Being One’s Own Island
When we are desperate, obsessed, or indifferent, we do the craziest things: we buy stuff we don’t need, consume content that makes us sick, lie to people we love, or begin following advice that confuses us and draws us into dependence. Even in the twenty-first century, the religions of capital, of the entertainment industry, of political propaganda, and of sexual indulgence—with their gurus and their promises of greater wealth, fun, security, and satisfaction—still rule the masses and steer individual destinies. And when someone like me preaches down from the pulpit or, as a court jester, ridicules the values of those in power, the whole spectacle becomes public entertainment and even serves as the glue that holds this crazy mess together.
None of these promises—not even those of the traditional religions—offers refuge, in my experience. Paradoxically, it is precisely thanks to Buddhism that I was able to recognize this. Today, Buddhism is commonly understood as one of the world’s religions. The term “Buddhism,” however, emerged in Europe in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In Buddhist cultures across Asia, people instead used names such as Buddha-Dharma. Dharma refers to the Buddha’s teaching and practice as well as to reality itself: cause and effect, conditionality and impermanence, and the workings of phenomena—especially the mind.
In traditional texts, the Buddha is compared to a doctor and the Dharma to medicine. I prefer to regard it as a form of therapy: it is not a medication prescribed by someone else that we simply take, but a practice that we ourselves explore and realize. By the same analogy, the Sangha, the community of Dharma practitioners, takes on the role of medical personnel, comparable to resident doctors and nurses.
Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha are traditionally called the Three Jewels. In many Buddhist traditions, people take refuge in them. As a young man, I took part in such a ceremony with one of my teachers and formally committed myself to Buddhism. Since then—now for nearly forty years—I have reflected on this topic every day. I find several statements in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta particularly remarkable in this connection. This “Great Discourse on Final Extinguishment” recounts the Buddha’s final journey and death and belongs to the Dīgha Nikāya, the Collection of Long Discourses. It was initially transmitted orally and later set down in Pāli, an ancient Indian language. Philological evidence suggests that at least parts of this tradition existed by around 350–320 BCE. This makes it plausible that the text preserves very old Buddhist traditions and teachings—an impressive testament to a tradition of wisdom dating back more than 2,300 years. One of the statements preserved in it and attributed to the Buddha says, in essence: “Be your own island and seek refuge solely in reality.”
Taking refuge is not a theatrical act that turns one into a Buddhist. It is a lifelong practice. For me, at its core, it has nothing to do with religion or external authorities. “Taking refuge” is therefore not the right term for me. Rather than fleeing from something, it is about consciously entering into a relationship with our own precious capacities and qualities: with the clear and knowing nature of our minds, with reality as it reveals itself to us in our own practice, and with our inner resources for healing. I therefore understand the Three Jewels—Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—more as three living relationships within our own practice than as something external and enduring. Through this practice, we train ourselves to become our own doctors, develop forms of therapy that actually work, and draw on every possibility available to us.
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