Becoming a Spiritual Refugee

Normally, we consider taking refuge to be the entrance way into the Buddhist path. Some view it as becoming "Buddhist," which is fine, but I think what's more important than being Buddhist necessarily is actually entering the Buddhist path and understanding that this is a path that can lead us towards genuine inner freedom. This path can not only help us experience more absolute or ultimate peace, freedom, openness, and compassion for ourselves but also help us serve others much more skillfully.

Of course, some of this falls within the wider field of what we talk about when we discuss enlightenment, buddhahood, and awakening. For many people, these concepts would fall into the religious category, but for Buddhists, it's more a way of working with life—a structure to understand and transform our relationship with our experience and how we relate with the world around us. 

As I mentioned, taking refuge is usually the entrance way into the Buddhist path. It typically happens once we have learned at least a little bit, if not a decent amount, about the Buddha Dharma. We find it useful both for our understanding of life and framing of life, as well as for integrating it into meditation practice. We start to feel some confidence in the Dharma—that these teachings of the Buddha can really help us—and we want to commit to this as a path. That's when this principle of taking refuge enters.

For those taking refuge through traditional Buddhist lineages, be it Theravada Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, etc., there are ceremonies with the community and teachers who provide the lineage of the refuge vows, where we formalize our refuge. While I think that's beautiful, and I've done it myself, I believe it's actually less important than having a change of heart. We're switching our mind and attitude from seeking one way of relief for our suffering—primarily through materialism and problem-solution mentality, or just ping-ponging between pleasure and pain—to another path.

We see that materialistic approach as faulty and ineffective—a dead end—and then turn our mind towards the Dharma, which offers another way. This alternative path works mainly through the three characteristics or the four seals: impermanence, dukkha, emptiness (or Buddhist non-duality), and nirvana, which would be liberation itself. We investigate these principles and work with them through meditation and contemplation as a path to understand them as fundamentals to the nature of existence and how to become free.

This shift—this change of heart from materialism and the ping-pong relationship to pleasure-seeking—isn't typically an overnight transformation. While some of us can have really strong connections with the lineages of Buddhism when we first encounter them, and the teachings can make immediate sense to some people, I've found it's more of a layering process. As we study the Dharma, we deepen our relationship to it. Our level of understanding and conceptualization deepens through contemplation, which makes it more exponential. Then in meditation, where we actually try to directly see whether there's truth in it or not, this layering continues. I'm okay with that—I'm much more a fan of process-oriented meditation and Dharma practice than the mentality of needing to reach a specific goal before feeling okay. That goal-oriented thinking is actually what we need to have a change of heart from, in my opinion.

Refuge helps us with this process and grows over time. It's not a single decision after which we're done—it's actually a practice in itself. One of my favorite ways of thinking about refuge these days isn't the idea of taking refuge but the idea of becoming a refugee. This principle of being a refugee or becoming a refugee was first introduced to me by the well-known Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chögyam Trungpa. For some, he may be a controversial figure, but personally, I find his teachings incredibly impactful and beneficial.

Whether we like the person or not, the teachings themselves are powerful.. My first Tibetan teacher, Geshe Tsulga, a monk from Eastern Tibet, used to say, "The bee doesn't necessarily have to like the flower, but it can go to the middle of the flower to take the pollen." This speaks to how, when we study the Dharma and contemplate and meditate on it, we become more skillful at going to the essence—understanding the meaning and depth of what someone is actually saying, regardless of whether they're a perfect person.

I personally find Chögyam Trungpa's teachings not only incredibly insightful and deep but transformational. I often have experiences just reading them—he's an incredibly powerful teacher, in my opinion. I'd like to share an excerpt from a series of books where his students compiled teachings on the three yanas, called "The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma." There are three volumes, and this passage comes from the first volume's chapter on taking refuge, specifically the section about becoming a refugee, which transformed my relationship to refuge.

