Taking the Three Refuges and the Five Precepts is seen as the foundation
for living a well directed and virtuous life in all branches of Buddhism. There are
slight variations in translation according to Buddhist traditions. These Refuges and Precepts
as taken in the Theravadin tradition are listed below and followed by an excerpt
from Ajahn Sumedho’s book “The Mind and the Way”.
Lay folks take these Refuges and Precepts every Uposatha Day (see calendar at
abhayagiri.org/index.php/main/days). All are welcome to join in to either
partake or observe. The Refuges are repeated in Pali three times (chant books provided).
The Five Precepts are requested in both Pali and English:
Three Refuges:
To the Buddha I go for refuge
To the Dhamma I go for refuge
To the Sangha I go for refuge
The Five Precepts:
1) I undertake the precept to refrain from taking the life of any living creature.
2) I undertake the precept to refrain from taking that which is not given.
3) I undertake the precept to refrain from sexual misconduct.
4) I undertake the precept to refrain from false and harmful speech.
5) I undertake the precept to refrain from consuming intoxicating drink and drugs which lead to carelessness.
“The Mind and the Way”
“With mindfulness, we can be independent of the positions other
people are taking. We can stand on our own two feet and take
responsibility for acting in a virtuous way, regardless of what
the rest of society is doing. I can be kind, generous, and loving
toward you, and that is a joy to me. But if I make my happiness
dependent upon your being kind to me, then it will always be
threatened, because if you aren’t doing what I like-behaving the
way I want you to-then I’m going to be unhappy. So then, my
happiness is always under threat because the world might not behave
as I want it to.
It’s clear that I would spend the rest of my life being terribly
disappointed if I expected everything to change-if I expected
everybody to become virtuous, wars to stop, money not to be wasted,
governments to be compassionate, sharing, and giving-everything to
be just exactly the way I want it! Actually, I don’t expect to see
very much of that in my lifetime, but there is no point in being
miserable about it ; happiness based on what I want is not all that
important.
Joy isn’t dependent on getting things, or on the world going the way
you want, or on people behaving the way they should, or on their
giving you all the things you like and want. Joyfulness isn’t dependent
upon anything but your own willingness to be generous, kind, and loving.
It’s that mature experience of giving, sharing, and developing the science
of goodness. Virtuousness is the joy we can experience in this human
realm. So, although what society is doing or what everyone else is doing
is beyond my control-I can’t go around making everything how I want it-
still, I can be kind, generous, and patient, and do good, and develop
virtue. That I can do, and that’s worth doing, and not something anyone
can stop me from doing. However rotten or corrupted society is doesn’t
make any difference to our ability to be virtuous and to do good.
~Ajahn Sumehdo~
