What this concept is about
When people are truly afraid, they instinctively seek something "reliable to hold onto": health when ill, stability when unemployed, a person who will never leave when relationships break down, and when facing death, some kind of guarantee. Buddhism does not mock this instinct. In the *Saṃyuktāgama* (雜阿含經), the moon deity (月天子), pressed by hardship, says precisely this: "我今遭苦恼，是故来归依。" *("I now encounter suffering and distress, and so I have come to take refuge.")* Taking refuge (歸依, śaraṇa, "refuge") first of all acknowledges a plain fact: sentient beings (有情, sattva) who dwell in suffering and possess limited power truly need something to rely upon.
But Buddhism immediately asks further: where, in the end, can the thing you rely on carry you?
Money can temporarily relieve lack, yet cannot guarantee freedom from sickness, aging, or death; power can handle some external resistance, but cannot subdue one's own craving (貪, lobha), aversion (嗔, dveṣa), or fear; intimate relationships can support each other, but no finite life can serve as permanent insurance for another finite life. Even the worldly gods (諸天, devas), even if acknowledged as possibly possessing some protective ability, still do not equal one who has eradicated all defilements and transcended birth and death, still less can they accomplish for another person the realization of suffering (苦, duḥkha), origination (集, samudaya), cessation (滅, nirodha), and the path (道, mārga).
Therefore, taking refuge is not "worship anything that can help me," but rather, after discernment, entrusting the ultimate direction of one's life to the three jewels (三寶, triratna): the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha. Chinese canonical texts often write 歸依; Tibetan treatises more often write 皈依; the *Ekottarāgama* (增壹阿含經) frequently uses 歸命 ("surrendering one's life"); the written forms and overtones differ slightly, but the core is the same: to return and rely upon [a refuge], taking it as the irreplaceable fundamental support.
This is not a mere juxtaposition of three names, but a threefold complete structure on the path of liberation:
- Taking refuge in the Buddha (歸依佛) is to take the awakened one as one's teacher. The Buddha has already been liberated from fear, knows how to tame sentient beings, is endowed with great compassion (大悲, mahākaruṇā), and delights in the proper conduct of a person rather than in being pleased with material gifts. The *Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra* (瑜伽師地論) therefore explains, from the angles of self-tamedness, skill in taming others, endowment with great compassion, and valuing proper conduct, why the Tathāgata is worthy of being a refuge. Taking refuge in the Buddha is not merely worshipping a great figure, but acknowledging: the "I think" within ignorance (無明, avidyā) cannot forever serve as the supreme judge; awakening is the direction toward which life should tend.
- Taking refuge in the Dharma (歸依法) is to take as true rescue the path that the Buddha awakened to, proclaimed, and that can be practically realized. Broadly speaking, this includes both the teaching-dharma (教法) and the realization-dharma (證法); the *Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya* (阿毘達磨俱舍論) offers a stricter scholastic definition, explaining the ultimate content of the Dharma jewel through the true path and true cessation of the stage of no further learning (無學位, aśaikṣa) and the cessation through discernment (擇滅, pratisaṃkhyā-nirodha) that is nirvāṇa. Here "Dharma" cannot be narrowed down to scriptures, scholarly knowledge of Buddhism, or comforting aphorisms. Sūtra volumes carry the teaching, but placing books at home is not already taking refuge in the Dharma; the true Dharma jewel points to the cessation of afflictions, the realization of liberation, and the right path leading to that realization.
- Taking refuge in the Saṅgha (歸依僧) is to take those who cultivate and realize in accordance with the Dharma as fellow practitioners and companions. In everyday usage, "Saṅgha" is easily understood as anyone wearing monastic robes, but the Saṅgha jewel as the object of refuge has a stricter doctrinal content, the core of which is the noble saṅgha (聖僧, ārya-saṅgha), i.e., the community of noble ones who have directly realized the true Dharma; in the Mahāyāna supreme refuge, it is particularly said to be the irreversible noble bodhisattva-saṅgha. The actual monastic community bears the important responsibility of maintaining, transmitting, and practicing the Dharma and should be respected, but one cannot, without distinction, equate the personality, words, deeds, or authority of any individual monk with the ultimate meaning of the Saṅgha jewel.
