the buddha

excerpt from comfortable with uncertainty by pema chodron

when people decide to become buddhists, they participate in an official ceremony in which they take refuge in the three jewels - the buddha, the dharma, and the sangha. i've always thought it sounds theistic, dualistic, and dependent 'to take refuge' in something. however, the fundamental idea of taking refuge is that between birth and death we are alone. therefore taking refuge in the three jewels doesn't mean finding consolation in them. rather, it's a basic expression of our aspiration to leap out of the nest, whether we feel ready for it or not, to go through our puberty rites and be an adult with no hand to hold. taking refuge is the way that we begin cultivating the openness and the good-heartedness that allow us to be less and less dependent.

the buddha is the awakened one, and we too are buddhas. we are the awakened one - the one who continually leaps, who continually opens, who continually goes forward. being a buddha isn't easy. it's accompanied by fear, resentment, and doubt. but learning to leap into open space with our fear, resentment, and doubt is how we become fully human beings. there isn't any separation between samsara and nirvana, between the sadness and pain of the setting sun and the vision and power of the great eastern sun, as the shambhala teachings put it. one can hold them both in one's heart, which is actually the purpose of practice.

taking refuge in the buddha means that we are willing to spend our life reconnecting with the quality of being continually awake. every time we feel like taking refuge in a habitual means of escape, we take off more armor, undoing all the stuff that covers over our wisdom and our gentleness and our awake quality. we're not trying to be something we aren't; rather, we're reconnecting with who we are. so when we say, 'i take refuge in the buddha,' that means i take refuge in the courage and the potential of fearlessness, of removing all the armor that covers this awakeness of mine. i am awake; i will spend my life taking this armor off. nobody else can take it off because nobody else knows where all the little locks are, nobody else knows where it's sewed up tight, where it's going to take a lot of work to get that particular iron thread untied. you have to do it alone. the basic instruction is simple: start taking off that armor. that's all anyone can tell you. no one can tell you how to do it because you're the only one who knows how you locked yourself in there to start.