Take Refuge in the Buddha
15 min. guided mindfulness meditation
Take Refuge in the Buddha
15 min. guided meditation
Taking Refuge in the Buddha is the first of the Three Refuges: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha; love, insight and community.
The Buddha was human, not a god. The Buddha is free. We don't worship the Buddha, we follow the path and the teachings of the Buddha. What the Buddha achieved, we can achieve.
Buddhism is happiness practice. Cultivate love, compassion, joy and ease. Put aside hatred, cruelty, envy and indifference. Point yourselves at the Brahmavihāras – the four divine states.
Envision the end game. Land in love like a Buddha.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Listen, don’t listen.
Stay with your breath.
Take refuge in the Buddha.
Take refuge in love.
Take refuge in compassion.
Take refuge in happiness.
Take refuge in ease.
Put aside hatred.
Put aside cruelty.
Put aside envy.
Put aside indifference.
Impermanent, inconstant and unreliable they arise and pass away dependent on self — body and mind — material formation, feeling, perception, mental formation and consciousness.
Painful, stressful and unsatisfactory self arises and passes away dependent on the senses — sight, sound, smell, taste, tactile sensation and thought.
Empty of intrinsic nature the senses arises and pass away dependent on contact — internal and external; material and mental — seer and seen; hearer and heard; smeller and smelled; taster and tasted; feeler and felt; thinker and thought.
Not I, not mine, not my eternal soul contact arises and passes away dependent on form — matter and phenomena — earth, water, fire and air.
Interdependent, interconnected and interrelated forms arises dependent on form.
Radiant luminous and spontaneous form is emptiness, emptiness is form.
Hatred is form.
Cruelty is form.
Envy is form.
Indifference is form.
Love is form.
Compassion is form.
Happiness is form.
Ease is form.
Choose love.
Choose compassion.
Choose happiness.
Choose ease.
Choose freedom.
This is dukkha.
This is dharma.
This is free.
May all beings be free.
May all beings be happy, peaceful safe and free.
All beings are heirs to their own actions.
May all Beings live with ease.
This guided meditation is intended to help deliver meditative peace, ease and openness while embedding basic mindfulness techniques and the fundamentals of Buddhist psychology and cosmology.
The first instruction is always breathe in and breathe out. The second is listen don't listen. When in doubt stay with your breath. Words are secondary.
Meditation is the beating heart of Buddhism.
Daily practice brings the dharma alive and frees it up to land in our body and permeate our householder life.