Three Jewels
Foundation • Module 3
Estimated time to complete: 40 minutes
Introduction: Learning About Buddhist Frameworks
The previous module discussed “faith” as the kind of open-minded interest or trust that motivates investigation—not a religious belief requiring commitment to doctrines. This distinction becomes especially important as we turn in this module to learning about the Buddhist notion of the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma (his teachings), and the Saṅgha (the community following his teachings).
In traditional Buddhism, there is a ceremony for people to “take refuge” in the Three Jewels as a way of formally identifying oneself as a Buddhist. It is a religious act of consciously accepting that the Buddha serves as an example for one’s own life, that the Dharma (his teachings) leads to the same liberation for those dedicated to practicing it, and that the Saṅgha (the community) preserves authentic practice and keeps others from straying into egocentric misinterpretations. Taking the refuge vow to keep the Buddha, his teachings, and his community in the forefront of one’s mind is considered a helpful tool for transforming one’s mind and world, like addicts who promise to stay in rehab and follow the program until they have gotten completely sober.
This palace of learning curriculum contextualizes and explains what Buddhists say about the three jewels (and subsequently about other topics) because these parts of the Buddhist framework inform what meditation is supposed to do and how it is supposed to be practiced. By piecing these together, we will begin to see more clearly how meditation fits into the larger Buddhist project and where it contradicts some of our own motivations toward practice. But we also will explore how things like the Buddha’s life story can be taken as didactic lesson rather than historical fact and how religious aspects of Buddhism can be treated as “skillful means” with psychological benefits rather than literal truth claims—so you can draw your own lessons, test what resonates with your experience, and investigate the usefulness for yourself. In this way, we can interpret the framing of meditation in connection with the three Jewels as addressing three questions: What is meditation practice aiming to achieve? What is the way to get there? What support is required for such a journey?
As an answer to the first two questions, the two video lectures in this module introduce the first two jewels. The first video examines who the Buddha was and what “awakening” means as a goal rather than a unique identity. The second explores the Dharma through four analogies that reveal the way that Buddhist teaching is actually supposed to work. Pay attention to these analogies—Arrow, Goldsmith, Raft, and Dream—they will serve as reference points throughout your study. To address the third question, we will discuss the third jewel, the Saṅgha, in a subsequent learning module.
What to watch for: The meaning of “Buddha” as a title rather than a name. The four phases of his life story and their connection to pilgrimage sites. Why the tradition insists he was a human being rather than a god or prophet.
Video 1: The Buddha
Duration: 17 minutes
After watching the above lecture, hopefully you can see that learning about the “Buddha’s” life is not really aimed at studying someone fundamentally different from us, but at studying ourselves by investigating our own dissatisfied mind and seeing whether we can see through its self-created suffering. When Buddhists say that the Buddha awoke from “the painful nightmare of cyclic existence,” it may sound abstract right now. What exactly is the nightmare? What does “cyclic” mean? We will focus more on these questions as we proceed in subsequent modules. But for now, just understand his life is meant to serve as an illustrating example: he awakened from a dream he didn’t know he was having and so can we—so long as we too see the falsity of the lifeworld within the dream and discover the true meaning of life beyond the dream.
Of course, the big question is: what exactly did he discover? What is this “Dharma” that forms the second jewel?
What to watch for: Four key analogies that characterize how Buddhist teaching works. The question of whether Buddhism is psychology, philosophy, or religion—and why that question matters. The introduction of a framework that will structure much of what we study ahead.
Video 2: The Dharma
Duration: 14 minutes
Among the four analogies the Buddha reportedly used to characterize his teaching, each one helps prevent mis-categorization of what Buddhism is.
In the next module, we will examine further how the Buddha’s life story divides into four phases (each connected to a major pilgrimage site): birth and early life (Lumbinī), search and awakening (Bodh Gayā), teaching (Sārnāth), and death (Kuśinagar). We will not explore these phases to induce religious reverence, but as a way of unpacking the tradition’s primary teaching on what a meaningful life looks like, how meditation leads to realizing that meaning, and how it ideally manifests in a life of service to others in the broader community. After that, we will delve into the Dharma before turning toward the third jewel—the Saṅgha or community of practitioners—who has historically played an important role in the spread of Buddhism and its evolution across time, location, and culture.
A few Insights:
Why the Three Jewels Matter
When I first encountered the Three Jewels, they seemed like organizational scaffolding—a tidy way to structure introductory material. Teacher, teaching, community. Simple enough.
What changed my understanding was realizing that these three aren’t just categories but frameworks for answering the questions that arose naturally when I tried to investigate seriously: What is this life all about? How can I live a good life and die a good death? What is the role of community in achieving this quintessentially human goal?
The Buddha answers the first question by presenting himself not as a figure to worship but as an example of someone who investigated the meaning of life and discovered something immediately accessible, simple, profound, and transformative. The tradition’s insistence that he was human—not a god, not a prophet—mattered enormously to me. It meant that the Buddha exemplified the kind of wise and compassionate person I naturally felt drawn to become.
The Dharma answers the second question about the pragmatic nature of the Buddha’s wisdom concerning life and death. The Arrow analogy suggests Buddha is offering pragmatic advice: don’t take the teachings to be speculating about metaphysical questions. Use them to remove the arrow now before you bleed to death. The Goldsmith analogy insists on empirical testing: don’t think the teachings are something to be accepted on faith, but rather something to be verified in your own experience or discarded. The Raft analogy acknowledges that even the teachings found to be true in practice are provisional tools—useful for crossing the river of suffering, not for carrying on your back forever. And the Dream analogy reframes everything: if ordinary existence is like a nightmare we don’t know we’re having, then realizing “awakening” isn’t a metaphor for an intellectual discovery, but a description of a complete transformation of our mindset and of how we perceive our lives and deaths. This is not how most religions present themselves, namely as provisional methods for truth-seekers. It’s an unusual epistemological stance—one that invites investigation through direct observation rather than adherence to dogmas and beliefs.
The Saṅgha answers the third question about how community can support my own investigation of mind and meaning in life and death. I am not drawn to some “religious” attitudes I have encountered among certain meditators—whether they identify as Buddhist or not. But the community has generally served as an excellent mirror that always forces me to question my superficial motivations and my mistaken assumptions about how to live and die wisely and compassionately.
Questions for Reflection
These questions are for your own investigation. You might explore them through ordinary reflection, through journaling, or—if you choose—through contemplative inquiry after counting twenty-one breaths during meditation. There are no right answers to report.
1. Achievable Awakening: How do you relate to the idea that you are dreaming now and that you could awaken from that dream? How is being completely lost in thought about the past or future different from a dream? How can you distinguish the ever-shifting autobiographical story you tell yourself throughout your life different from the stories you tell yourself in a dream?
2. Surface and Depth: Several terms were introduced in this module—“painful nightmare,” “cyclic existence,” “awakening,” the four analogies. Notice what questions they raise for you. What do you not yet understand about what these terms might mean?
3. Your Entry Point: How does the Three Jewels framework change your understanding of your own motivations for meditating? Does it make you less or more interested in learning Buddhist meditation theory?
4. The Testing Invitation: The goldsmith analogy invites you to test teachings in your own experience rather than accepting them on faith. What would it actually mean to “test” a teaching? How is that different from just thinking about whether it seems right? What role might your meditation experience play in such testing?
This module is part of Tarpa's Palace of Learning curriculum, a secular educational program exploring Buddhist philosophy, psychology, and contemplative practice. All content © 2025