The stages-of-the-path tradition (道次第, lam rim) uses an extremely clear sentence to reveal the respective positions of the three jewels: the Buddha is the teacher, the Dharma is the actual refuge, and the Saṅgha is the companion in proper practice. It is like a patient who needs a reliable doctor, a genuinely effective treatment, and experienced caregivers as companions—but what finally cures the illness is that the treatment is actually carried out. The Buddha cannot, through supernormal power, cancel all karmic consequences for a person who insists on creating causes of suffering, nor can the Saṅgha eradicate his afflictions on his behalf; the true rescue is that the practitioner, relying on the true Dharma, distances himself from faults bit by bit, increases merits bit by bit, and ultimately personally realizes cessation and the path.
Thus refuge has two sides simultaneously: one side is entrusting oneself to rescue; the other is accepting direction and training. With only the first side, Buddhism easily becomes a matter of praying for protection; with only the second, practice easily becomes an isolated project of self-improvement, losing faith, respect, spiritual friends (善知識, kalyāṇamitra), and the support of the community. Complete refuge is believing that the three jewels can indeed rescue, while understanding at the same time that this rescue is primarily accomplished through hearing the Dharma, reflection, upholding precepts, cultivating concentration, developing wisdom, and changing one's behavior.
The *Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra* spells this out as four proper practices: approaching good persons (親近善士), listening to the true Dharma (聽聞正法), exercising proper attention in accordance with reason (如理作意), and practicing the Dharma in accordance with the Dharma (法隨法行). That is to say, genuine refuge is not merely reciting [the formula] three times in a ceremony, but: being willing to approach people who can guide one; earnestly listening to the true Dharma; not distorting what one has heard through emotion, but observing in accordance with reason; and finally letting behavior catch up with understanding. The treatise even says that accomplishing these proper practices is what constitutes taking refuge. The ceremony is the door through which one makes a solemn vow; the life that follows is the testing ground for whether the vow is real.
Refuge is usually set in motion by two causes. The *Lam rim chen mo* (菩提道次第廣論) and the *Brief Lam rim* (略論) summarize them as: first, generating genuine fear (怖畏, bhaya) toward death, being carried by karma through saṃsāra, and the unfortunate realms (惡趣, apāya); second, deeply trusting that the three jewels possess the power to rescue. With fear alone but no faith, one may fall into despair or superstition; with only abstract praise but no personal experience of suffering, refuge easily becomes a cultural identity. One cause makes one know that one can no longer live as before; the other makes one know that there is a road to walk. When both are complete, refuge is sufficient to transform the mind.
Here "fear" need not be understood as frightening people with hellish imagery. Its deeper meaning is awakening to one's situation in relation to cause and effect: I will die; my position, my body, and my relationships cannot be permanently possessed; actions shape habits, and habits in turn pull life along; if I allow craving, aversion, and delusion (癡, moha) to grow, I am personally handing my future over to them. Such fear is not panic, but the sense of urgency produced by clarity.
Refuge therefore stands at the entrance to the entire path of liberation, yet it is by no means a formality that can be dropped once one has entered the door. It first brings one into the number of Buddhist disciples, serving as the door to receiving the five precepts (五戒, pañcaśīla) and all restraints (律儀, saṃvara); then it connects to karma and its fruits, confession (懺悔, deśanā), ceasing evil and practicing good, and the three trainings (三學, triśikṣā) of moral discipline, concentration, and wisdom; on the Mahāyāna path, it in turn becomes the preliminary to generating the awakening mind (菩提心, bodhicitta). The common refuge takes the three jewels as its support and tends toward personal liberation; the supreme refuge takes all buddhas as teachers, the Mahāyāna two truths of cessation and path as the Dharma, and the irreversible noble bodhisattva-saṅgha as companions, vowing until attaining buddhahood to seek ultimate benefit for all sentient beings. Refuge is not a single station on the map of the path, but the compass by which the entire road continually recalibrates its direction.
