On 1/7/2025, Ringu Tulku gave the first teaching in the new Bodhicharya UK Centre building in Rochester, Kent: on Outer, Inner & Secret Refuge, before conducting a Refuge Ceremony for students wishing to take Refuge in the Three Jewels for the first time.

Rinpoche stressed that with:

1. Outer Refuge we take Buddha as a teacher, whose guidance we follow; whereas with
2. Inner Refuge we understand that the real refuge is to transform ourselves -awakening our own inherent qualities and capacity -our True Nature. We commit to awakening our own true qualities, through following the Dharma Path.
3. Secret Refuge in Vajrayana represents the Three Jewels in a subtler way, where:

• the Lama represents the Buddha (la-ma indicating very high qualities);
• the Yidam represents the Dharma -not merely a single deity practice, but actually the Whole Practice; and
• the Khandro/Dakini/Daka represents the Sangha. A Dakini or Daka being anyone who has the true experience of the Dharma. Hence the term Dakini’s Warm Breath indicating the living experience of anyone with realisation within the Dharma.

In Vajrayana Secret Refuge, one takes refuge within one’s own mind, unborn in nature and where Buddha Nature is ever-present. There is the recognition that one’s True Nature needs to be recognised and seen. When we die, and our gross conceptual mind dissolves, we can recognise and experience this subtlest level of awareness luminosity.

Photography by Conrad Harvey.

For more information, visit: https://bodhicharya-kent.org/