Dhamma

The value of Dhamma isn't to be found in books. Those are just the external appearances of Dhamma, they’re not the realization of Dhamma as a personal experience. If you realize the Dhamma you realize your own mind, you see the truth there. When the truth becomes apparent it cuts off the stream of delusion.

Ajahn Chah; Living Dhamma

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The Second Jewel of the Three Jewels of Buddhism is the Dhamma. The Three Jewels are: The Buddha, The Dhamma, and the Sangha. I don’t pretend to know deeply the Eastern mind and I don’t call myself a Buddhist. I find it more useful to understand these concepts on Western terms. Buddhist don’t consider the Buddha to be a God: he is but a man and the word, Buddha, refers to the enlightened state of consciousness; i.e., the enlightened One. We use a similar term, Christ, in the West meaning, the anointed One. My understanding of the Dhamma is best understood by the path that Jesus, the man, took throughout the pages of the New Testament. From the Sermon on the Mount to the hour of his death, Jesus, the man, demonstrated the power of the Dhamma in his fully realized actions. He told the religious scholars of his time that The Law was made for man and that man wasn’t made for The Law. We do these things to uncover the joy of the inner-self, the spirit within… to be born again. Simply put, the Sangha is the fellowship of like-minded folks encircled around the path; the Church (from the word, circle). Those of us who have found freedom in the Fellowship of AA understand the Sangha as the Fellowship. We see the Dhamma as the Twelve Steps and Traditions and our Higher Power as the Enlightened One… however we define it.

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