Certain scriptures also speak of taking refuge in specific bodhisattvas. The *Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva Pūrvapraṇidhāna Sūtra* (地藏菩薩本願經) says that beings suffering from sins and hardships who take refuge in Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva receive rescue; the *Buddha Speaks the Sūtra of Contemplating Maitreya Bodhisattva's Ascent and Rebirth in Tuṣita Heaven* (佛說觀彌勒菩薩上生兜率天經) states that Maitreya Bodhisattva will serve as the "great refuge" (大歸依處) for sentient beings, saying that those who take refuge will attain non-retrogression (不退轉, avaivartika) on the supreme path (無上道, anuttara-mārga). This does not set up an alternative ultimate system competing with the three jewels. Why a bodhisattva is worthy of reliance is precisely because his realization and conduct do not depart from the Buddha-Dharma, and his great compassionate activity leads sentient beings toward the three jewels and awakening (菩提, bodhi). Taking refuge in a particular bodhisattva is an unfolding of the three-jewel refuge within a specific vow-power and practice method, not a substitution of a bodhisattva for the true Dharma.
The *Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch* (六祖大師法寶壇經) further says: "自心归依自性，是归依真佛。" *("Taking refuge in one's own self-nature with one's own mind is taking refuge in the true Buddha.")* This sentence also cannot be interpreted as "no need to take refuge in the three jewels; just believe in yourself." What the Sixth Patriarch dismantles is the formalism of reciting refuge while seeking outside and refusing to tame one's own mind; what he reveals is that the Buddha, Dharma, and Saṅgha must become actual realities of awakening, non-delusion, and purity within one's own mind. If one mistakes "self-nature" for the ordinary person's current temper, biases, and desires, that is precisely the opposite of the original meaning. The external three jewels give direction, teaching, and companions; self-refuge (自歸依) requires that this path genuinely occur within one's own body and mind; the two can illuminate each other and need not be crudely opposed.
A walkthrough in everyday life
Imagine a very contemporary evening: you work late, and on the subway ride home you open your phone, see a peer getting promoted, buying a house, traveling, and then receive a terse reply from your partner. Resentment, envy, and unease immediately rise up. You want to keep scrolling, want to buy something, and also want to send a cutting message to prove you have not been slighted.
The first step is to see what you are "taking refuge in" at this moment.
Right now, you may be treating the attentional rewards pushed by the algorithm as a refuge: one more scroll, and you temporarily do not have to face emptiness; treating consumption as a refuge: buying something feels like regaining control; treating your partner's immediate response as a refuge: as long as the other person soothes me at once, I am safe. These are not religious ceremonies, yet they actually perform the function of "what do I turn to when I suffer." They may provide temporary cushioning, but they cannot be an ultimate refuge, because they neither uproot unease nor fail to further strengthen craving and dependence.
The second step is to generate the two causes of refuge.
You do not rush to blame yourself, but honestly acknowledge: if every time you feel uneasy you handle it by scrolling, shopping, or attacking others, this reaction will become an ever-stronger habit; it is creating new causes of suffering. This is a lucid fear of suffering and karmic consequences. Then recollect: afflictions are not commands; the moral discipline, concentration, and wisdom shown by the Buddha constitute a practicable path, and people have already walked along it to attain freedom in varying degrees. This is trust in the rescue-power of the three jewels.
The third step is to implement the three refuges—Buddha, Dharma, Saṅgha—separately, and not to compress the three items into a vague "pray for protection."
