Buddhist Hour
Script No. 405
Broadcast live on Hillside 88.0 FM
on Sunday 6 November 2005CE 2549 Buddhist Era
This script is entitled:
Discourse on Refuge, Part I
Thank you for joining us. On today's program we will be sharing with you a very special teaching that was given by John D. Hughes to his students in 1984, at the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.
The topic of the teaching is refuge. Refuge in what? Refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha, the Triple Gem.
If not confidence in the Buddha as the guide, in the Dhamma as the instructions, and the Sangha as the noble ones who guide you along the path, for what reason would you practice Buddhism? With no confidence in the Triple Gem, without having refuge in them, one has no hope for following the path. That is why Master John D. Hughes taught refuge so strongly.
He began in the following way.
JDH: Again and again and again, you will come to the correct practice automatically. Why is that? How does it work? You know you've done, you know what happens. Why does it work?
Student: Well, kammically you're asking for a bright mind with right motive and all the right reasons so you get bright mind.
JDH: That's right. Law of kamma. Now this is why we want to get our refuge deep. The minute a defilement is on top all that shows is our refuge isn't on top. If you're quick take Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha refuge then defilements underneath and your practice resumes. It's so simple it works by law of kamma. You're bound by the law of kamma! You can't escape kamma.
Student: You request to take refuge, and for the teaching...
JDH: You request to take refuge. May I take refuge in Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha? Now, the Sangha, bright ones, here, devas here, many beings here. Even if you're sitting in the forest by yourself and they say you save us and, I want, I take refuge in Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha. I want. They admire Buddha, they send you loving-kindness. The quieten the area around you. Then by, if you like, telepathy, say you were sitting alone. By telepathy (a compassionate Bodhisattva would put thought in mind, put "watch the breath", put "mind on breath" or something like that.
Now, maras also come because they don't want you to do like this. Now how does your mind know which one to listen to. How does your mind know, unceasingly produce wisdom guarding destruction of defilements. How does your mind know that is the way. Check your mind. Mara says, "Unceasingly produce wisdom regarding multiplication of defilements." That is mara's signal. And yet somehow your mind knows, "Unceasingly produce wisdom regarding destruction of defilements is what the Buddha teaches." In other words cease hate, greed and ignorance.
How does your mind know that you are going to destroy defilements. Keep the precepts for example. How does your mind know if you use drugs one day you give up drugs. How does your mind know if you're killing, stop killing. How does your mind know if you're lying, stop lying. How does your mind know if you're stealing stop stealing. How does your mind know if you're committing adultery stop committing adultery. How does your mind know this? Well, the answer is most people's minds don't know this. But if you have refuge Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, the mind knows correct action. If you took refuge in mara your mind would choose mara path. You'd say samsara again and again.
How does your mind know? You know precepts are correct? What stops you from breaking precepts? Nothing whatever stops you. Any day you wish to you can break precepts, but of course law of kamma says if you do, you're only bringing unhappiness. Now with Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha refuge you have haven or security or whatever you translate as refuge, and when the refuge appears good ideas come into the mind. Wholesome, wholesome mind appears. If refuge is weak, mara defeats you. If refuge is strong, you practice better, better, better.
So, this is how the mind knows because you get the refuge correct, everything comes on line. Straighten the key, Julian. If you don't have the refuge of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, then as you sit old refuges come up and you start run after them. Now, your old refuges, got infinite past, some of your mind has been taking refuge in mara. How do I know that? Because if you hadn't had something in your mind taking refuge in mara, you would never ever have broken five precepts from the day you were born till now. The fact is you have. So you strengthen up your refuge and then that becomes protectors. Now the, the Buddha protectors, the devas guard you. The Sangha, particularly celestial Sangha, they look and check out and they send by telepathy to you Buddha teaching.
If you had to depend on listening to me, my words, to follow the path, then you could never follow Buddha's instructions or sit in forests by yourself. You'd need me to come and bash in your ear, but what happens if you have refuge in Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha and you get that deep? You're sitting in forest and your practice is discovered by yourself.
Julie, can you go and get that book you were reading from last night? It's the World Fellowship of Buddhists Review, I'll read it to you. Refuge we were talking about. You know refuge? What do you describe in your own words as refuge? We've been getting words every night like haven. Say we take refuge in Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, what do you say in your own words? What does that mean?
Student: Solace.
JDH: Yes. What else? Got other words? You got rich vocabulary? Must have been scholar in nineteenth century. They're nineteenth century words. I like, I'm an old nineteenth century scholar, I like! Solace. You ever heard the word solace? Julie? You don't talk like nineteen eighty four. But I love that word! What a beautiful word.
You got some more nineteenth century words? Martin, you like that one? Solace.
Martin: By the way the language is going in kali-yurga we'll have nothing...
JDH: By the near of the end of kali-yurga all the words are destroyed, and now, because everyone is so illiterate today, they only live to be ten years old. The language. So if we, we can't, there's no word, there's no words.
Now, listen to this. The Kammatthana Bhikkhu are the monks, the forest dweller monks. In Thailand, Phra Acharn Mun, that's his photograph up there, the sleepier one. He's an arhant. When in the forest he learned Buddhist texts. Buddha said keep two-two-seven rules, so he kept two-two-seven rules. Buddha said monks only need to have seven things. You know, bowl, robe.
Now what happened, he became enlightened, fully-enlightened, arhant. And then he taught other monks. So most of the great monks Tan Acharn Sing, Tan Acharn Lee, Tan Acharn Cao, you know, all the whole series of monks that taught by Acharn Mun are fairly old or passed away now. And he passed away a few years ago.
Now this is written by one monk who was with him. Alright? Now, if you listen you will hear the Dhamma and you will learn more clearly of how you were taught the Dhamma. Remember last time I asked you how you taught Dhamma and how you learnt Dhamma and everyone had different idea. Now the first thing the Buddhist Bhikkhus held that Venerable Monk in high esteem but they were absolutely scared of him. If you look at that photograph he has eyes, Tan Acharn Boonyarith has met this man. He's also a Thai monk. He said he had eyes like a snake. When you look straight into a monk, cause he knew everything the monk had been doing that day, every thought, every action he'd done because he's got higher knowledges. Then, at night, he would give Dharma talk and he would go through each of his monks and he would bring up in his Dharma talk the particular thing they had done that had broken one of their two-two-seven rules or where their mind was drifting. And he's very graphic and very powerful. He was so powerful that some monks would come and sit with him one day, get scared and run away.
One man was a boxer. You know, like fearless boxer. You know, sportsman. Tan Acharn Mun insisted that his monks only have seven requisites of monks. So they weren't allowed to have other things. This boxer had smuggled in one photograph of himself, you know, in his boxing, when he was middle-weight champion or whatever. I don't know what the terms are in Thailand. Then, that night, this monk used to look at himself as a layman as a boxer. He had a great pride in the fact that he won all the boxing titles. And Tan Acharn Mun gave a talk that night because he'd looked at this photograph which he said, he was strict, Buddha says only seven things, he had eight things. He had a photograph of himself taken for his monk.
So he started to talk about, you know, monks who are breaking Buddha's rules who have photograph and suggested, without naming the monk of course, but the monk knew he was talking about cause Tan Acharn Mun can read minds of every monk. He knew everything they were doing all the time. And he suggested he go and destroy this photograph, rip it up, and although this guy was a great courageous boxer, you know, you have to have alot of courage to be a boxer, he was so scared he couldn't have the courage to rip up his past sankhara of himself as a boxer. So he took his little photograph and he ran away. Went back and became city monk.
So many, many monks came but he was so fierce a teacher that he had everyone scared of him but the ones who stayed realised his compassion was great. So, in this, this man was near Tan Acharn Mun, and he writes about the type, you'll get the flavour of Tan Acharn Mun teaching when you hear this. If you pay respect to that man, he's passed away, but emanation of Tan Acharn Mun like psycho-mage of Tan Acharn Mun, is still in, like, psycho-cosmic things.
When I was in Canberra, first of all, going back many years, my mind found Tan Acharn Mun in my own meditation when he was still alive in Thailand. So although my body was in Australia and his body was in Thailand I was lucky that I could pay respect to, he would teach me. Psycho-after-images are like illusion image. Out of his great compassion, so the frequency of his parinirvana, his accumulated merit is still here.
