Refuge and the Meaning of Renunciation

I Think, Therefore I Am — Where the Mind Is, There I Am

Taking refuge carries blessing-power.When you are in the state of dying, which master have you taken refuge in?Which mandala?If you have taken refuge in the Thousand-Armed Avalokiteśvara, that seed is already inside your mind, so at the very moment of needing to decide where to go, you have a refuge, you know whose refuge you belong to, and it will instantly send out light to guide you.

Can you take refuge in many masters?Yes, but you must have a main theme.Not like a vegetable market where you buy a bit of everything.Take the Dharma-upholder of a Tantric lineage the master once met in mainland China — she was a woman, and the master was her thirteenth refuge-master.The twelve before him were all Dharma Kings; the master was the one who finally brought her to awakening.She said she had already wasted more than ten years because she had never grasped the main theme.Only the master told her how to practice and how to dedicate merit; only then did she awaken.None of her previous masters had ever spoken to her like this — all they gave her was a heart-mantra and told her to recite it one million times.So her twelve masters just had her reciting heart-mantras; none was willing to speak of deeper things.In her heart she kept feeling she had nowhere to belong: although I have taken refuge in this many masters, I have no theme, who is the one who can guide me?The master spoke with her one whole afternoon, and she immediately prostrated full-length on the floor — but the master would not accept her refuge.The master said she had already taken refuge in that many masters.She said only the master had brought her awakening, so of course she must take refuge in him.So twelve masters, a hundred masters — it is all the same; the master who brings you awakening is your best guide.Taking refuge is about finding one guide, who will lead you in a definite direction.This is very important, because once you have taken refuge, you must visualize this mandala, the refuge field, your yidam, your master — all are linked in one line.Only then is it confirmed: this is the bus you may board, this is the ship you may board.And after taking refuge, if you can regularly practice guru-yoga mantra or yidam mantra, then at the end of life, when you lie down waiting to die, you only need to recite the heart-mantra of your refuge, and blessing-power will come, light will descend to bless you, even the yidam and the lineage ancestors will come to bless you.That is the difference.Most people just take refuge on the surface.You can take refuge in a hundred masters — same thing.

The master has seen so many refuge-takings, all just surface refuge.The master has a disciple who also took refuge in a master in Kaohsiung, but it is still the master teaching him.He goes to all the Dharma assemblies, but learns nothing.Refuge is not the same as learning Dharma.The master's refuge is for the sake of learning Dharma — that is the difference.People take refuge in a whole crowd of masters; the problem is they understand nothing.

In the celebrity circle it is the same — of course they go to the most famous master.A certain Hong Kong star and a certain very famous actor surnamed Lee took refuge in the same master.Later she came from Hong Kong to find our master because she could not have children.Can't have children?The master said that's easy, just practice Green Tārā — ask for a boy and you get a boy, ask for a girl and you get a girl.She knew nothing of that.Later she mentioned she had taken refuge in a certain master, the same one as the Lee-surnamed star.How long?Four years.Then haven't you practiced any Dharma?Nothing at all.She said that master was too famous, someone of her status was ranked way out on the fringe, she had never actually spoken a word with him, the master could not even see where she was because there were too many people — so her refuge was just a name on a list; she had not gotten anything of actual use.The master told her, you can ask your master for the Green Tārā practice.She said it is simply impossible — she cannot even get a word in, how could any Dharma ever be transmitted?Besides, what gets taught is only general-transmission Dharma.Mandala refuge is itself divided — Dharma-protector level, Vajra section, Lotus section, and Dzogchen refuge.Dzogchen is practice from start to death; the master can tell you many secret keys, and the practice-text itself is different.For Dzogchen Highest Yoga — at Dharma-protector and Lotus-section level, men practice Yellow Jambhala, women practice Tārā.Tārā is extraordinarily effective.The master always hopes women take refuge with Tārā as yidam — she is the most responsive, there is a practice-text to follow, you can do fire offering, you can offer merit, very powerful.Whatever you need, if you offer to Tārā, offer milk, offer auspicious substances, she responds almost every time, because Tārā's original vow was precisely because female practitioners have more inconveniences and more problems, so Tārā especially looks after female practitioners.This time, then, the master is opening a refuge with Green Tārā as yidam.The Tārā practice-text is a big volume — absolute value for money.But you must cross this refuge threshold first.So whether you take refuge or not makes an enormous difference.Without the qualification of refuge, it is only general transmission — recite the heart-mantra 1,080,000 times.

