‘Going for Refuge’ is the simplest aspect of conversion within Buddhism. In a wider, more comprehensive sense, it includes and informs all the other layers of conversion. So first, what is Going for Refuge? What does one mean by `Refuge’? And who or what does one `Go For Refuge’ to? The short answer is that as a Dharma practitioner one goes for refuge to the Buddha, the enlightened teacher, to his Dharma, or teaching of the path leading to enlightenment, and to the Sangha, the community of like-minded individuals who are progressing along that path in the direction of the enlightenment experience. These three refuges are also commonly known as the Three Jewels. In many traditional Buddhist cultures, going for refuge has become little more than a formality. If you want to be formally admitted into a Christian church you have to undergo the rite of baptism. Within Buddhism, you receive the refuges and precepts from an accredited representative of the Buddhist tradition and by doing this you formally become a Buddhist. Many people therefore consider that going for refuge is just a matter of reciting the appropriate formula. So far as they are concerned, they have gone for refuge, conversion has taken place. They see no need to ponder the meaning deeply or try to explore its significance, much less still put it into practice. This degeneration of going for refuge into a formality is a very unfortunate development. Nothing in the Buddha’s teaching is meant to be practiced mechanically or as a matter of mere tradition, without an understanding of its inner meaning and its relevance to one’s own life. To begin with, what is meant by `refuge’? Refuge from what? The Three Jewels are a refuge from mental anguish. It is the existence of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha that makes it possible for us to escape from those aspects of mental anguish that can be escaped from. Just as in the ordinary world jewels are the most precious of all material things, when we live the Dharma life these things are considered to be of the highest value to us. The fact that those values exist gives us the possibility of development and progress far beyond our present comparatively low level. Considered as refuges, the Three Jewels therefore represent the ideal of the complete realization of the Dharmadatu, the experience of enlightenment. You don’t just accept the Three Refuges; you go for refuge. This action is a total, unqualified reorientation of your entire life, your existence, your striving, in the direction of the realization of the Dharmadatu. When you say “I go for Refuge” you are not only acknowledging that the Three Jewels are the most supremely valuable things in existence; you are also acting upon that acknowledgement. Bearing in mind the definition `turning around’, if this is not conversion it would be difficult to say what is. It is all very well, of course, to say: reorganize your life around the Three Jewels; obviously this is something which is not easily done. We need to explore how it works out in concrete terms, and this we can do by looking at each of the Three Refuges in turn. In practice, going for refuge to the Buddha means accepting the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni, as the embodiment of the highest conceivable state achievable by human beings. It means that after possibly surveying and comparing all of the great spiritual teachers throughout history, whilst maybe fully appreciating each and every one of them, you nevertheless come to the conclusion that all of their values and attainments are, as it were, summed up in the person of the Buddha. If you regard any other being as having gained a direct knowledge higher than that of the Buddha, then there is no Buddha refuge for you. You may be an admirer of the Buddha, you may wear the label Buddhist but you are not, as yet, fully committed to the Dharma path. Without an authentic, heartfelt, Dharma practice we will experience nothing but superficial changes. We will continue to live in accord with our habitual patterns of conditioned behavior and experience multi-levels of mental anguish. In going for refuge to the Buddha we need to develop faith and devotion within the context of how those words are understood within Buddhism. The Sanskrit word for this is ‘Sraddha’ which means to place the heart on. Sraddha is necessarily exclusive because it is understood that the heart can only truly be placed on one object. It is Sraddha that provides the fuel for Dharma practice. The intellect, we might say, is like a motor car: the machinery is all there, but without the fuel, without the igniting spark, it just won’t move. We may know all the philosophies and systems of religion, we may even be able to write and speak about them, but if our knowledge is just cold, intellectual, and abstract, if that living spark of inspiration, Sraddha is not there, we shall never make any progress. We cannot be deeply devoted to a number of spiritual ideals simultaneously. If we are going to develop devotion to an intensity which is capable of propelling us along the Dharma path in the direction of the Dharmadatu, it must be fixed on just one figure, the one which we consider to be the highest. At the same time, intolerance has no place within Dharma practice. In regarding the Buddha as pre-eminent, above all other teachers, Buddhism does not dismiss or condemn, any other teacher, religious or otherwise. On the intellectual plane, going for refuge to the Dharma means being convinced of the essential truth of the Buddha’s teaching. One must be convinced that it exhibits clearly and unambiguously, above all other teachings, the way leading to enlightenment. Obviously going for refuge to the Dharma in this sense involves knowledge and experience of it. In order to know the Dharma you first have to study it. This, I’m afraid, is where many of us fall down. No matter how many Buddhist courses we attend or how many Dharma talks we listen to or how many video clips we watch on ‘You Tube’, or books we read, if we cannot answer a simple factual question about the Dharma from within our own direct experience, we can hardly be said to be going for refuge to it. We really do have to get out of our heads and into the heart of practice. Going for refuge to the Dharma means not just understanding the doctrines but realizing for oneself the principle or reality which the doctrinal formulations represent. To put it more simply, going for refuge to the Dharma means the actual practice of the Dharma, through observance of Buddhist ethics, through meditation, and through the cultivation of insight. In the context of going for refuge, the third Jewel, the Sangha, is to be understood in three principal ways. Firstly, we have the Transcendental Sangha of all those who have attained non-reversible insight into the Dharmadatu. Secondly, we have the Arya Sangha of all those who have been Ordained within the Buddhist tradition. Thirdly we have the Maha Sangha of all those who go for refuge to the Three Jewels. We go for refuge to the Transcendental Sangha when by our own attainments we are recognized by others as having attained reversible insight. We go for refuge to the Arya Sangha either by being Ordained into a Buddhist Order or by supporting the order and relying on its members for advice, guidance and instruction. And we go for refuge to the Mahasangha, the whole Buddhist community, simply by our fellowship with that community on whatever level, even simply on the ordinary social plane. Of course, the Sangha refuge cannot really be understood in isolation from the context of the Three Jewels as a whole. Those who go for refuge to the Sangha also necessarily go for refuge to the Buddha and the Dharma. In other words, before you can effectively go for refuge to the Sangha, you and all the people who form that Sangha need to have a Dharma teacher in common or at the very least a context for Dharma practice together. Together is not just about physical proximity. Coming together to sit in a kind of congregation is not enough to form a Sangha. We may all quite sincerely take the Buddha for our teacher, and we may all be sincerely trying to practice and realize the Dharma he taught. We may all agree on doctrinal questions, and even have the same meditation experiences, but these things do not in themselves mean that we constitute a Sangha. Going for refuge to the Sangha is rather more subtle than that. It is essentially a matter of communication. When there is communication among those who go for refuge to the Buddha and the Dharma, then there is going for refuge to the Sangha. The communication which characterizes the Sangha is not merely an exchange of ideas and information. It is a shared exploration of the Dharma path between people who are in a relationship of complete honesty and harmony. This level of communication is the exploration and the exploration is the communication. The most common, or the most generally recognized mode of this kind of communication is the relationship between Dharma teacher and student. When, in this relationship there is a mutual responsiveness on the basis of a common allegiance to the Buddha and the Dharma, there is also a common refuge in the Sangha. Without a teacher there can be no context. Without the context there can be no Sangha. Without a Sangha the act of going for refuge, the only thing that defines what a Buddhist is, will always remain incomplete.