Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo
Ye keci buddham saranam gatase
na te gamissanti apaya-bhumim
pahaya manusam deham
deva-kayam paripuressantiti
"Those who have gone to the Buddha as refuge
will not go to the realms of deprivation.
On abandoning the human body,
they will fill the ranks of the gods."
I will now explain this verse so that you can practice in a way leading to the supreme attainment, capable of eliminating all your suffering and fears, reaching the refuge of peace.
We come into this world without a substantial refuge. Nothing — aside from the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha — will follow us into the next life. These three are the only things in which we can take refuge both in this life and in lives to come.
There are two levels on which people take refuge in the Triple Gem. Some take refuge only allegorically, on the level of individuals, whereas others take refuge on the level of inner qualities, by developing the steps of the practice within themselves.
I. On the level of individuals
A. Buddha. Buddhas are people who have attained purity of heart. There are four types:
1. Rightly self-awakened Buddhas: those who have attained Awakening on their own, without anyone to teach them, and who have established a religion.
2. Private Buddhas: those who have gained Awakening without establishing a religion. On attaining the goal, they live by themselves.
3. Disciple Buddhas: a Buddha's immediate disciples — male or female — who have practiced in line with the teachings of a Buddha until they too have gained Awakening.
4. Learned Buddhas: those who have studied the teachings in detail, have followed them, and have attained the goal.
All four of these types are individual people, so to take refuge in them is to take refuge on the level of individuals. They can give us refuge only in a shallow and not very substantial way.
Even though taking refuge on this level can be advantageous to us, it helps us only on the level of the world and can give only temporary protection against falling into the realms of deprivation.
If we lose faith in these individuals, our mind can change to a lower level — for all individuals fall under the laws of all fabricated things: They are inconstant and changing, subject to stress, and not-self — i.e., they can't prevent their own death.
So if you go to a Buddha as refuge on the level of individuals, there are only two sorts of results you'll get: at first gladness, and then sadness when the time comes to part — for it's the nature of all individuals in the world that they arise, age, grow ill, and die. The wisest sages and the most ordinary people are all equal on this point.
B. Dhamma. For many of us, the teachings in which we take our refuge are also on the level of individuals. Why is that? Because we see them as the words of individual people.
Sages of the past have divided the teachings in the Buddhist Canon into four types:
1. Sayings of the Buddha.
2. Sayings of his disciples.
3. Sayings of heavenly beings. There were occasions when heavenly beings, on coming to pay respect to the Buddha, said truths worth taking to heart.
4. Sayings of seers. Some hermits and yogis uttered truths from which Buddhists can benefit.
All of these sayings were organized into the three parts of the Buddhist Canon: the discourses, the discipline, and the Abhidhamma. If we take refuge in the Dhamma on this level, it is simply an object: something we can remember. But memory is inconstant and can't provide us with a safe, dependable refuge. At best it can help us only on the worldly level because we are depending allegorically on individuals, on objects, as our refuge.
C. Sangha. There are two sorts of Sangha.
1. The conventional Sangha: ordinary people who have ordained and taken up the homeless life. This sort of Sangha is composed of four sorts of people.
a. Upajivika: those who have taken up the ordained life simply as a comfortable way of making a living. They can depend on others to provide for their needs and so they get complacent, satisfied with their ordained status, without looking for any form of goodness better than that.
2. The Noble Sangha. This has four levels: those who have practiced the Buddha's teachings until they have reached the attainments of stream-entry, once-returning, non-returning, or arahantship. All four of these are still on the level of individuals because they are individual people who have reached the transcendent attainments in their hearts. Suppose, for example, we say that Aññakondañña is a stream-winner, Sariputta a once-returner, Moggallana a non-returner, and Ananda an arahant.
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