Always in threes: the significance of 3 in Buddhism

"Different schools of Buddhism all have different devotional practices to the Buddha, although all  Buddhists make symbolic offerings to the Three Jewels, that is, the Buddha (teacher), Dharma (teachings), and Sangha (community)."

Andi Young "The Sacred Art of Bowing"

Recently I was teaching a course on Vietnamese history, and naturally enough Buddhism was a part of the discussion. While discussing a ritual, one of the students asked me: "Why is everything always done in threes in Buddhism?"
I realised then that I had a lot to explain, and I thought I would do so on this blog.



When one bows at a Buddhist shrine, one always makes three prostrations. At the same time one offers three sticks of incense. When you make a ceremonial procession around a temple or tomb you do so three times.

3 sticks of incense offered at a buddhist shrine in Binh Dinh, Vietnam

This number is not arbitrary. Buddhists instantly understand that the number 3 represents the Three Jewels (the Triratna) that make up Buddhism. These are:

Sakyamuni Buddha

1. The Buddha: The person of the historical Buddha Sakyamuni.

2. The Dharma: The body of teachings that describe Buddhist doctrine and belief.

3. The Sangha: The group of people who follow the Buddha and his teachings. This was traditionally interpreted as the ordained celibate clergy who serve the Buddha exclusively, but most modern Buddhists extend the meaning to incorporate the communities of lay-people who follow the Buddhist path.

And so each time we bow, and each time we place a a stick of incense in the burner, we are recalling one of these "Jewels," these essential elements of the Buddhism. 

Monday Blogcrawl - Buddhism

Some Buddhist stuff from around the www this past week:

Stories of the Buddha in art

• Some random Buddhist links
• Boundless gives us a beautifully simple explanation of Thai Buddhist art
• Thich Nhat Hanh visits North America in 2013, and the Shambhala Sun Space has the details. To get you into the mood, here is an audio file of a talk by Thay. And another one here. And Sumeru gives us the dates of his Canada tour. Sweeping Zen wants to nominate Thich Nhat Hanh for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize
• Thai Buddhist art exhibtion opens - details from artdaily.org
• 94 year old monk is Burma is considered lucky, or so says The Irawaddy
• Ajahn Brahm is touring Hong Kong in 2013

Monastic Communities

Buddhist monastic communities are still very much alive in Vietnam, though the numbers of young monks have dwindled rapidly from their heyday twenty years ago when Vietnam was desperately poor and entering a monastic institution was seen as a guarantee of a comfortable and predictable life. Now that Vietnam has well and truly entered the consumer age young people are less willing to embrace a life of renunciation, celibacy and physical hardship in exchange for predictable food and quality education. 

The Baby Buddha, Tinh Xa Trung Tam, Ho Chi Minh City

And because the predominant form of Buddhism in Vietnam is Mahayana, there is none of the temporary ordination that you see in neighbouring countries like Cambodia and Laos, which swells the ranks of monks quite deceptively with young men and makes for all those charming pictures of monks that people take back home after their holidays. 

Monk blessing people, Battambang, Cambodia

In the Vietnamese tradition you take the monks’ robes for life, so young men take the decision a good deal more seriously. 

The internet has been abuzz for the past week or so with stories of a gang of Buddhist monks in Korea caught on camera drinking, smoking and gambling. It would be extremely naive to think that such things don’t go on in Vietnam. Of course they do. Drinking is completely verboten, but back in the 90s I knew young monks who consumed beer at parties. When I questioned them about this, they maintained that the ban was on strong forms of liquor like vodka and whiskey. Beer, they maintained, was only a mild intoxicant and so not technically wrong. Absolute nonsense, of course, but it was a common deception. 

In the 80s and 90s I would say that most monks in Vietnam smoked, though I have noticed that in recent years this is increasingly frowned upon, and many of my old monastic companions have given up for the sake of propriety. The disapproval of lay people had simply grown too strong. I can honestly say I have never witnessed monks gambling. I think that gambling is such a real and ever-present social problem in Vietnam, one which regularly destroyed the lives of the people they ministered to, that they were not capable of giving it any kind of saffron-wash. 

One sees now, more and more often, clips of Buddhist monks on Youtube doing inappropriate things, like dancing, staring down women’s blouses or even, in the case of one Thai monk, vouging. Of course, these things are all forbidden by the Vinaya, the enormous code of ethical conduct for monks devised by the Buddha many centuries ago.  This is a fascinating document, going into the detail t hat it does about what monks should or shouldn’t do. The list is exhaustive and seemingly random – most scholars assume it was created in reaction to infringements by monks living in the Buddha’s day, or the complaints of scandalised lay people. 

And so it is that rules exist forbidding monks, for example, to climb trees, or to roll rice up in balls and throw it into their mouths, or to eat with an “mmmph mmmph” sound. So extensive is the list of forbidden activities in the Vinaya that it is almost impossible for any human being to uphold them all, and most monks don’t even try. The Buddha himself knew this, and said that if a monk could abide consistently by every rule established he would be immediately enlightened. Suffice to say that enlightenment among monks is still pretty thin on the ground.

Basic Concepts of Buddhism: The Sangha

The basic act of Buddhist devotion is taking refuge in the Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

Monks at Tinh Xa Trung Tam, Saigon

The Buddha is the person of the most enlightened one, the Dharma is the body of the Buddha's teachings - but what is the Sangha?  

Buddha shrine at Vien Giac Temple, Bui Thi Xuan St, Tan Binh district, Ho Chi Minh City.

Sangha is a Sanskrit and Pali word meaning "Assembly" or "Community." Traditionally the Sangha has been interpreted to mean the monastic community of dedicated religious practitioners living together in a community devoted to the Buddha's teachings.

But Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has taken the concept further. In his book Joyfully Together: The Art of Building a Harmonious Community, he explains Sangha in this way:

"Any group of people can practice as a Sangha, as a community that is determined to live in harmony and awareness. All we have to do is commit ourselves to going together in the direction of peace, joy, and freedom. Together, we benefit from each other's strengths and learn from each other's weaknesses. A family is a Sangha, the members of a monastic and lay practice centre are a Sangha; even the United Nations is a Sangha! A Sangha is a family, a spiritual family connected by the pactices of mindfulness, concentration, and insight.  The Sangha may be Buddhist, or even non-Buddhist, so long as it is a community that walks the path of liberation together."

These days the Sangha is normally spoken of as "the community that follows the Dharma," thereby incorporating all Buddhists, lay and monastic.