How can we re-envision the breaking of the Three Fetters and the Spiral Path?  What happens when we drop the conceit ‘I am in control’?   What arises when we let go of ‘path’ and ‘goal’, and, instead, inhabit our undeniable existential situation?  As things stand, we are karmically conditioned beings, with habit-patterns arising again and again despite our best efforts….    And we already have a connection with ‘the limitless’, the Buddha – a connection with momentum ‘from its own side’.  Seeing this calls for radical honesty – a clear-seeing which opens into the highest form of shraddha.  And for both Shinran and Bhante, shraddha at its highest level is wisdom, is spiritual death.

Bhante says that Going for Refuge is the central and defining act that makes a Buddhist a Buddhist.  For Shinran, Going for Refuge – entrusting to the refuges – is the whole of the Dharma life.  Shinran draws out to its fullest extent a thread that runs through all of Bhante’s teaching – but do we see and honour it sufficiently?   Let’s stand the Dharma on its head and look at Shinran’s transcendental critique of the spiritual life, exploring material from Shinran, the Buddha and Bhante. 

For Order Members and Going for Refuge Mitras