Taking refuge in the Buddha is to re-choose one's teacher and direction. At this moment, you no longer let wounded self-esteem, platform algorithms, or social comparison decide your next move, but take as your measure the freedom from craving, aversion, and delusion that the awakened one embodies. You may bow to the Buddha, chant the Buddha's name, or quietly recollect the Buddha's compassion and clarity; the key is to acknowledge: "My current impulse is not the highest wisdom; I am willing to learn from awakening."
Taking refuge in the Dharma is to actually employ methods that reduce afflictions. First put down the phone, notice the tension in the body and the rapid breathing; recognize that "feeling hurt" is only a feeling occurring right now, and does not automatically prove "the other person does not love me"; observe how the thought of revenge arises, intensifies, and how it changes when not fed. Then hold the line of not speaking harshly, and after the emotion has calmed, communicate honestly and without harming. These actions respectively involve mindfulness, observing in accordance with reason, upholding precepts, and loving-kindness. The Dharma is not a "don't get angry" cliché, still less the suppression of emotion; it is knowing suffering as it is, discerning the conditions that increase suffering, experiencing the momentary cessation that occurs when one stops fabricating, and training in the path that leads to cessation.
Taking refuge in the Saṅgha is not fantasizing about practice as a single-player game. You can consult trustworthy monastics, spiritual friends, or steady fellow practitioners, attend proper Dharma-listening sessions and group practice, and also accept others pointing out your blind spots. The most common mis-projection here is understanding "relying on the Saṅgha" as handing your judgment to some charismatic person. The Saṅgha jewel is a companion in practice, not an object of personality cult; healthy reliance makes one more able to observe in accordance with the Dharma and to take responsibility, not more fearful, more dependent, or more afraid to ask questions.
The fourth step is to let refuge enter the trainings (學處, śikṣāpada).
If, after reciting the three refuges, you still deliberately send a message humiliating your partner, then verbal refuge has not yet subdued your behavior. The story in the *Saṃyuktāgama* of Aṅgulimāla (央瞿摩羅), who stopped killing because "三归制令息" *("the three refuges commanded him to cease")*, precisely shows that refuge must first produce restraining power at the very place where evil deeds are about to occur. For contemporary people, it may manifest as: not sending hurtful messages when angry; not covering up mistakes with deception when anxious; not deliberately sabotaging others in work competition; when overwhelmed in parenting, first removing oneself from the scene for a moment, rather than pouring one's loss of control onto the child.
Consider another parenting scenario. A child fails an exam, and the parent immediately thinks "what will others think of me," and so scolds harshly. If one mis-projects refuge as "praying to the Buddha to make the child get a high score next time," refuge is shrunk into endorsing one's desires. The correct walkthrough is: first see that one is relying on social evaluation as a refuge; fear that this clinging will harm the parent-child relationship and increase aversion; recollect the three jewels and re-orient toward awakening and compassion; in accordance with the Dharma, recognize one's own shame, anxiety, and desire for control, and not create new karma through harsh speech; rely on the Saṅgha and spiritual friends to learn right view and communication; finally, analyze the difficulty with the child, help the child bear the part he should bear, but do not equate grades with a person's worth. Such refuge may not immediately change the score, but it has already changed the way suffering is produced.
One can also compress this walkthrough into four everyday questions:
1. When I am afraid, what do I turn to first? Does it only temporarily numb the pain, or can it genuinely reduce craving, aversion, and delusion? 2. If I continue living by this reaction, what karma and habits am I cultivating? 3. If at this moment I took the Buddha as teacher, the Dharma as path, and the Saṅgha as companion, what would my next steps respectively be? 4. Can I implement one boundary of not creating evil, and one action of increasing wholesome dharmas?
This is the contemporary point of "respectfully taking refuge with homage" (歸依恭敬禮): reverence is not only bowing one's head in the shrine hall, but when afflictions command you to harm others, being willing to bow your head to the true Dharma and no longer enshrine your impulses as master.
