Katie from over at the blog Kloncke has been doing a series of really engaging posts over at the feminist blog Feministe. Her current post asks the question "Where do you take refuge?" She begins with the Three Treasures of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, but then, given the diversity of her audience over there, extends refuge into more everyday things like dancing, spending time with a pet or a good friend, things like this.
Here's a little more of her post to consider:
Hopefully, our refuge will not be a means of escaping our suffering, but of engaging it from a different angle, which aids the process of letting go. Sue Nhim described this release beautifully just today on an earlier thread here:
this states so clearly what I have been feeling for the past few months, where before I denied that harm was done to me and yet I suffered, and then I accepted that I was harmed and still suffered, and now I understand that just because I was harmed/ damaged doesn’t mean that I have to suffer and hold on to my anxiety and anger, I can just let that go. It doesn’t negate the fact that I was harmed or mean that I should just ignore it, but it happened and what I can do to win is to not suffer and go on, wiser happier better. My mom calls it a state of grace, all I know is that it doesn’t hurt to go outside anymore.
So where do you take refuge? What are your best tools for letting go of suffering?
I can imagine many of us would quickly respond something like "Oh, I take refuge in the three treasures. Or I take refuge in my meditation practice." These are true for me. And yet I'm interested in what you all might have to add to those two. Or what Katie's questions mean to you.
