Finding True Refuge

Life can be really difficult at times, and it is helpful to know where we can find true refuge. There are so many places that we are drawn to seek it like power, belief systems and ideologies, money, fame or social position, relationships, family, children, sexuality, food, drugs or alcohol. Do they really work to reduce our suffering?  

A way to think about refuge in spiritual practice is that we become refugees. A refugee is someone who leaves a country or homeland because life is no longer tenable there. When we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, we are acknowledging that a life based on habituated patterns is no longer tenable for us. We are prepared to set out into the mystery that relies on awareness, wisdom, and kindness, wherever it may lead us.

 “The biggest illusion about a path of refuge is that we are on our way somewhere else, on our way to becoming a different kind of person. But ultimately, our refuge is not outside ourselves, not somewhere in the future - it is always and already here....We find true refuge whenever we recognize the silent space of awareness behind all our busy doing and striving. We find refuge whenever our hearts open with tenderness and love. We find refuge whenever we connect with the innate clarity and intelligence of our true nature.” Tara Brach

Listen to this podcast as we look into this question of finding true refuge and what the Buddha had to say about it.   

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