Why contemporary people need it
Contemporary life is not lacking in "reliance"; what is lacking is discernment regarding the objects of reliance. Platforms want us to take refuge in attentional rewards, the market wants us to take refuge in consumption, organizations may lead people to treat position as identity, and public opinion invites people to treat their own camp as absolutely right. Together they promise: gain a little more and you will be safe; be seen a little more and you will be complete; as long as the enemy disappears, you will be free of suffering.
The meaning of taking refuge in the three jewels is not to reject work, technology, medicine, law, family, or social cooperation. These are all conditions needed for real life, each with its own legitimate function. What refuge changes is their level within one's life: a doctor can treat illness, yet is not an ultimate refuge from death; law can stop harm, yet cannot uproot aversion for anyone; artificial intelligence can organize information and simulate language, yet cannot become an awakened one simply by outputting Buddhist content, nor can it uphold precepts, bear karmic consequences, or personally realize nirvāṇa on behalf of the user.
Neuroscience can study attention, emotion regulation, and habit formation; algorithmic research can reveal how reward mechanisms shape choices; such knowledge helps understand the real conditions in which practice operates. But the operational definitions, measurement scales, and theoretical models used by scientific research are still developing, and one cannot declare liberation or realization merely on the basis of some brain-region change. Buddhism and science can engage in mutually illuminating dialogue, yet one cannot rashly claim that "science has already proven the Dharma." What refuge ultimately addresses is the question of what should be the highest direction of life, how to still afflictions and transcend birth and death; its normative and soteriological content cannot be entirely replaced by neural indicators.
Refuge also gives contemporary people a rare kind of stability: not "things will certainly develop according to my wishes," but "no matter how things develop, I still know where I should head." Illness may not immediately heal, a career may fail, and important people will still pass away; refuge does not guarantee that worldly impermanence stops operating. The rescue it promises is deeper: within impermanence, one need not continue to create suffering through ignorance; one can learn to recognize the causes of suffering, stop evil karma, increase wholesome dharmas, and even attain a freedom no longer dragged about by birth and death.
This also explains why the scriptures repeatedly say that refuge has the benefits of stopping evil, producing good, not falling into unfortunate realms, accumulating merit, and tending toward buddhahood. If one understands these statements merely as external rewards after recitation, one overlooks refuge's function of reorganizing the entire causal direction of one's life. A person who truly takes the Buddha as teacher will gradually become ashamed of solving problems through deception, harm, and greedy appropriation; one who truly relies on the Dharma will train in discipline, concentration, and wisdom; one who truly takes the Saṅgha as companion will enter into learning relationships that remind, support, and correct. The causes of favorable rebirth and liberation are precisely accumulated from this.
Of course, the scriptures also record the extraordinary rewards of protection, reduction of offenses, and escape from difficulties for those who take refuge with wholehearted sincerity (至心). Toward this, one need neither arrogantly dismiss it wholesale nor remodel it into a mechanical formula. Buddhist karma has never been a transactional system in which "reciting one phrase can arbitrarily cancel all consequences." The reason refuge and confession can transform the course of karma is that one confesses with wholehearted sincerity, stops evil deeds, practices antidotes, transforms the mental continuum, and obtains supportive conditions through the merit and vow-power of the three jewels. "Wholehearted sincerity" is not turning up the volume of one's voice, but the whole person beginning to turn.
The *Mahāvaipulya Mahāsaṃnipāta Sūtra* (大方等大集經) deliberately uses Māra Pāpīyas's "詐归依，非实心" *("false refuge, not a true mind")* as a counterexample, precisely showing that verbal declaration alone is insufficient to constitute real refuge. True refuge need not be emotionally fervent, yet it leaves observable traces: greater willingness to admit faults, less willingness to exchange others' suffering for one's own convenience, better ability to guard precepts, and greater willingness to hear and practice the true Dharma that runs against one's old habits.