So, the wise held their Acharn, that's Tan Acharn, in high esteem, these forest monks, which may be different from those Bhikkhus, Bhikkhus means monks, who stress and study the scriptures. Questions and puzzles occured to them, occuring to them, are all related to the development of meditation and insight because they are meditating monks, not theoretical monks. They would sit at least three times a day and do walking meditation so the questions came up concerning meditation and insight.
Now being real good questions, the answers to which cannot be found directly in the scriptures, like in the scriptures of the Tripitika, they're very vast, they answer a lot of questions but this would be specific individual questions. This necessitates that first-hand experiences of an Acharn, Acharn means meditation teacher, in other words a fully enlightened being. Whatever experiences you have, he has had them before you either this life or past lives, or, his mind is so bright he knows and understands.
This necessitates the first-hand experiences of a meditation teacher, I'll read for Acharn, he used to encounter and cope with them effectively before. They are not at the provision of those who have studied much and made them intellectually. Intellectually is only vinnanum, consciousness, but have never tackled them through their own experiences, right? So that, unless you sit and meditate and practice strongly, certain things will come up. You have idea, if you've read a lot about Buddha you'll formulate notions, ideas. When you sit down something happens that is quite different to your model of your theory. You know?
For example, you've all tried to do loving-kindness to yourself. When you send loving-kindness to yourself, like the books say send loving-kindness to yourself, when you're quiet send loving-kindness to others. The sutta doesn't say when you try to send loving-kindness to yourself blocks come up, you can't do! How to do? What do you do then? This is practical things. They occur in meditations.
So questions relating to a person’s experiences are of varied kinds. Being indefinitely different in degrees of nature you can almost say they'll be infinitely different in degrees of nature. Both inward and outward. Here it means what you feel inside, outward means how the world treats you. What people say to you. Whether your daughter turns around to you and says "I don't love you anymore," or your son says this, or your best friend says this. The untidiness of the outside world. It never goes like we want because first Noble Truth is life is suffering. So there's no ending describing these.
The general questions may be known to others, were as the individual ones are to be private. They must be only revealed to the Acharn, to the meditation master, who will then answer especially to the questions. However, all questions concerning the development of meditation and insight which can occur any time in the course of serious exterion which goes on in every posture of the body, some questions there are which occur in the mind of the aspirant, the meditator if you like, which can be solved instantly by himself without outside help. Sometimes you're meditating, question comes up, next second you know answer. So that is some sort of question. Instantly your mind finds answer to, because mind is bright when you're meditating.
So that's the first sort of questions. You solve yourself without any outside help. Answer comes immediately, all of you have had this experience by now. But there are other questions that take some time before they can be effectively dealt with by himself. In other words, other times you have to sit several times and one question keeps coming back and you gradually get approximate answer, approximate answer and then suddenly, "ah", that is not problem.
Then there are still other questions which cannot be solved through the aspirant's, or we'll say meditator's own effort and thus need an Acharn's guidance. So there are some questions which come up so strong you can't find for yourself. What is more important? Some of them create a real danger. Some of these third type of questions create a real danger to a meditator and the meditator needs a way out of them as soon as possible. For this purpose the meditator must go and see his Acharn immediately before he is deluded further by them. After all, it can be said that in all places and in all times mindfulness and wisdom are indispensable ingredients to be brought into play before any question or puzzle can be effectively dealt with. This is to prevent a wishful thinking dictated by his own desire which can delude him to thinking that it is based on the Dharma. Thus before any question can be settled satisfactorily it must be brought before the tribunal of reason, or wisdom, and mercilessly scrutinized. You get the flavour of the way Tan Acharn Mun taught by hearing these words.
It is for this reason that the forest dwelling, I'll translate into English, monks always held their meditation master in high esteem which may be different for those monks who stress and study the scriptures. Questions and puzzles occurring to them are all related to meditation and insight. In other words for the forest-dwelling monks who practice meditation, the questions they get are concerned with meditation and in insight. For the city monk, say, who study scriptures, have a lot to do with the public, they're more worldly questions. You know, "How do we pay the bills?" or something like this. But for the forest monks, because they practice meditation very powerfully, all the questions come up.
