Refuge Vows

Today is the 14th anniversary of the day I took Buddhist refuge vows with Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche in Dharamsala. I was twenty, living in the monastery, imagining I would be a monk. I knew I liked men by then, of course, I just wasn’t quite ready for just how much I liked them.

Rereading Shantideva today. I swore to be a bodhisattva—and it’s still hard for me to give up my seat on the train. I’m sitting comfortably and some old woman totters onto the train, she’s maybe 104, one leg amputated at the knee, and, bodhisattva me, I think, “She’s just going for the sympathy vote. She doesn’t look that bad off. And as for me, I’m tired.”

I go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
I go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
I go for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.