The Third Jewel

         When we first aspire to declare our intention to follow the dharma we open that first gate by making or taking the vow of refuge. As far as I know it is universal among all who call themselves Buddhist that the story begins by reciting these lines:


I take refuge in the Buddha.
I take refuge in the Dharma.
I take refuge in the Sangha.

        In Pali, the literal translation of the refuge statement is correctly translated not as "I take refuge" but as “I will undertake to find my home in the Buddha," and then the Dharma and Sangha. “The Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha are called the three jewels or the three treasures. So it may be said we are aspiring to find a home in these three great treasures of Buddhism.
        In the Shobogenzo Master Dogen wrote in his essay Kie-Sanbo, that devotion to the three treasures is both the beginning and the end of Buddhism. It is worth noting that he worked on that essay for years and never really completed it before he died.
        So many of us in the west begin on the path to the Dharma alone, few of us grew up in a Buddhist home or culture. One day we read a book or hear a lecture and we discover the Buddha and then his teachings but I think for the majority of us the Sangha is another story. It seemed strange to me when I first read the refuge statement that the Sangha should hold a place of equal value and honor with both the Buddha and his teachings. In fact I think many of us are uncomfortable with the Sangha having a coequal position with the Buddha himself and the great truth he preached.
         In our minds I think we all step back, our first reaction is to see the term Sangha as clearly referring to a monastic community of monks living and meditating in some remote location a million miles away from our world and our life. If the word Sangha is applicable only to the ordained nuns and monks of Buddhism, we know we are never going to make it our home. Then of course all the books we read now tell us it actually refers to all the practitioners of Buddhism in the world. Well that’s better for us isn’t it, if that is the case we can find a home in the Sangha.

“I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One was living among the Sakyans. Now there is a Sakyan town named Sakkara. There Ven. Ananda went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to the Blessed One, sat to one side. As he was sitting there, Ven. Ananda said to the Blessed One, "This is half of the holy life, lord: admirable friendship, admirable companionship, and admirable camaraderie."
      "Don't say that, Ananda. Don't say that. Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life. When a monk has admirable people as friends, companions, & comrades, he can be expected to develop & pursue the noble eightfold path.”

                                               ----- From the Upaddha Sutta

           Traditionally few of us in the west have the rare opportunity today to really be part of a Sangha other than in the broadest sense of the word. But as Dharma centers grow and spread more and more of us begin to participate in these centers the vow to undertake to find our home in the Sangha begins to stare us in the face. My Sensei calls this “Sangha practice”. It presents us all with many challenges we never really considered before.
           What a joy “admirable friendship, admirable companionship, and admirable camaraderie" is to have and what a task it is today to make it so. It turns out that in Zen a Sangha is a collection of individuals. Now nothing can be more frustrating than an individual and when you have 300 individuals you have at best a stampeding herd of cats.
            I would like to take the time to praise this collection of individuals we call a Zendo. In most groups and organizations you see adaptive behavior and conformity quickly develop. The world is full of religious groups were the members become dependent and renounce some or all of their freedom of thinking and free will. They lose a part of their personality as the crowd or the group pulls their strings. They take refuge in going along with the others and letting others do their thinking for them.
            In a group of individuals such as we have accumulated in our zendo I see little danger of us ever becoming a group in the usual sense of the word. Since I have been there I have indeed found “admirable friendship, admirable companionship, and admirable camaraderie" and frustrations by the score. Isn’t it wonderful….