Quy is to return, Y is to take refuge. The Three Jewels are precious trinity: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Taking refuge in the Three Jewels is returning to take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.IMP. The Buddha is a fully enlightened being who has fulfilled both self-benefit and others. Buddha is not only dedicated to Shakyamuni Buddha, who lived more than 25 centuries ago in India, but only to those who have completely abandoned all craving, anger and delusion; has accomplished all meritorious deeds, perfected in compassion and wisdom. Their hearts were pure and clear, unpolluted by any evil thoughts. Dharma has many meanings, sometimes referring to the law of cause and effect, the causal conditions that give rise to worldly things and phenomena, including psychological and physical phenomena. But the most basic and traditional meaning is just the Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha. The meaning of the Dharma is sometimes generalized as the path, the path of peace, and liberation or describes the nature of the Buddha's teachings as non-greed, non-attachment, letting go, renunciation, peace, liberation... also has many meanings, sometimes referring to the entire Buddhist community, including monks and nuns and Buddhists; only for those who have directly realized the emptiness of all things, whether monks or lay Buddhists. But the most basic and traditional meaning is to refer to the community of monastics who follow the Buddha's teachings. This community is the embodiment of harmony and purity. Taking refuge is a refuge. The concept of refuge sometimes causes many people to understand the negative and misleading meaning. Relying does not mean we rely on someone passively. Like when we were kids, we hid behind our mother to avoid some bully. That is not the meaning of refuge. The meaning of refuge can be illustrated with a picture like this: "It's raining, if we don't find a shelter from the rain but still soak in the rain, we will catch a cold." Finding a shelter from the rain to avoid a cold is what it means to take refuge. The truth that lives in our lives is drenched by the rains of greed, anger, ignorance, envy and jealousy. We need to find a shelter to escape those rains. That place is the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. refuge or refuge is a term translated from the Pali language sarana. Sarana in the Pali commentaries is interpreted to mean "to destroy". Accordingly, taking refuge or taking refuge is the destruction, cessation, elimination, and cessation of fear, suffering, the risk of rebirth in suffering and defilements. Suffering or happiness is the result of our actions, words and thoughts. Once we have acted evil, spoke evil words, and thought evil, we inevitably reap the fruits of suffering. We cannot hide behind the Buddhas and Sanghas to avoid that suffering or ask them to deal with the consequences we create. Therefore, the true meaning of refuge is that we return to take responsibility for our actions, words and thoughts; Try to train your mind to transform. With such a meaning of refuge, when we take refuge in the Buddha, we should not consider him as our savior or feel that he is protecting, protecting and blessing us. We only see him as an example to follow, as an inspiration for us to go to the peak of peace and liberation. The Buddha, during his 45 years of teaching the Dharma, never claimed to be a revelation of God or received revelation from some god with the power to bless and bring disaster. On the contrary, admitting that he is human, with all the tangled consequences and suffering surrounding him and by his tireless efforts to train his mind, he has neutralized all worries, fears, and sufferings. in human life and has become a completely free and liberated human being. As an experienced predecessor, in his 45 years of teaching, the Buddha only imparted his experience of practice so that we could achieve enlightenment and liberation like him. Because he admits: "I am a Buddha who has already come to fruition, sentient beings are Buddhas that will become" and "The Tathagata is only a guide, each person has to go on his own, no one can take the place of anyone else" or "You guys should go. Make your own island, and rely on yourself. Take Dharma as an island, As your refuge, don't take any other place as your refuge, be an island, don't take refuge anywhere else." Those teachings have portrayed the image of the guru and are also the main thought in Buddhism. Therefore, taking refuge in the Buddha means that we choose to follow the Buddha and learn to follow the Buddha's conduct. However, when it comes to Buddhism, most of us lack that right view. We think that taking refuge is to have a Dharma name, so that every time we go to the temple to pray to the Buddha, we will witness and bless us. Sometimes when we are close to the earth and far from heaven, we think of taking refuge with the hope that when we close our eyes, we will be protected by the Holy Spirit, not led by the devil to lead the way to the evil realm because we have a message of refuge in hand. With such a lack of righteous awareness, the message of refuge, which was just a piece of paper confirming official Buddhist status, becomes like a talisman. With such a right view of taking refuge in the Buddha, then taking refuge in the Dharma, we must also have the same right view. Taking refuge in the Dharma is that we commit to live in the spirit of the Buddha's teachings. That spirit is love, compassion, joy, equanimity, no-self, altruism, no greed, no attachment. All the sutras have only the value of transforming our mind. They are not objects we rely on for money and fame. We cannot bring the Buddha's scriptures out to recite and read to hope to gain this benefit, that position. Taking refuge in the Dharma is