In accounts of the life of the Buddha, there are many examples of people immediately understanding his teaching and breaking the first three ‘fetters’ that hinder people from seeing Reality. These fetters are: having a fixed view of oneself; doubt; and being attached to rites and rituals as ends in themselves. Such people become ‘stream entrants’ – because they have entered a stream of understanding that draws them irresistibly towards Enlightenment.
Over the centuries there has been a tendency to emphasise the difficulty of making such a breakthrough, and some Buddhist schools teach that it may take many lifetimes, or even that it’s no longer possible. Sangharakshita has a different understanding. He suggests that all sincere, committed and effective Dharma practitioners, who have supportive conditions and enough time, could reasonably expect to make substantial progress and even gain Stream Entry in this lifetime. He stresses that such attainment needn’t be seen as extremely rare within an effective sangha.
The figure of the Bodhisattva — one who seeks Enlightenment for the sake of all beings — is central to Mahayana Buddhism. The Bodhisattva Ideal lays special emphasis on compassion as essential to the Buddhist path. Drawing on all aspects of the Buddhist tradition, Sangharakshita’s main emphasis is on the earlier and most basic teachings of the Buddha (which precede the Mahayana). However, he suggests that the Bodhisattva ideal is a central aspect of Buddhism as a whole, and that its expression by the Mahayana is not a later development but the reassertion of something that was implicit in the Buddha’s teaching from beginning. Transcendental Wisdom necessarily includes Compassion.
Sangharakshita maintains that Compassion is an essential aspect of the principle of going for Refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The Bodhisattva Ideal expresses its altruistic dimension.
Buddhism has come to the West through books, ideas, art, and meditation practice. Sangharakshita emphasises a vital dimension that has been rather neglected in some quarters: human communication and friendship. Community and friendship is all the more important as western society becomes increasingly fragmented – with so many people living isolated from one another, whether in ‘nuclear’ families, or as individuals living alone.
Sangharakshita maintains that in practising Buddhism we need other people to learn from. Buddhism, he argues is best ‘caught’ not taught. He believes that our relationships with teachers and fellow practitioners must be characterised by honesty and clear communication. He also stresses the value of friendships with peers, in particular having at least one friend (not a lover) with whom we can be intimate and completely open.
Through friendship we have the opportunity to develop the virtues of generosity, compassion, patience and forgiveness. Sangharakshita would like spiritual community – particularly the Order he himself founded – to be a ‘network of friendships’. This teaching has many practical consequences within the Triratna Buddhist Community.
We put a lot of effort into learning the art of effective communication, developing and deepening friendships with other individuals, and befriending those who are just starting out on the Buddhist path.
According to Sangharakshita, going for Refuge to the Three Jewels isn’t something you do just once. It’s an orientation not an event. Buddhist practice is about going for Refuge more and more deeply. He, therefore, speaks of various levels of going for Refuge. Whatever stage we have reached on the path, the next step is always to transform our actions, thoughts and values from those based on limited or selfish aspirations to those represented by the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
In many Asian Buddhist cultures the sangha is divided between monks and nuns, who can be seen as the ‘real’ full-time Buddhists, and lay people, who can be regarded as part-timer supporters. In some countries the role of the laity is simply to serve the monastics. However, all Buddhists face the same spiritual and existential issues: how to live well; suffering and death; the fact that actions have consequences; the need to transform your ways of thinking and ways of seeing things. So all Buddhists – whether monk or lay – Go for Refuge to some extent, and all have the challenge of doing so more fully.
Sangharakshita emphasises that Going for Refuge to the Three Jewels is primary in any Buddhist life. How one expresses that in one’s individual life may vary enormously. As he puts it: commitment is primary; lifestyle is secondary.
For this reason the Triratna Buddhist Order was set up as neither lay nor monastic. Order Members live in a range of ways: some have families, some live in communities (not just with other Order members), others are chaste (anagarikas). But there is no difference in status, simply a different approach to practice. The Order is a united sangha – it includes men and women, people from many countries and cultures, and practitioners following a wide variety of lifestyles. The Triratna Buddhist Order is also financially independent in the world. Our local Buddhist Centres are financially autonomous, and are not run exclusively by Order members. If those working there support themselves through donations these will come from all members of the Sangha.
Generally speaking, Sangharakshita does not believe all lifestyles are equally supportive of spiritual practice. He holds
up the traditional practice of brahmacarya – a chaste and simple life based on detachment from possessions, craving and sexual activity – as an ideal towards which all Buddhists could be actively working. However, he maintains that people can deepen their wisdom and compassion under any circumstances, and it is not always easy to predict what conditions will give rise to spiritual growth.
Listen to various accounts of this aspect of our approach to practice.
The fundamental aim of Buddhism is Enlightenment for the sake of all beings. Traditionally Buddhists express this aspiration by ‘Going for Refuge’ to the Buddha, his Dharma (teaching) and the Sangha (spiritual community) – or the Three Jewels, as they are called.
