From a talk given in Vancouver
by Bonni Ross
February 25, 1997

DHARMA OF UNFOLDMENT

I take refuge in the vast intelligence of Universe.
I take refuge in the order and chaos of universal law.
I take refuge in the interconnectedness of all manifestation.

It's in my mind over these next few weeks to revisit some primal ideas about the Teaching, partly as an exercise for myself, because I find that if I make it a discipline to re-visit certain very basic principles on a regular basis it keeps these ideas very fresh and alive. I have also found that there's a real desire in many people to have some of these principles expressed in ways that don't rely so strongly on the ancient language.

I was very fortunate a number of years ago when I was living at the Dharma Centre of Canada in Ontario, to come through Vancouver one summer time, just as His Holiness the Dalai Lama was coming to visit. And a friend of mine who lived in Victoria and who was one of the organizers responsible for bringing HH to BC showed up where I was staying and took me to Victoria to attend a small reception for him. It had a sense of intimacy that's really missing in BC Place stadium! Now, the Dalai Lama is a busy guy and I think this had been a really, really bad day in the scheduling department and he'd been helicoptered over to Victoria for this very brief thing, before being helicoptered back to Vancouver and then flown somewhere else. As he came in the room it was pretty clear that even the Dalai Lama gets fried! And he was very clear about the fact that he was hassled as he sat down and made himself comfortable and apologized for the fact that he was late and then he asked what the topic was for the address that he was being asked to give to this small group. And the organizers of the group said to him: "Would you please speak about Buddha, Dharma and Sangha?"

In ten words or less, right! He smiled, as only he can smile, paused, and with all sign of hassle gone, with complete composure and clarity, he said, "It's very simple, forget Buddha. Forget Sangha. For you, there is only Dharma. At this stage in your life you don't have any hope of comprehending Buddha or Sangha and to pretend that you can is just foolishness, it's just taking energy away. But: you have the Dharma, and if you practice the Dharma as it's intended to be practiced through one of the many systems that have been articulated by Teachers over the centuries and you practice with diligence in an orderly and sustained way, then some day you will realize come to understand the interconnectedness that is Sangha. And if you continue to practice in the light of this new realization, some day you will see Buddha, you will be Buddha!"

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