Last time another elder sister came.She had taken refuge in four Tantric masters.The problem is, that master, for four years, only told her to recite the Six-Syllable Mantra one hundred thousand times.She learned nothing.Finally she managed to finish the hundred thousand.She went to see the master and said, I've done the hundred thousand.Not enough — keep going.So I'll keep reciting Om Mani Padme Hum until I die?How should you recite Om Mani Padme Hum, the Six-Syllable Mantra?Om Mani Padme Hum has to be practiced with visualization.The three great blessings of Tantra are visualization, mudra, mantra.Om Mani Padme Hum awakens your inner heart-chakra and opens it.She said, what does that mean?The master explained each syllable to her.She was astonished — she said she had never heard anyone explain it like that.The master said: you simply never got to hear it.Yours is called refuge-by-random-circumstance.Who would want to teach you the key points?Everybody thinks taking refuge in Tantra means you are already made.You are wrong.What do you know?Nothing.That is exactly the difference.

So refuge means: your mind is placed with the bodhisattva.No matter what — natural disaster, cataclysm, the seven calamities, the eight disasters — my mind is like a vajra-mind: I place it right here with Green Tārā, right here with the master.Even if heaven shakes and earth moves, even in the seven calamities and eight disasters, even if I am about to die, my mind can perform transference of consciousness.So on the back end of Tantra you must practice this; in Dzogchen of course you must practice phowa, hooking yourself out, not following the fleshly body to become a corpse-haunting ghost.The greatest suffering of human beings is that body and soul-light are never cleanly separated during life, so after death it is extremely hard to cut them apart — hence corpse-attachment.Why?Clinging to oneself.The soul lingers by its own body for a very long time, keeping watch at the grave, keeping watch at the ancestor tablet, keeping watch at the columbarium — because that thought has not turned.So you must use phowa: you can transfer consciousness to Amitābha's land, to Śākyamuni's land, to Green Tārā's Pure Land.That is called the refuge field.So you must begin practicing phowa during this life.

That is why the master always says, after you take refuge you must visualize often.At home, visualize.Transfer your consciousness out into the mandala and meditate there.Practice to the end and you can separate body and soul.Your soul-light does not die.If you have never cut it out of the middle, how do you transfer it?Without refuge you cannot phowa.Why?The soul cannot be drawn out.When my mind completely belongs to you, then it transfers out.If you have no object of belonging, you cannot transfer out — you get pulled back.You still belong to my body, you cannot leave.So what are we practicing in our practice?Separation of soul from flesh.Without a very strong, very full hooking-and-transfer method, soul-and-flesh separation cannot be done — because your self-grip is too strong.So in refuge, I hand over my mind, I place it with the bodhisattva, I hand it over to the master.Then your refuge has a target.It will not run wild, it will not become a wandering ghost.So the meaning of refuge is extremely important.

Exoteric schools speak of Threefold Refuge; Tantra speaks of Fourfold Refuge: refuge in the master, refuge in the Buddha, refuge in the Dharma, refuge in the Saṅgha.Because the Buddha is already past tense; the Dharma comes out of the master's mouth; the Saṅgha means practitioners, representing the jewel of Saṅgha.If the master does not speak to you, there is no Buddha, no Dharma, no practitioners.So the master comes first.The master is speaking to you right now — only then do you know what refuge means.Without the master speaking, how would you know?You have no Dharma.If the master had not introduced the Buddha to you, you would have no way of knowing what the Buddha's state actually is.If no one tells you how to practice, where is the Saṅgha?Saṅgha is the path of practitioners, so you cannot become one.Threefold refuge therefore still cannot deliver.Tantra holds that without the master, there is nothing at all.

Excerpted from a teaching by Master Urgyen Topden Rinpoche on 2018-02-10