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From the International Mahayana Institute book Spiritual Friends: Meditations,“Since childhood we have been taking refuge in one thing or another to escape suffering and find happiness. First it was our parents, later it became our friends, lovers, money, and so on. Now we have the wisdom to see that a temporary and partial refuge is useless; we need a lasting, reliable, and complete solution to the ever-present problems of dissatisfaction and lack of happiness. What drives us to seek a genuine refuge is recognizing our valid fear of future suffering. What acts as the basis for choosing a refuge is trusting that it is complete, perfect, and reliable. This will give rise to admiration, devotion, and full confidence. Such faith is very important for our lives; it renews our life and gives us inner energy. It brings to us a new and fundamental attitude of not wanting to cause any harm to any being for any reason. The basic reason to take refuge is to free ourselves from suffering, but we can also take refuge because we cannot bear to see others suffer. Refuge is the door to liberation and enlightenment.”
Today we will perform a group guided meditation on “Refuge in the Three Jewels.” We will follow the text from the Spiritual Friends: Meditations book and then discuss each aspect of the meditation as a group, seeking to share our individual viewpoints to increase our collective understanding of Refuge and its importance to our quest for enlightenment.
As with all our teachings, this class is offered free of charge. However, we do gratefully depend on the generosity of students and supporters to cover our substantial monthly expenses.
Sean González, the Kurukulla Center Director, became a student of the late Geshe Tsulga in 2004.
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