Refuge: We seek protection from the neurotic tendencies which we employ in order to prevent us experiencing the natural state.

 

The dictionary defines the word refuge as ‘shelter or protection from danger or trouble: an asylum or retreat’. We have looked at the nature of the danger or threat to which we are vulnerable with regard to The Four Thoughts. 

In the context of our lives as Buddhists, we seek protection from our own conceptual minds: from our compulsion to dualistically split reality; from our addiction to conditioned responses rooted in dualistic preconceptions. We seek protection from the neurotic tendencies which we employ in order to prevent us experiencing the natural state.

Spacious Passion, Ngakma Nor´dzin, Aro Books worldwide, 2006, ISBN 978-0-9653948-0, chapter 9 Irrational Reason, page 210