go for Refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.59

THE REFUGE TREE

Sangharakshita’s relationship to the Buddhist tradition and his commitment to the unity of Buddhismis embodied in an image central to the Order he has founded. In each of the Tibetan Buddhist schoolsthere is a ‘Refuge Tree’, on which are arranged all the figures that, for that school, embody the principal‘Refuges’ or ideals. Sangharakshita has created such a Refuge Tree for the Order, in this way makingclear its distinctive emphases and its main influences. This Refuge Tree is incorporated in the ‘Goingfor Refuge and Prostration Practice’ undertaken by some members and prospective members of theWestern Buddhist Order.

Seated in meditation, one visualises a vast tree, growing up from a rainbow-coloured cloud in the midstof an infinite blue sky. The tree has four branches arranged around a central stem, the branches andcentral stem each being surmounted by an enormous white lotus blossom. Seated on the central lotus isthe Buddha Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, from whose transcendental realisation all the variousschools have unfolded. He is flanked by two smaller figures, Dipankara and Maitreya, the Buddhas ofthe past and the future respectively. The three figures together represent the principle of Enlightenment,
in which is found the transcendental unity of Buddhism, as transcending time.

On the lotus which branches towards the meditator sits Sangharakshita himself, the founder of the Order,
this new expression of the Buddhist tradition. His place here in the tree implies no ‘personality cult’, buta recognition that he is the link between Order members and the wider tradition. The visualisation ofone’s own teacher in such settings is quite common in the Tibetan tradition. One sees Sangharakshitasurrounded by his own eight teachers who are, in their turn, his links to the tradition: Hermit Chen andBhikkhu Jagdish Kashyap, Chetul Sangye Dorje, Khachu Rimpoche, Dhardo Rimpoche, DudjomRimpoche, Jamyang Khyentse Rimpoche, and Dilgo Khyentse Rimpoche.60 On the lotus to the left are
the principal Bodhisattvas: Avalokitesvara, Manjusri, Vajrapani, Tara, and Kshitigarbha.61 The inclusion
of these figures demonstrates the Order’s acceptance of the Bodhisattva Ideal in all its aspects and itsdrawing upon the highest resources of the Imagination. To the right are some of the Buddha’s immediatedisciples, embodying the basic teachings of Buddhism and the source of their transmission to the presenttime: Sariputra and Maudgalyayana, the Buddha’s two chief disciples, Ananda, his friend and attendantfor much of his life, Mahakasyapa, who came to lead the Order after his death, and Dhammadinna, a nunof brilliant spiritual gifts whose insight into the ‘cyclic’ and ‘spiral’ nature of conditionality has had animportant effect on Sangharakshita’s thinking. On the lotus behind the central figure are piled high thescriptures of all the schools of Buddhism.

Above the head of Sakyamuni sit rows of teachers from all the main Buddhist schools. At the top areNagarjuna and Asanga, the founders of the Madhyamaka and Yogacara respectively, the two mainphilosophical currents in Buddhism outside the Hinayana. Below them are the Indianteachers: Santideva,

The Unity of Buddhism Page 16
Extracted from Sangharakshita: A New Voice in the Buddhist Tradition by Dharmachari Subhuti


the author of the Bodhicaryavatara, a text much studied in the Order and the source of its principaldevotional ceremony, Buddhaghosha, the great teacher of the Theravada School, and Vasubandhu,
brother of Asanga and co-founder of the Yogacara. Next come the Tibetans: Milarepa, the ‘poet-saint’from whom derives the Kagyupa, Atisa, an Indian teacher who effectively reintroduced the Dharma toTibet, Padmasambhava, the Indian guru who is said to have first established Buddhism there and is thusrevered as the founder of the Nyingmapa School, and Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelugpa School.
Then appear the Chinese teachers: Chih-i, the founder of the T’ien-t’ai, Hui-neng, the Sixth Patriarchof the Ch’an School, and Hsuan-tsang, the translator, scholar, and pilgrim, who travelled extensively inIndia in search of texts. Finally come the Japanese teachers: Dogen, the founder of the Soto Zen School,
Hakuin, one of the principal figures in Rinzai Zen, Kukai, the founder of the Shingon Esoteric School,
and Shinran, the founder of the True Pure Land School in Japan.

Above these teachers of the past are the five Jinas - the archetypal Buddhas of the five directions,
embodying the principal aspects of transcendental Wisdom. The whole array of figures is surmountedby Vajrasattva, the embodiment of the Dharma in its complete and wordless purity, the transcendentalunity of Buddhism.

Having visualised this image, one rises and, keeping the Tree before one in one’s mind’s eye, prostratesfull-length before it again and again, saying ‘To the Buddha for Refuge I go; to the Dharma for RefugeI go; to the Sangha for Refuge I go,’ committing oneself fully to the ideal of Enlightenment through theBuddhist tradition as re-expressed by Sangharakshita for this modern age.