From the perspective of the path of liberation, refuge accomplishes a fundamental transfer of sovereignty: in the past, "what I want, what I fear losing" decided everything; from the moment of taking refuge, "what reduces craving, aversion, and delusion, what leads to awakening" calibrates one's choices. This transfer is not completed overnight, which is why the treatises require day and night, again and again, to recollect the three jewels, to report matters to them, and not to abandon them even at the risk of death. Repeatedly taking refuge is not because the first time failed, but because the old objects of reliance are daily re-seizing our minds.
Common misunderstandings and clarifications
First, taking refuge is not completed by joining a religious identity.
A ceremony can publicly confirm what one relies on, establish a teacher-lineage and commitment, and has genuine meaning; but if after receiving refuge one never listens to the Dharma, never distinguishes good from evil, and never trains in the trainings, one has only acquired the name. The *Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra* defines the proper practices of refuge as approaching good persons, listening to the true Dharma, proper attention in accordance with reason, and practicing the Dharma in accordance with the Dharma; the stages-of-the-path tradition also explicitly says that refuge is the door to receiving restraints. The door is not the destination; one begins walking only after entering.
Second, refuge is not outsourcing the responsibilities of life to buddhas and bodhisattvas.
Supplication, prostration, offering, and name-recitation can all become genuine practice and may receive protective attention; but "I have taken refuge, so I need not change my behavior" is precisely contrary to refuge. The Buddha is the teacher, the Saṅgha is the companion, and the Dharma is the actual refuge; the true Dharma must be cultivated by oneself. Seeking career success while continuing to deceive clients; seeking family harmony while refusing to stop harsh speech; seeking the elimination of offenses while refusing to acknowledge the suffering of victims—this is not deep faith, but wanting religion to serve desire.
Third, refuge does not mean that one may henceforth use no worldly help whatsoever.
Seeing a doctor when ill, seeking legal protection when harmed, and receiving qualified professional support for psychological distress all do not violate refuge. The stages-of-the-path tradition even distinguishes the ultimate refuge from mundane supportive conditions: the key is not that worldly resources are altogether unusable, but that one does not mistake what is limited and still within impermanence for a support that can bring about ultimate liberation. The three jewels determine the ultimate direction; worldly methods function within their appropriate scope.
Fourth, taking refuge in the Buddha is not taking refuge only in a Buddha image, taking refuge in the Dharma is not taking refuge only in books, and taking refuge in the Saṅgha is even less a matter of blindly following some individual.
Buddha images should be respected because they cause us to recollect the Buddha jewel; scriptures should be respected because they carry the true Dharma; the appearance of monastics should also be respected because they maintain the monastic order and the teaching. But the symbol and the ultimate referent must be distinguished. If certain religious figures demand unsupervised authority, encourage lawbreaking and harm, or use "do not doubt" to prevent discernment in accordance with the Dharma, blind obedience is not called taking refuge in the Saṅgha. Genuine refuge includes "knowing the qualities, knowing the distinctions, vowing to accept it oneself, and not saying that there is anything superior to it" (知功德、知差別、自誓受、不言有餘); "knowing the distinctions" itself requires clear analysis.
Fifth, "not taking refuge in the gods" (不歸依諸天) is not denying the existence of all deities, nor is it encouraging hostility toward adherents of other faiths.
What the scriptures establish is the ultimate level: beings who still possess afflictions and remain within birth and death cannot accomplish liberation on behalf of sentient beings. The *Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra* distinguishes the Tathāgata from the gods through such criteria as whether defilements are cut off, whether one is well-tamed, whether one's deeds are beneficial or harmful, and whether one knows what should and should not be done. The point is whether the object of reliance is ultimate, not cultivating religious arrogance. If refuge makes a person more contemptuous of others, one should instead check whether conceit (我慢, asmi-māna) is growing through a religious identity.
Sixth, taking refuge in a specific bodhisattva is not establishing a "fourth jewel."
