Taking Refuge

[ngodrup]

Can we remember that Refuge is Buddhist and not Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, Jonag, Gelug, Bon etc?

The refuge is in the Three Precious Gems, not the Lam Rim Chen Mo, or the Jewel Ornament of Liberation,
for that matter, Now, your refuge may include this or that particular Dharma, but Refuge itself is not
sectarian. Beyond committing to respect the Buddha, the teachings and community of practitioners,
and refraining from disrespecting these three, any elaboration is voluntary. And so is Refuge itself.

[JKhedrup]

I see what you are pointing at but I don't really think this is how the thread evolved.
What happened is that a discussion of refuge became a discussion of the various Lam Rim texts. This happened because people were looking for an explanation of vows and karma, which the Lam Rim provides in detail. Perhaps it would be better to separate the threads and have one discussing refuge and another the different Lam Rim texts..

I am not sure actually why the original poster decided to start the thread in the Gelug forum. But because of where it was posted I think the thread evolved the way it did.

[ngodrup]

I think maybe the OP identifies him/herself as Gelug, or maybe only
has received teaching in or read books from Gelug POV. So they had
this erroneous idea that refuge is something really hard to do, maybe
only something super humans -- like monks-- can do, and that it's
somehow dangerous to try to do something beyond one's capacity.

My good friend Geshe Tharchin says that Dharma always blesses
and never punishes. To think otherwise is superstition.

Well, how does one change and grow if we cannot stretch?
Of course we can choose how many commitment we take,
nearly everything is negotiable between oneself and one's
preceptor. Nobody has to bite off more than they can chew.