that we apply everything in life to our practice. We should not assume that this is mundane, this is divine, this is evil, this is good. Everything is truth. That's a French definition. We take refuge in the Dharma and choose a peaceful path, which means that everything in life is considered useful for learning and practicing. No matter what happens, suffering or happiness, good or bad, just or unfair, it's all part of the practice. So there's nothing to complain about, because it's all Dharma. If taking refuge in the Buddha as an example to follow, and taking refuge in the Dharma as a peaceful way to go in life, then taking refuge in the Sangha is like a friendship to make friends. This means we have many friends, refuge friends who are practicing under the same teachings as we are. At the same time everyone strives to observe their own precepts. When members of the Buddhist community experience the true worth of life and derive meaning from taking refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, they act as a reminder and provide feedback. for each other. Our Dharma friends continuously offer doctrinal reference points to create a continuous learning process. They act like a mirror to remind or warn us in life situations. This is a kind of friendship that carries the meaning of the Buddhist community. We all together, in the same boat, share the same belief and feel a great friendship in the community of monks, nuns and Buddhists. Taking refuge in the Sangha means that we are willing to work in harmony with our friends, brothers, sisters and brothers in the Buddhist community, while maintaining our own independence. No one imposes his weighty views on the rest of the group. Each member of the group is an individual who walks the path in a different way from all the others. That's why we constantly receive feedback of all kinds: positive and negative, encouraging and discouraging. These rich resources are of value to us as we take refuge in the Sangha. The Sangha is a community of people with perfect morality who accompanies us, nurturing us with their wisdom. Friendship in the Sangha is a kind of pure friendship, without expectations and demands from each other; no orders, but very satisfying and satisfying. With such a meaning of refuge, is it necessary for us to receive the refuge ceremony according to the Buddhist tradition or just understand and practice accordingly? This problem has been thoroughly posed and solved by many Buddhist scholars when writing about the meaning of refuge. All agree that we must take refuge if we want to become official Buddhists. Like so many other buildings, The Buddhadharma also has a door and to enter it, we must enter that door. The door to the Buddhist house is taking refuge in the Three Jewels. According to Venerable Hien, the process of learning Buddhism also has a hierarchy like the external education system, there are primary, secondary, and university levels... Therefore, if we want to learn and practice Buddhism, we must start at elementary level. study, ie take refuge in the Three Jewels. If we do not take the first step of taking refuge in the Three Jewels, we cannot step up to higher levels on the path of learning Buddhism. According to Hanh Chon, if we do not practice the basic Dharma of taking refuge, then there is no basis to prove that "we understand and practice well" as when we justify ourselves not necessarily taking refuge. Also according to this author, those who take refuge are always active and receive more support than those who do not, because in any area of ​​society, The regular is always better than the irregular, let alone the spiritual life, which needs to be close to good teachers and good friends. The spiritual source in the Buddhist lineage is very important, it determines the inner capacity of the Buddhist. That source originates from the Buddha to the present generation of monks. After his enlightenment, the Buddha gave refuge to five former ascetic fellows, the five brothers, Kieu Tran Nhu. The first five disciples of this Buddha began to form the lineage; they transmit the refuge Dharma to their disciples, their disciples in turn pass it on to their disciples, and so on to this day, passing through the centuries from teacher to disciple. and when we take refuge we also participate in the same divine beginning, feel the peace and the vows that the Buddha gave to his first five disciples. Therefore, without taking refuge, we cannot receive the mysterious spiritual source that has flowed in the unbroken lineage for more than twenty-five centuries. Taking refuge gives us more strength to do good, because in the solemn ceremony of refuge, in front of the Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and virtuous spiritual masters, we make vows of love to help others. other and uphold the five ethical principles. If we do not take refuge in making vows, in favorable circumstances or in a happy mentality, we can lovingly help others and observe the five moral principles, but encounter difficult situations, psychological frustration. many times, we only care about ourselves and neglect to uphold the five moral principles, because we think that we have not taken refuge, so we do not try to overcome that situation and mentality to preserve them. Therefore, taking refuge is so that no matter what situation we are in, we still practice developing a loving mind and observing the five ethical principles. There is a difference between taking refuge in the five moral principles and simply doing no harm. Suppose we take the vow never to kill the dragon, but in reality the dragon does not exist, then why should we take the vow not to kill the dragon. If we don't kill the dragon, we don't create killing karma, but at the same time we don't create merit. Since making a vow not to kill the dragon and maintaining