Bodhisattvas such as Kṣitigarbha and Maitreya are called refuges of rescue in specific scriptures and methods, as concrete unfoldings of their great compassionate vow-power. Bodhisattvas do not depart from the three jewels, and their teaching likewise leads sentient beings toward the true Dharma and awakening. If faith in a bodhisattva makes one respect cause and effect more, become more willing to confess and practice good, and tend more toward awakening, it operates within the structure of the three-jewel refuge; if it is understood as a special relationship that can bypass moral discipline and causality, it has deviated from the meaning of the scriptures.
Seventh, "self-refuge" (自歸依) is not taking refuge in one's own feelings.
The *Platform Sūtra*'s statement that "taking refuge in one's own self-nature with one's own mind is taking refuge in the true Buddha" aims to break the habit of seeking only outside while not taming one's own mind. Here "self-nature" is not willfulness, still less "whatever I think goes." The sūtra simultaneously requires removing unwholesome minds such as jealousy, flattery, conceit, and wrong views, and "內调心性，外敬他人" *("internally taming the mind-nature, externally respecting others")*. If a phrase like "believe in yourself" makes a person more stubborn in craving, aversion, and delusion, that is not self-refuge but taking refuge in self-grasping (我執, ātmagrāha).
Eighth, refuge is not the cessation of thinking out of fear.
Before genuine refuge, one must already observe whether the body, speech, and mind of the one in whom one takes refuge are pure, whether [that one] possesses great compassion, and whether [that one] has accomplished the unsurpassed Dharma; formal refuge in turn requires knowing the qualities and knowing the distinctions. The faith of which Buddhism speaks is not a refusal to examine, but a trust formed after examination, listening, and reflection that can support committed practice. Refuge ends aimless wavering, yet does not cancel proper attention in accordance with reason.
Ninth, benefits such as "not falling into unfortunate realms" cannot be simplified into permanent insurance from a single ceremony.
The scriptures do praise the vast rewards of refuge; the *Saṃyuktāgama* contains the verse "归依于佛者，终不堕恶趣" *("One who takes refuge in the Buddha will never fall into unfortunate realms")*; related sūtras and treatises also say that refuge can lighten prior karma, accumulate merit, and become the door to restraints. But the same tradition repeatedly requires wholehearted sincerity, guarding the trainings, and not abandoning [the refuge] even at the risk of death. One should understand the praise of rewards together with the full set of practice conditions, and must not take a single phrase and turn it into a license that "once one has undergone the ceremony, no matter what karma one creates afterward, it is all fine."
Tenth, refuge is not useful only when one has no way out.
Suffering is often the occasion that triggers refuge, but it should not be the whole of refuge. If one only asks for help when sick, taking exams, or bankrupt, and then forgets the three jewels once things improve, what one has actually taken refuge in is still favorable circumstances. Mature refuge enters into eating, working, consuming, intimate relationships, and every moral choice: not being heedless in favorable circumstances, not defecting to wrong paths in adversity, knowing gratitude and offering when one has gained something, and being willing to let others also obtain the benefit of the true Dharma when one sees them suffering.
In the final analysis, refuge is not asking a more powerful object to guard all of "my" clinging on my behalf, but entrusting oneself to a path of gradually releasing clinging and stilling the causes of suffering. At first, we seek rescue because of fear; then we discover that the rescue of the three jewels is not to remodel the impermanent world into a dwelling that can never be lost, but to teach us to stop mistaking impermanent things for a dwelling. In the end, the awakening pointed to by the Buddha manifests in one's own mind, the cessation and path spoken of by the Dharma become personally realized, and the noble path represented by the Saṅgha is walked by oneself.
Therefore, refuge is both the first step of the path of liberation and the vow to walk all the way to the end: with the Buddha as teacher, the Dharma as path, and the Saṅgha as companion; in every fear and temptation, deciding anew not to hand one's life over to craving, aversion, and delusion.