Buddha
	e Refuges are always repeated thrice to ensure that the mind of the person taking them is ful y aware of what has been said. ey are recited either in Pali or English as given above, or in Sanskrit, which is as fol ows: "NAMO BUDDHAYA NAMO DHARMAYA NAMO SANGHAYA" en the monk chants the FIVE PRECEPTS (Pancasila) one by one which the aspirant repeats after him. e Five Precepts may be cal ed the "Dharma for human beings" as their practice will make our world more bearable to live in and they are the basic and minimal observance of moral conduct by a Buddhist. ey teach him to refrain from kil ing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and taking intoxicants of any kind. Going-for-Refuge to the ree Jewels is therefore an open dec- laration that we are Buddhists. e prayer said should not be mere recitation but should bring to our mind that the treasures in this lifetime consists of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. We should understand ful y what we are declaring so that we will commit ourselves to the declaration that we have made. he uddha What is meant by going for a Refuge to the Buddha? Do we know who is the Buddha or what is the Buddha? Surprisingly, many Buddhists in this country have only a vague idea of Him. Many also believe that they are Buddhists just because they think that their parents are Buddhists by their acts of offering incense to their family altars which, in fact, is ancestral worship and has nothing to do with Buddhism. erefore it is important that such people be taught not only of who or what the Buddha is but what the Buddha is not. e Buddha is not God or a deity whom one should pray to for some fulfil ment in life. e Buddha is not an incarnation of God like Jesus Christ is to the Christians. He is not a prophet nor a messenger of God. e Buddha does not answer your wishes or bring you to heaven just because you have accepted him as your Saviour. He is not the creator who decides the destinies of your life nor can he save you if you have not lived a wholesome life. How- ever, the Buddha can show the way by means of which you have to save yourself. is means that only you can save yourself and that you wil have to work very hard at it in order to save yourself. So if the Buddha is not God, who or what is He? He is a human being but a very special human being, one who has gained what we call "Enlightenment". He is the ful y Awakened One and He is one who has become free from all kinds of worldly passions; whose mind is pure; whose mind is full of wisdom; whose mind is full of love and compassion towards all sentient beings; a super human, the purest, the noblest and most virtuous of beings. All these qualities He possesses in the highest possible degree. is is but a brief description that one can make of a Buddha. Going for Refuge to the Buddha therefore means taking and accepting the Buddha as our ideal. e Buddha was a man such as we, so what He achieved, we too can achieve. If we accept this, if we ¡ûBACK¡û |INDEX| ¡úNEXT¡ú