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The Three Refuges (or The Three Jewels) are, of course, the Buddha or Enlightened One, the Dharma or Teaching of the Way to Enlightenment, and the Sangha or Spiritual Community of those following the Way to Enlightenment, especially those who have attained to the higher, transcendental stages of spiritual progress from which recession is not possible. One goes for Refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, – or, in more contemporary idiom, commits oneself to them, – when one decides that to attain Enlightenment is the most important thing in human life, and when one acts – or does one’s best to act – in accordance with that decision. This means organising one’s entire life, in all its different aspects, in such a way as to subserve the attainment of Enlightenment. It means placing the Ideal of Enlightenment, i.e. placing the Buddha (which Buddha one can oneself become) at the centre of one’s personal Mandala, and arranging one’s different interests and activities in such a way that they are placed nearer to, or farther away from, the centre of that Mandala in accordance with the degree to which they help or hinder the attainment of Enlightenment. Interests and activities which are opposed to the Ideal of Enlightenment should, of course, be banished from the Mandala. Going for Refuge is the fundamental Buddhist act. It is what makes one a Buddhist, a follower of the Dharma, or a Dharmacari. It is what makes one a member of the Sangha. The Going for Refuge is what, above all else, one has in common with other Buddhists. In other words, the Going for Refuge is the highest common factor of Buddhism.
Unfortunately, in many parts of the Buddhist world the Going for Refuge has long been regarded as the lowest common denominator of Buddhism rather than as the highest common factor – an undervaluation which was one of the main reasons behind the formation of the Western Buddhist Order. If there is any lowest common denominator in Buddhism it is, one might say, the Five, or the Eight, or the Ten Precepts, which, on ceremonial occasions, one “takes” from one’s preceptor immediately after Going for Refuge. Again unfortunately, it is the observance of these Five, or Eight, or Ten Precepts, rather than the threefold Going for Refuge, that has come to be regarded as the highest common factor – instead of as the lowest common denominator – of Buddhism, with the result that the Buddhist community has tended to be divided by the fact that some of its members observed a lesser, and some a greater, number of precepts (generally five in the case of the “laity” and a total of 227 or 250 in the case of the “monks”), rather than united by the fact that they all went for Refuge to the same Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.
Without understanding the supreme importance of the Going for Refuge as the central act of the Buddhist life it is quite impossible to understand the true nature of the relation between the Refuges and the Precepts. This principle holds good regardless of the actual number of precepts one undertakes to observe. The relation between Refuges and Precepts is not merely external. It is not that having Gone for Refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, one now undertakes, in addition to that, to observe the Five, or the Eight, or the Ten, or any other particular number of Precepts. It is not that when, on ceremonial occasions, one recites first the Going-for-Refuge formula and then, immediately afterwards, the Precept-acceptance formula, one recites them in this order for purely historical reasons, so to speak, and that had things turned out differently one might just as well have been reciting them in the reverse order. The relation between one’s Going for Refuge and one’s observance of the Precepts is an organic one, observance of the precepts being as much an expression of Going for Refuge as the flower is an expression of the seed or his oeuvre an expression of the write or artist. In a sense, the Going for Refuge and the observance of the Precepts are part of a single process of spiritual life and growth.
When one places the Buddha, that is to say places the Spiritual Ideal, at the centre of one’s personal Mandala, a radical reorganisation of the contents of that Mandala naturally follows. If no such reorganisation follows, then one’s placing of the Buddha at the centre of one’s Mandala has been purely nominal, or perhaps what one has placed there is not really the Buddha at all. The placing of the Buddha at the centre of one’s personal Mandala corresponds to Going for Refuge. The radical reorganisation of the contents of that Mandala corresponds to the observance of the Precepts as its natural consequence, that is to say, as the prolongation of the act of Going for Refuge itself into every aspect of one’s existence.
Going for Refuge, or commitment to the Three Jewels, is one’s lifeblood as a Buddhist. Observance of the Precepts represents the circulation of that blood through every fibre of one’s being. By its very nature blood must circulate. If it does not circulate this means that the organism to which is belongs is dead, and that the blood itself, stagnating, will soon cease to be blood. Similarly, but its very nature the Going for Refuge must find expression in the observance of the Precepts. If it does not find such expression this means that as a Buddhist one is virtually dead and that the Going for Refuge itself, becoming more and more mechanical, will soon cease to be effectively such.
It is because the Going for Refuge must find expression in the total transformation of the individual, both in himself and in his relations with other people, and because this total transformation is represented more adequately by the Ten Precepts than by any other set of Precepts, that in the Western Buddhist Order we not only Go for Refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, but also undertake to observe the Ten Precepts rather than the Five, or the Eight, or any other specific number of precepts. To the topic of the Ten Precepts and Total Transformation we must now therefore turn. Before we do so, however, let me briefly remind you of what I have called the Canonical Sources of the Ten Precepts. Buddhist friends outside the FWBO have been known to doubt whether the Ten Precepts observed by members of the Western Buddhist Order were actually taught by the Buddha, and whether they are anywhere to be found in the Buddhist scriptures, and it therefore behoves us to be sure of our ground.
