34 The Buddha
can match the Buddha's abilities to teach and instruct in orderto push beings gently towards the final truth of things. A buddha
may not be able to save us-that is, he cannot simply turn us
into awakened beings-yet, if awakening is what we are intent
on, the presence of a buddha is still our best hope. Indeed some
contemporary Buddhists would suggest that it is no longer pos-
sible to reach awakening since conditions are now unpropitious;rather it is better to aspire to be reborn at the time of the next
buddha or in a world where a buddha is now teaching so that
one can hear the teachings directly from a buddha. For the Bud-
dhist tradition, then, the Buddha is above all the great Teacher;it is his rediscovery of the path to the cessation of suffering and
his teaching of that path that offers beings the possibility of fol-
lowing that path themselves.
As Teacher, then, the Buddha set in motion the wheel of
Dharma. As a result of setting in motion the wheel of Dharma
he established a community of accomplished disciples, the Sangha.
In the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha the Buddhist thus has 'three
jewels' (tri-ratna/ti-ratana) to which to go for refuge. Going to
the three jewels for refuge is realized by the formal recitation
of a threefold formula: 'To the Buddha I go for refuge; to the
Dharma I go for refuge; to the Sangha I go for refuge.' Going to
these three jewels for refuge is essentially what defines an indi-
vidual as a Buddhist. Having considered the Buddha,let us now
turn to consider his teaching and how that teaching is put into
practice by those who take refuge in the three jewels.