The Three Jewels The Three Jewels of Buddhism are the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
It is to these Three Jewels that the person who feels drawn to the teaching of the Buddha takes delight in and finds teachings , inspiration and guidance.
The traditional phrase is that the follower of the Buddha’s teaching ‘Goes for Refuge
to the Three Jewels.’
The Buddha The Buddha is the ideal in which a Buddhist finds inspiration. The Buddha was a man who achieved the state of enlightenment, that is a transcending of all human limitations of mind and emotion. He achieved this transcendence at the age of 35 and spent the remaining 50 years of his life teaching the path to enlightenment so that others could achieve what he achieved. He lived 2,500 years ago in northern India.
The Buddha was not a god. There is no supreme creator god in Buddhism.
The Dharma The Dharma is the teaching of the Buddha which helps the follower of the Buddha to move towards Enlightenment. There are vast numbers of teachings given by the Buddha during his life and an even greater number which have developed from other teachers in the Buddhist tradition.
Buddhism is not a dogmatic religion and the test of the teaching is that they move you towards enlightenment.ie Do they develop within you more awareness, more generosity, more kindness to others and less attachment to things of the world?
The Sangha The Sangha in the widest sense is community of those who endeavour to practice the Buddha’s teaching.
It could be described as a spiritual community.
The Sangha as a Jewel of Buddhism is the community of those individuals who have achieved real spiritual insight and will achieve enlightenment. It is to these individuals, great teachers of the past and present, to whom we look for inspiration and guidance.
We also get much support from wider Sangha, our peers, our friends who are trying to practice the Buddha’s teaching. It is very difficult to make progress on ones own and the Sangha provides an essential context in which to practice and try to follow the Buddha’s teachings.
The Four Noble Truths The central insight of the Buddha, the central insight of Buddhism, is that all things, thoughts, emotions, actions- all phenomena arise dependent on conditions. This is expressed in the most well known teaching of the Buddha –The Four Noble Truths.
It also underlies the teaching that all things are impermanent, that there is no fixed self and that change towards the good- towards awareness, generosity and wisdom-
is possible for all beings (all men and all women) to an unlimited extent.
All the Buddha’s teachings are a means to this spiritual growth of awareness, love and wisdom.
The Four Noble Truths give profound expression to the Buddhas insight into the nature of human existence and show a path which leads to overcoming the limitations and suffering which are inherent in human existence.
The Four Noble Truths are;
That all beings suffer.
Suffering is caused by craving, by grasping for the permanent in an impermanent world.
The cure for this suffering, to be found within our selves, is the cessation of craving and the consequent opening of our being in generosity, love and wisdom- the state of Enlightenment.
The path to achieve this cessation of craving is the Noble eight fold path.
This path needs much explanation for the heights and depths of its meaning to emerge.
It covers the whole of ones life;
Thoughts, emotions, ethical action, speech, personal relationships, earning ones living, meditation practice and deep awareness in all these areas.
The noble eight fold path shows a path of development from where we are in our present state to a state of awareness ,wholeness and integration.
The following is a very brief summary.
The Noble Eightfold Path
Perfect Vision
This encompasses the whole of the path. When this vision is perfected we see human existence as the Buddha saw it. We see what causes suffering and what leads to the end of suffering .All our actions will then we be towards ending the suffering of others.
At the beginning, however we only have a vague, uncertain sense that the way we live is not right, that what we are doing is leading just to more suffering for ourselves and others. It may be that some traumatic event leads us to question the way we are living or there is a gradual realisation that may be there is a better way to live. Out of this arises a search for guidance and this search might lead
to the discovery of the Buddha’s teaching.
Perfect Emotion/Understanding.
This encompasses the emotional response to our experience that we need to cultivate and develop in our practice. These emotions are loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity. These emotions develop a responsiveness to ourselves and to others. As these emotions are developed a deeper understanding will arise of the nature of our being and existence, that we are not fixed, that we can change, that a desire for permanence causes suffering.
The growth of emotional responsiveness and understanding are deeply intertwined. We need both if we are to change and make progress on the Buddhist path.
Perfect Action.
This aspect of the path concerns our physical actions. At its base is the intention not to harm other beings, whether animal or human .We try to not physically harm others, not to take what has not been given to us and not to harm others through our sexual desires.
Perfect Effort
The aspect of the path is centred on our mental attitude; which mental attitudes we want to encourage and which we want to discourage.
We want to encourage awareness, mindfulness, friendliness, kindness and generosity . We want to discourage ignorance, ill will, cruelty and meanness of body and spirit.
These changes do not happen without real effort. Our mental and emotional habits are often deep seated . We need to bring awareness to them and allow self knowledge to arise. With this knowledge change will arise.
Perfect Speech
As human beings speech is of tremendous importance to us. We can create worlds through our use of language and speech. The Buddha’s teaching on speech is subtle and in our world of 24 hour electronic media not easy to practice.
We should aim to speak what is meaningful, not what is frivolous or empty. Our speech should be kindly and harmonious, we should not be harsh, nor spread gossip, nor speak unkindly behind peoples’ backs. We should try to speak the truth under most circumstances except when doing this will do more harm than not speaking.
Perfect Livelihood
We all need to earn a living or at least have an income and most of us have to work to do this. This aspect of the path considers what is an ethical livelihood.
The ethical question is does what we do harm ourselves or other beings either directly or indirectly?
In the Buddha’s time making arms, selling intoxicating liquors or being a butcher were considered to be ‘unskilful’ livelihoods. Providing food either by growing , preparing or selling was considered a ‘skilful’ livelihood.
In our present complex economical world it is much less easy to see which is or is not a right livelihood. This is very much a personal decision and depends on other factors too.
Such as the following:
Does our work compromise our desire to live an ethical life?
Does our work adversely affect our states of mind?
Does our work cause us so much stress that we cannot give energy to our Buddhist practice?
We need to consider the answer to these questions and also whether we want change what we are doing in our livelihood.
Perfect Meditation
Meditation is at the heart of Buddhist practice. During meditation we are more directly aware of our states of mind. We are more able to develop levels
of openness, responsiveness and concentration which enable us to see to the roots of what binds to the world and causes our suffering.
These levels of awareness take a long time to develop even with a regular and consistent meditation practice. But even a little awareness can have a pervasive influence on ones life and so meditation, even for beginner, will have a positive effect.
Perfect Mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the quality of awareness brought to all of ones activities whether of the body, of the emotions and of the mind. To be begin to be aware is to be at the beginning of the possibility to change the way we respond to our experience.
Mindfulness is, like meditation, at the heart of Buddhist practice. To be
fully mindful is to fully alive to all our experience as it happens to us. We are not distracted into the past or the future but are fully alive to the present moment.
Mindfulness is the benign light of awareness which when fully developed illuminates all that we do.