The Refuges
The Buddha is seen as a ‘Refuge’ not because he will help us to escape life and its difficulties, but because his example and teaching represent practical and reliable responses to our sorrows in the face of life. They can help free us from attachment to ‘false refuges’ — those mundane things we look to for happiness and security, but which are ultimately incapable of providing them. The Buddha’s vision and example are fundamental.
In seeking to follow the Buddha’s path to Enlightenment, Buddhists try to understand all the teachings that express his wisdom, from the whole of the Buddhist tradition throughout time. These are collectively known as the Dharma, and are revered as the best guide to reality there is.
Of course, if we are to practise the Dharma we need the example of others who have done so before us. And we also need the guidance of personal teachers who have a more experienced perspective than our own, as well as the friendship of fellow practitioners. Taken together, all ‘Dharma farers’ of the past and present who offer these kinds of supports are known as the Sangha or spiritual community, and Buddhists also give central importance to this aspect.
So the defining act of a Buddhist life is to go for Refuge to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha: it is the act by which one becomes a Buddhist, and every day around the world millions of Buddhists chant the Three Refuges, committing themselves to living out these ideals.
Although this is a common and vital teaching across the whole Buddhist tradition, it is not necessarily the case that all Buddhists actually do make the Three Jewels the central element in their lives and practice. Around the path to Enlightenment taught by the Buddha numerous religious forms, institutions, and cultural practices have developed over time. While these may well be means through which individuals can follow the Buddha’s path, Sangharakshita
suggests that sometimes the forms have become unhelpfully fixed as ends in themselves. His own take on this is that what matters more for Buddhists who want to make progress on the path is inner commitment.
So our community sees our task as Buddhists today being to discern what in the Buddhist tradition genuinely does support Going for Refuge, and then to put it into practice in our own lives. This is the task Sangharakshita has set himself in his own exploration of the Buddhist path. He believes Going for Refuge is what unifies Buddhists of all schools, that it is, in fact, what makes one a Buddhist at all.
Listen to the Refuges as chanted in the Triratna Buddhist Community in the West and in India.
Over the centuries, as the Buddha’s teaching reached each new country, it adapted to the prevailing culture – and often these countries had no contact with each other. As a result Asian Buddhism is extremely varied. Most of these traditions have now come to the West and present westerners with a bewildering variety of teachings, practices and forms.
Rather than adopting one specific form, Sangharakshita, founder of the Triratna Buddhist Community and Order, was keen to clarify what all Buddhist schools held in common: the essential principles and practices that run through the whole tradition. He suggests the key unifying factor is the historical Buddha and his experience of Enlightenment.
All Buddhist schools aim to teach a path to freedom from suffering that will help practitioners become more like the Buddha. The differences between them are basically a matter of means, not ends – however different they may look from the outside.
Sangharakshita’s approach is based on the perception that the diverse Buddhist tradition has an underlying unity.
This lies in the act of Going for Refuge to the Three Jewels, and in basic teachings of the Buddha, such as the Four Noble Truths, Conditioned Co-production, karma and so on. He believes people in the modern world are heirs to the whole of Buddhism. This is why the Triratna Buddhist Community does not restrict itself to one form of Buddhism but draws inspiration from the entire tradition. Sangharakshita’s attitude is not simply eclectic, however. He has a coherent approach to practice, which draws on particular techniques and teachings in a way that supports individual growth.
The Triratna Buddhist Order and Community is a worldwide movement of people who try to engage with the Buddha’s teachings in the conditions of the modern world. Neither monastic nor lay, we are simply Buddhists, at varying stages of commitment and understanding, adopting to the best of our ability in our lives the ethical standards of the Dharma.
Triratna is a Sanskrit term meaning ‘Three Jewels’: the Buddha, Dharma (his teachings) and Sangha (the community of all those who follow the teachings). The founder of the Triratna Buddhist Community and Order, Sangharakshita, considers the defining act of a Buddhist to be Going for Refuge to these Three Jewels. This is the central principle or orientation of the Triratna Buddhist Community and everything we do. At our Buddhist Centres we teach meditation, study the Buddha’s teaching together, engage with the Arts, support each other through life, and engage in our local communities. We also promote projects in which Buddhists can live and work together, and explore how to turn our work into a spiritual practice.
In the Buddha’s time there was no mass media to compete with — no internet or television. And the Buddha never had to be concerned about globalisation or global warming. So we believe it is vital to explore and establish how his teaching of human potential is still crucially important, how Buddhists can be socially engaged and contribute to a better world. In the last 48 years the Triratna Buddhist Community has changed a great deal. Sangharakshita has now handed on responsibility for our community’s spiritual vitality to his followers and we are entering a new phase of growth and consolidation: learning from and building upon our history, and developing into a broad-based, mature and experienced spiritual community playing a significant role in bringing Buddhism to the West.
Ours is an ecumenical movement, aligned to no one tradition or school, but drawing selectively on the whole stream of Buddhist inspiration. We now have Buddhist Centres running activities in 27 countries around the world. For details, see our ‘find us’ section.