that aspiration, we are accumulating merit. In taking refuge, we accumulate merit every minute through holding our vows. In short, taking refuge is a positive decision, Open the way to goodness and peace in life. Taking refuge does not mean we throw ourselves out of society, on the contrary it helps us learn how to live more productive lives and create a more positive society. We take refuge to develop our spiritual path to be able to better help others. We enter the Buddhist path to both develop ourselves and learn how to help others. Taking refuge is rather a decision to learn, to find out how things are through Buddhist principles. Taking refuge is essentially taking vows, in which there is an oath to keep the five precepts that are the minimum basic precepts for lay Buddhists including not killing, not stealing, not engaging in sexual misconduct, not lying and do not use intoxicating and addictive substances. The Pali preposition, Sila, has three levels of meaning. The first is inner morality, which means that each of us always has inherent moral qualities such as kindness, simplicity, sincerity, patience, love and so on. The second is that virtuous actions of body and speech manifest those virtuous qualities outwardly. Third, there are moral laws established to govern actions of body and speech in accordance with moral ideals. In fact, these three levels of meaning are always closely intertwined, not always distinguishing each separate level. But if we separate them, morality as inner virtue can be seen as the purpose of moral training; precepts as virtuous actions of body and speech are seen as manifestations of that purpose; and gender as moral laws are seen as a system of ways to accomplish that goal. So, Precepts such as inner morality are strengthened by bringing bodily and verbal actions into conformity with moral ideals and this is accomplished through a system of moral codes. Precepts, as the scriptures explain, have the property of harmonizing the actions of body and speech, that is, actions of body and speech in accordance with one's own genuine interests and the happiness of others. So the function of precepts is to create harmony between ourselves and others. Acting according to gender will lead to harmony among people, creating peace, cooperation and mutual respect, while acting against moral principles will lead to competition, exploitation, profit. use and violence. The harmony achieved by maintaining morality or moral discipline does not stop at the social level but also brings our actions into harmony with the higher law, the law of the universe - the law of cause and effect of karma that governs invisibly the entire world of their existence. The five precepts in Buddhism are established based on the principle of taking oneself as the standard to determine how to act in relation to others. This principle is expressed by the phrase: "seeing oneself as another and others as oneself". The method of applying this principle is the exchange of imagination between oneself and others. In order to decide whether or not to perform a certain action, we take ourselves as the standard to judge what is happiness and what is suffering for us. Then reflect on others on the basis of being the same as yourself, and what happiness and suffering for you is also happiness and suffering for others. If we don't want others to cause us suffering, we should not cause suffering to others. As in the Samyutta Nikaya, the Buddha explains: "Households, the noble disciple thinks thus: 'I want to live, I don't want to die, I want happiness, I want to suffer. If someone comes to take my life, someone who wants to live, doesn't want to die, wants happiness, hates suffering, that's not agreeable to me. But if we take the life of a person who wants to live, doesn't want to die, wants pleasure, and hates suffering, that's not agreeable or agreeable to that person. This one dharma is neither agreeable nor agreeable to us, and then that dharma is also unappealing and unappealing to others. And this one dharma is not agreeable or agreeable to us, then why should we give that dharma pillar to another person?'. By contemplating like this, he abstains from killing, encourages others to abstain from killing, speaks in lamentation, and abstains from killing. Thus in regard to bodily actions he is completely purified.” “Householders, The noble disciple reflects as follows: 'If anyone takes what is not given to me, it is called stealing, that is an unappealing thing, not agreeable to me. But if we take something that is not given from another, it is called stealing, then it is an unappealing thing, not agreeable to that person. This one dharma is not agreeable, not agreeable to me, and at that time it is also not agreeable or agreeable to others. And this one dharma is not agreeable or agreeable to me, so why give that dharma pillar to others?' By contemplating like this, he abstains from taking what is not given, encourages others to abstain from taking what is not given, speaks in praise of abstaining from taking what is not given. Thus, in regard to bodily actions, he is completely purified.” “Households, the noble disciple thinks thus: 'If anyone engages in wrong conduct with my wife, that is an unappealing thing. unsuitable for me. But if one commits misconduct with another's wife, such a thing is not agreeable, not agreeable to that person. This one dharma is not agreeable, not agreeable to me, this time this dharma is not agreeable, not agreeable to others. And this one dharma is not agreeable to me, so why should I give that dharma pillar to others?' By contemplating this, he himself abstains from wrong conduct in sensual pleasures, exhorts others to abstain from wrong conduct in sensual pleasures, speaks in praise of abandoning wrong conduct in sensual desires. Thus, in regard to bodily