Here's what Trungpa writes: "In ordinary language, taking refuge means seeking shelter, but in this case, it means something slightly different. The Sanskrit refuge phrase 'sharanam gacchami' ('I go for refuge') does not imply that you are helpless and must seek support on somebody else's arm. It means leaving your home country and becoming a refugee. As a refugee, you are leaving your personal world or your personal state of mind, which is your home ground. Although it's questionable whether anybody will accept you as a refugee, you must step out of your country and become stateless. In fact, you have become a refugee already in that you are relating to the Buddhist world, which is no-country—but this stateless country extends to the rest of the universe. When you take refuge, you are opening yourself up and jumping into new territory, which isn't actually a territory but a wasteland, completely open ground. To take refuge requires strength and willingness. It means you must give up your individual preoccupations and obsessions, the personal favoritism that maintains your existence. If a would-be student of Buddhism has a particular talent that is not pure talent but an ego-oriented talent that has helped that person maintain his or her existence all along, this has to be given up. You have to become an ordinary citizen—that is the true definition of humility."

Even reading this now for probably the fifteenth time, I find it incredibly deep. What Trungpa is referring to here is really the heart of Buddhism: understanding that our ego-clinging—our clinging to some kind of identity, whatever we think that is right now in the body and mind—will cause suffering. I'm not saying having an identity causes suffering; I'm saying clinging to it does. That clinging is ultimately an unstable ground. It's like trying to find stability on a melting ice cube.

He's using this principle of taking refuge but turning it into a practice of becoming a refugee. I usually describe it as deliberately deepening our refugee status. As he says, Buddhism itself is not a territory but completely open ground. This is tough to understand because ultimately, the Buddhist path is about pulling the rug out from under any ego-identified position. Initially, this is scary—when I read these words, there's still a little bit of fear that comes up, along with delight because I understand what he's pointing to and I'm interested in it.

It's scary because what have we relied on in our life but clinging to our emotions, our thoughts, and whatever beliefs we have about ourselves and the world? When we're releasing that, when we're letting go, it's really scary because we're in this in-between state where we don't know what's next. We don't completely trust it yet. That's also part of the process of deepening our refugee status—trusting the Dharma more. But we have to trust it based on our experience, based on having direct truths pointed out to us through processing the Dharma and actually practicing it in meditation.

This isn't about belief—it's about deepening our refugee status through actually practicing the Dharma. Even though there's no ground, it starts to be okay because we begin to realize there's another kind of joy, another kind of peace that's much more fulfilling than the ego-centered, self-cherishing one. The one that's all about me, that's always trying to protect ourselves and what we think is worthy of protecting while pushing away everything else—that's a really horrible way to live. Yet most of us, myself included, are stuck in that pattern.

I find even the idea that there's another way to be, as incredibly encouraging and uplifting. Some people might take this to be nihilistic, but I see it as a prompt that we may be using our energy and agency toward a dead end. If we free up our energy and point it in another direction, this might possibly provide an infinite end—that's essentially what buddhahood is, what enlightenment is. We just enter the flow of what reality actually is, instead of constantly building up reality, building up ego, clinging, attachment, aversion, ignorance, trying to control the show. It's exhausting, and becoming a refugee means having some semblance of exhaustion with that pattern, though we also need insight into it.

The traditional teachings say we don't permanently stay a refugee—our refugee status ends at the time of enlightenment. I can generally go along with that, though I don't know 100% since I'm not enlightened, but I can see how that's possible. Either way, what richness there is on the path to give up needing to establish ground! We learn to flow with awareness, which we're cultivating in meditation. We start to have insight into impermanence, into the nature of reality, into where we get stuck and how to get unstuck.

This offers another kind of joy. I haven't met a Buddhist master who isn't incredibly joyful. Some can be very serious and stern depending on the tradition or lineage, but there's this underlying joy—whether it comes out in a smile or not, there's this ease and joy. Why? Because they've let go of clinging. They've learned how to leap into the open space of being a refugee, and this has led to fruition, or at least some fruition on the path.

I encourage you to read more from Chögyam Trungpa on this. This understanding has changed my practice and how I think of refuge. Rather than seeing it as a single moment or something I do in the morning before meditation when I recite it, it's an actual practice all day long of trying to stay a refugee. All the time, my attention and my clinging want to go back to finding some ground, some state—meaning some place or country—that I can sink my teeth into. But that ultimately leads to dissatisfaction; I've noticed it leads to exhaustion. Why do I want to keep putting energy into a melting ice cube? The habits are strong, so I'm there with you—this isn't something that happens in a day, and I'm not saying I've completed it. I just try to deepen my refugee status, and I've noticed it's only brought more joy because there's another way. We start to find a little more flow, a little more openness, a little more compassion towards just being in this experience of life, which is challenging for all of us, no matter who we are in the world.