Now this necessitates the first hand experiences of a meditation master who used to encounter and cope with them effectively before. In other words, everyone's experiences give or take a bit in details is about the same as they practice. They are not in the provision of those who have studied much and know them intellectually but never tackled them through their own experiences. In fact, they cannot be denied that such questions are also mentioned in the scriptures, in the texts, but yet it cannot be said either that there was always a clear individual and definite answer in most cases because otherwise if you tried to write every example down your text would be eighty-million-billion books maybe. So it couldn't be like that.
In other words, the solution to these questions cannot expected to be totally different from what are the ways mentioned in the scriptures. Yet they cannot be hoped to be clear and satisfactory enough for individual cases. This may sound absurd and ridiculous to those who do not understand the fact, nevertheless but the truth is there to all those who have had, more or less, this kind of experience in the course of their development of meditation and thought.
As to how and where the questions come from during the course of mind development the following general suggestions will be given as guidelines for those who may have to come face-to-face with them in the future.
If you practice meditation I will say all, practically one hundred percent, problems will arise and here is the general solution to apply to the problems. Now, of course when your mind goes cloudy you forget everything you hear here. So try and get your mind bright and try and remember this and tag it with your practice it.
Alright, so questions or puzzles concerning meditation usually come up when a meditator's mind, having been calmed down, you know, having quiet mind. First, second, third jhana, something like that, absorption, reaches out, in other words mind goes out to witness various indefinite phenomena that are beyond the meditator's ability to cope with.
Here the general advice is that he should cut them dead by, cut them dead, by paying no attention to them and then retract the mind to its former theme of meditation. On the five meditation course we're gonna' run in August, you'll be given meditation theme and it might be something simple like impermanence or something like that. When you start to practice like this your mind will sometimes run outside, you know? It can pick up anything. You know, it might be, I was meditating one day here a few years ago and I, a butterfly flew past my vision. My mind went outside and followed the butterfly because it was rather beautiful. Now, I'm a chemist so I know a lot about the chemistry of pigments. I then started to find my mind was examining the chemical composition of the color on the butterfly's wing. And then my mind started to consider the possible biological mechanisms of how the butterfly could synthesize such a well, a immediately complex molecule. Right?
So that's an example, like if I hadn't cut my mind there you know, I'd be doing a course on organic chemistry which I'm already, the reason for that was I worked, the cause of that was I worked for about eight years in dyes and textiles in this life. So I used to colour match, I knew the chemical composition of dyes. I'm an expert in dyeing.
The further cause of why I was a dye chemist in this life was that I'd been interested in dye chemistry in former lives. And because of these preconditions, when my mind saw that butterfly and started to follow it round, I started to investigate chemical structure on because of the pigments on the butterfly.
Now you, an investigation of the colors of the pigments is for one trained as a scientist. It's all very well but it has nothing to do with training the mind in meditation. If you saw a butterfly maybe your mind would go off on to some other question. Now the advice is cut them dead, in other words retract the mind to the theme of meditation. If the theme of the meditation is considering impermanence you could use the butterfly saying that butterfly will be dead probably within twenty-four hours, maybe less if a bird eats it. So you can use the butterfly as long as you remember what the theme is, you were meditating on impermanence. That butterfly will be dead. Impermanent.
May your mind know to keep precepts always.
May your refuge in Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, become irreversible.
May all beings see the Buddha, hear the Dharma, and join the Sangha.
May you be well and happy.
May all beings be well and happy.
This script was prepared and edited by Julian Bamford, Anita Carter, Frank Carter and Sloman.
References
Recording Title: Discourse on Refuge
Tape 1 Side 1
Teacher: John D. Hughes
Date of recording: Unspecified
Transcribed by Sloman
CD Reference: DiscourseOnRefugeT1S1A.wav
File Name I:\I:\DiscourseOnRefugeT1S1A_JDHtranscribe.rtf
Document Statistics
Word count: 3,889
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