actions, he is completely purified.” “Households, the noble disciple thinks thus: 'If anyone harms my interests by lying, that is one thing. not agreeable, not agreeable to me. But if one also harms another's interests by lying, that is not agreeable or agreeable to that person, This One dharma is neither agreeable nor agreeable to us, this Dharma time is not possible. love, unsuitable for others. And this one dharma is not agreeable or agreeable to me, then why should I give that dharma pillar to others?' By contemplating thus, he abstains from lying, exhorts others to abstain from lying, to speak praises to abstain from lying. Thus, in terms of speech and conduct, he is completely purified.” This method of deduction that the Buddha used draws from the first four precepts in relation to others. The fifth precept, “not to take intoxicants and intoxicants” seems to deal only with the relationship with oneself, with what is put into one's body. However, breaking this fifth precept can lead to breaking all the other precepts and to a more brutal degree of harm to others. The story of a young man who, when he was drunk, could not control his mind, stole chickens to kill meat and raped her neighbor is an example. Its enormous social ill-effects are so obvious that gender is also included in the same type of inference. Most of the precepts in Buddhism begin with the word "no", of which there are five precepts, creating negative feelings, forcing or prohibiting loss of freedom. So, instead of saying "don't kill, don't steal, don't commit adultery, don't lie, don't use intoxicants," as the Buddha explained, the first precept: don't kill. “Aware of the suffering caused by killing, I would like to learn the great compassion to protect the lives of people and all species. I vow not to take life, not to endorse killing, and not to let others kill, whether in my mind or in my daily life.” Second precept: do not steal. “Aware of the suffering caused by fraud, theft and social injustice, I would like to learn from pronouns to bring joy and happiness to everyone and all species, to share my time, energy and resources with those who are really in need. I vow not to take as private property any wealth not created by myself. I vow to respect the private property rights of others, but also vow to prevent others from unjustly hoarding and enriching themselves on the sufferings of people and animals.” The third precept: not to commit adultery. “Aware of the sufferings caused by adultery, I would like to learn in a sense of responsibility to help protect the chastity and safety of everyone and every family in society. I vow not to have sex with people who are not my husband or wife. I realize that unrighteous actions will cause suffering to others and to myself. I know that in order to protect my own happiness and that of others, I must respect my commitments and those of others. I will do everything possible to protect children, so that adultery does not continue to cause the breakdown of families and couples.” Fourth precept: do not lie. “Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech, I would like to learn loving speech and listening in order to bring joy to others and alleviate their suffering. Knowing that words can bring happiness or suffering to others, I vow to speak only words that can instill confidence, joy and hope, honest words that are valuable for building understanding and peace. solution. I vow not to spread news that I don't know for sure, and not criticize and condemn what I don't know. I vow not to say things that can create discord in families and groups, things that can break families and organizations.” Fifth precept: not to use intoxicating and intoxicating substances. “Aware of the sufferings caused by the use of drugs and toxins, I would like to learn how to transform my body and mind, and build my body and soul health by practicing mindfulness in eating and consuming. . I vow to consume only what can bring peace to my body and mind and to my family and society's body and mind. I vow not to drink alcohol, not to use drugs, not to eat, drink or consume toxic products including some radio and television products, books, movies and chats. I know that destroying body and mind with alcohol and toxins is betraying ancestors, parents and future generations. I vow to transform violence, hatred and fear and anger by practicing abstinence for me, for my family and for society. I know this abstinence is essential for transforming self, community consciousness and society.” Starting from that self-experience awareness, we automatically vow not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to lie, not to use intoxicants. From here, the five precepts are no longer misinterpreted as bindings and prohibitions on loss of freedom, but rather as ties of morality, of a peaceful and liberated lifestyle.. I know this abstinence is essential for the transformation of self, community consciousness and society.” Starting from that self-experience awareness, we automatically vow not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to lie, not to use intoxicants. From here, the five precepts are no longer misinterpreted as binding, forbidding loss of freedom, but rather as a rule of morality, of a peaceful and liberated life. I know this abstinence is essential for transforming self, community consciousness and society.” Starting from that self-experience awareness, we automatically vow not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to lie, not to use intoxicants. From here, the five precepts are no longer misinterpreted as bindings and prohibitions on loss of freedom, but rather as ties of morality, of a peaceful and liberated lifestyle.END=NAMO SHAKYAMUNI BUDDHA.( 3 TIMES ).GOLDEN AMITABHA MONASTERY=VIETNAMESE BUDDHIST NUN=THICH CHAN TANH.AUSTRALIA,SYDNEY.26/6/2021.IMP 1.