Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

American Buddhist Perspectives

Home
About

Home
Buddhist
Religion News
The Three Jewels of Buddhism and Multi-faith Affiliations

The Three Jewels of Buddhism and Multi-faith Affiliations

Last updated on: July 20, 2018 at 8:27 pm by Justin Whitaker

The Three Jewels of Buddhism and Multi-faith Affiliations 2018-07-20T20:27:37-06:00 Justin Whitaker

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Three Jewels (triratna in Sanskrit, tiratana in Pali) represent what for many is the quintessential hallmark of being or becoming a Buddhist: going for refuge. The refuges and jewels are: the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. The Awakened one, the Truth or his Teachings, and the four-fold community of lay men and women and monks and nuns. In some traditions, Buddha is expanded beyond the historical Buddha and his teachings to a more abstract sense of awakening. And the Sangha too can take on different meanings, but generaly it means “community” (of folks on the same path as me, from most beginning beginners to the Buddha/Buddhas).

In many traditional Theravadin ceremonies, taking the triple refuge (ti-sarana) is often chanted at the begining:

Buddham saranam gacchami.
Dhammam saranam gacchami.
Sangham saranam gacchami.

The translation is:

I go to the Buddha as a refuge. (word-by-word: To the Buddha, for refuge, I go)…
I go to the dhamma as a refuge.
I go to the sangha as a refuge.

The Buddha did not include a clause here demanding that other faiths be abandoned. Nor did he create a system of beliefs and practices that was fixed and immutable. The Buddhists of his time, and after, continued to hold beliefs and engage in practices beyond hist teachings (the dhamma).

As one story goes, the Buddha was asked near his time of death if the Vinaya – rules for monks and nuns that had developed over time – could be altered. The Buddha responded that “the minor rules could be changed, but not the major ones.” After some confusion in the community about which rules were minor and which were major, they decided to change none of them. As such, the developing, fluid, evolving nature of the Vinaya became static. But even that has undergone changes as different schools developed slightly different sets of rules and the interpretation of them has varied according to time and culture.

Even more so, the philosophical ideas of the Buddha have been open to interpretation and debate. Emptiness (sunyata) was not a terribly important aspect of the Buddha’s early teachings. But it was drawn into central importance several hundred years after his death in the “Perfection of Wisdom” (prajna-paramita) literature and “Middle Way” (madhyamaka) philosophy of Nagarjuna and others. The Buddha was also clear that language or the sounds of words had no intrinsic value or power: the teachings themselves must be understood and implemented for change to occur. Nonetheless, the Brahmanic (proto-Hindu) idea of mantras made its way into Buddhist thought and practice. The Buddha seemed to oppose *guru-*worship, instead establishing a community with basic rules of seniority and spiritual friendship (kalyana-mittas). Nonetheless, ideas of guru veneration crept in to several traditions.

All of this is to say that Buddhism has evolved. Or that there are many Buddhisms if one examines the distinct histories of the many threads of Buddhist development.

Today in Thailand there are often shrines to Brahma in or just outside of Buddhist temples. I am in Fuding, China now, and I’ve just learned that this Brahma statue has similarly made its way north, likely via Burma, into South China and is called “the four-faced Buddha.” There is one of these in the entrance shrine of the temple I’m at now. There is literally a Hindu god looking out over a courtyard in our Chan Buddhist temple.

In China and Taiwan, Daoist gods find similar place – and many Buddhist practitioners also go to Daoist temples for certain activities. In Japan there is a saying that one is, “born Shinto, married Christian, and dies a Buddhist,” as each religion has found a particular niche in the society. One doesn’t make a great leap (or conversion) from one religion to the other. One can still be involved in Shinto rituals throughout life. As Buddhism went to Tibet, the beliefs, practices, and gods there were not denied or shunned, but rather selectively incorporated into Buddhism.

Then Buddhism comes to “the West” – dominated by the exclusivist religious mores of Christianity. Here, to be “born a Jew, married a Christian, and die a Muslim” would involve clear shifts in religious allegiance.

And so, some Buddhists in the West project this demand of allegiance and exclusivity back into Buddhism. In this way, Buddhism is being co-opted by a culture of exclusive allegiance.

On the other hand, many Buddhists in the West continue the long Buddhist tradition of interacting with other faiths, even accepting dual-allegiance (and triple perhaps, even quadruple?). Terms such as Jubu (or Jewbu or similar) have arisen to signify Jewish-Buddhist affiliation. Christian-Buddhists, both Catholic and Protestant, have come forth out of this encounter. Secular Buddhists, too, represent a continuation of the Buddhist tradition of hybridity.

So while one goes to refuge in the three jewels as a Buddhist (and this is a fairly standard traditional definition of a Buddhist), one can also take part in other religious practices and beliefs without sacrificing any of their Buddhist-ness. Again, the idea of exclusivity seems much more a product of the exclusivity of Abrahamic faiths, which Westerners then assume apply to non-Abrahamic religions.

Of course this also brings to light the difficulty of religion as a category, but that is best left for another day.

Three Jewels or Triratna, © Christopher J. Fynn / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0

May all who take refuge in awakening, truth, and community, be they “Buddhist” or otherwise, find peace and fulfillment in their journey.

Enjoy reading this blog?
Please support independent coverage of Buddhism and join a community of patrons here.

Previous Post

July 6, 2018

Zen Training 101: with the help of an art studio manual

Next Post

August 6, 2018 David Foster Wallace, Irony, and American Buddhism today

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Academia Activism American Buddhism Art Book review Buddhism Buddhism Today Buddhist Ethics Burma/Myanmar China Christianity Commodification Environment Gender Happiness Health Humor India Interfaith Islam Japanese Buddhism Kant Media / News Meditation mindfulness Photography Poetry Politics quicktakes Running Teaching Technology Thailand Theism/Atheism Theravada Tibet Tibetan Buddhism Travels Uncategorized Unitarian Universalism video Western Philosophy Zen

Select a Month June 2021 January 2021 November 2020 August 2020 July 2020 March 2020 January 2020 October 2019 August 2019 June 2019 May 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 November 2004 September 2004 August 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz