Definition of the Week (39) – Refuge (b)

☞ Gyaltsab Je:
Going for refuge to the other two Rare and Sublime Ones come naturally due to clear faith in the dharmakaya of the Buddha.

Jetsun Chokyi Gyaltsan:
☞ The definition of the Buddha Jewel is:
An ultimate refuge possessing the eight qualities of non-compoundedness and so forth.

☞ Definition Key

1. Non-compoundedness – It is free in the beginning of inherent generation, in the middle of inherent abiding and in the end of inherent cessation. This is the natural purify of the svabhavakaya.
2. Spontaneous beneficial actions – Having pacified even the subtle effort of uncontaminated motivational action, through the abandonment of the most subtle obscurations to knowledge. Because spontaneous enlightened action for others arises from the purity that is the abandonment of the obscurations to knowledge, this point refers to the adventitious purity of the svabhavakaya.
3. Not being understandable through others – It cannot be realized by thought or conveyed with words the way it is realized directly. (It cannot be realized through the condition of others, but only by one’s own efforts.) (The wisdom truth body understands the truth that is the svabhavakaya, by itself, and not through the condition of words or conceptual input of others.)
4. Knowledge – Understanding both the world of suchness and the world of multiplicity. Understanding emptiness non-dually, and simultaneously comprehending the complete world of conventional multiplicity.
5. Love – Showing sentient beings, who do not understand suchness and the world of multiplicity, the pure and unmistaken path leading to the irreversible state of omniscience.
6. Ability – Being able to cut with the sword of knowledge and love the sprout of suffering that is the dependent link of name and form. Being able to destroy with the vajra of knowledge and love the wall of views protecting afflicted doubt.
7. Purpose of self.
8. Purpose of others.

The first three qualities are contained in the purpose of self, and the second three qualities are contained in the purpose for others.

Geshe Doga:
When reciting the word Buddha we meditate that in addition to Shakyamuni Buddha it includes one’s teachers, the deities, the eight Medicine Buddhas, the Thirty-five Buddhas and so forth. That is something to contemplate without fail when going for refuge.