Because we are creatures of habit and our thought, speech and actions are based on our goals and desires, the first thoughts of the day and the last thoughts at night are very important. It is also valuable over the course of the day or week to remind ourselves of what we're doing and why. It therefore helps to practice at regular times and use prayers or sayings that help to set or maintain our motivation during the day. This is the role of ritual and prayer in spiritual practice.

In the beginning level, the guru is the lecturer, the person who relates the Buddha's teaching to us. The Buddha is Gautama Siddhartha, the person who, as a prince in India around 563 BC, gave up his kingdom, searched for the cause and elimination of suffering and discoveRed the path to accomplish this. The Dharma is the Buddha's teaching and the Sangha is Buddha's disciples.

If we continue our studying, the guru becomes our teacher. The Buddha becomes the example of what's possible in our life. The Dharma becomes a path leading to Buddhahood. The Sangha becomes our fellow students in our Dharma classes.

In the next level, our guru becomes our personal guide on the path to buddhahood. The Buddha becomes our own goal of Buddhahood. The Dharma becomes our own steps on our own spiritual path and the Sangha becomes our Dharma brothers and sisters, the Buddhist disciples who are at a similar level to where we are in our spiritual development.

At this point, if we continue on this path, refuge takes on an even more intense level. Our Guru now becomes like our personal trainer. The Buddha becomes the source of imitation. The Dharma becomes the essential guidance to our next set of personal realizations and the Sangha becomes our assigned meditational objects (such as meditational deities(explained later in the section on Tantra)).

It's at this point that we begin to get to the actual ultimate form of refuge. As we follow our Guru's instructions and do the practices, this experience deepens more and more. At a certain point the instructions from our Guru and the messages from Reality begin to synchronize, until our Guru and Reality are indistinguishable and devotion to our Guru becomes inseparable from devotion to the Buddha wisdom in reality. Our own thought, speech and actions become the Buddha as we practice more and more the art of Buddha-Activity. The Dharma becomes the messages and wisdom emanating from Reality. The Sangha becomes all sentient life within existence.

The interesting thing is that, even knowing the ultimate form of refuge, we still have to go through the experience of the different levels of refuge. The key is not so much that the refuges change but that our reaction and our understanding and relationship to the refuges changes. So our experience of the refuges matches our own current level of spiritual development.

However, I feel that it can be very useful to keep in mind the ultimate refuge whenever we think of refuges, so that our motivation to connect with the refuges remains strong. It is good to remember our goal, and the end-point of our journey, while we are walking along the path. It makes the journey more acceptable and actually helps motivate us to connect to the refuges and persist in working towards Buddhahood. At each point, we need to make the decision to go to the next level, stay where we are, or retreat.

So we start our taking of refuge by reciting the following or similar formula:

To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Highest Assembly, I go for refuge until my own Buddhahood, By practising Giving and the other Perfections, May I become a Buddha in order to benefit, All sentient beings.

This refuge prayer can be used everyday to remind us of our goals and our practice. It can also be used whenever we feel weak or need support within our life struggle or our spiritual struggle. When we are using this prayer, or even our own made-up prayer, in a time of weakness, we should imagine our Guru, the Buddhas, Dharma, and Sangha as granting our request and actually working towards helping us out.

The initial commitment of refuge in the Buddhist Refuges comes somewhere near the point where our Guru goes from being a teacher to being our guide on the path to our own Buddhahood. This could be the person who was our teacher at first, or another person that we decide will be able to guide us on our current portion of the path. Going to the Guru as refuge, means that we agree to follow the Gurus instructions recognizing and having been convinced through our own analysis that the Guru's instructions will free us from our suffering and lead us to Buddhahood. The Buddha becomes the example of the possibility of becoming free from suffering, mastering our Reality, and becoming skillful in helping others. Praying or taking refuge in the Buddha means remembering and trying to follow the example of the Buddha and pleading to the Awakened forces or energies in the Universe for protection and guidance so that we can align our thought, speech and action with those of a Buddha. Taking refuge in the Dharma means committing to taking the steps to become a Buddha and relying on the steps and Dharma explanations to guide our decisions and eliminate our sufferings and confusions. Refuge in the Sangha has 2 meanings. It means relying on the support of our fellow pilgrims on the path and providing our own support for our fellow students. It means relying on those in the Sangha who have more experience than we do for encouragement and advice. It also means relying on the power of enlightened energies or qualities in the world as represented by the meditational deities.

One very important aspect of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism is the notion that Sleep, Dream, and Waking are very similar to Death, Intermediate State, and Rebirth. This is important because whatever mind state you have the habit of experiencing as you fall asleep, begin dreaming, or wake up, can, through the force of habit (Karma), become the mind state that you experience when you die, enter the intermediate state, or are reborn.

Because of this, there are certain practices that can be done at these times and one of them is to take refuge and to repeat the refuge formula. The idea is that this formula, after consistent practice, will automatically come to mind and therefore will become the last thing that you think of when you die and the first thing that you think of when you are reborn. This, of course, will affect the quality of your death and the quality of your future rebirth. If you are constantly and automatically looking for and relying on Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, then you will automatically seek them out, be drawn to them instinctively, and always feel at home amongst those who feel the same way. Because true disciples of the Buddha practice the perfections of Generosity, Morality, Patience, Perseverance, Concentration and Wisdom, then being automatically attracted to that type of crowd will be very beneficial for your own spiritual development.

Also, before we go to bed or as we are about to go to sleep, it is good to review our negative or unskillful actions of the day and resolve to eliminate them and then to review our positive or skillful deeds and rejoice in our achievements. It is important to end on a positive note to increase our confidence and that is why we examine the negative first and rejoice in our achievements second. This helps us to keep our perspective on our progress and our abilities. It helps to re-enforce that our lives are not all bad or all good. After reviewing our deeds, it is good to remind ourselves of the reason for our positive deeds by dedicating our virtue to the achievement of our goal of Buddhahood for the benefit of all. An example of a prayer for dedication of virtue is the following:

May all benefits of these exertions be dedicated to the cause of universal good. Let the sorrows of all beings be removed, May they come to full and perfect Wisdom, not a single one left behind. May I become a joy to all beings, through great works of Compassion, So that throughout the Six Realms, Buddhahood may prevail. Let this be my vow, until the stones themselves attain highest, perfect enlightenment. Therefore I must, no matter what happens, become a Buddha Quickly, Quickly For the sake of all beings, my Mothers.

The refuge prayer, contemplating negative & positive actions, and this dedication of merit represents the minimum practice of prayer for any sort of spiritual development. Combined with Study, Contemplation and Meditation, it makes up the main spiritual tasks requiRed of a practitioner of Buddhism.

I feel that it is more important to recite any prayers once with complete understanding than to recite it a million times with no thought at all or minimal connection to what's being said. Therefore, I usually recite a short session of prayers first thing in the morning and before each one of my meditation sessions and last thing at night, rather than doing long drawn out sessions of praying. I also take the time to think about the meaning of any prayer for a brief moment or two and make sure that I have the correct feeling and understanding in my mind before I say the actual prayer, even if it means that my prayer sessions end up taking longer.

Another way to overcome this difficulty is to make up your own prayers. That way, the things that you say can have more meaning because they are your own words (as long as you maintain the ideas and messages from the Teachings)

Another thing that is a part of the prayers & rituals in most religions is offerings to visualized Enlightened beings or Gods or Spirits. This is definitely a good practice and demonstrates devotion to these beings and devotion to spirituality and it turns the mind from an acquiring mind to a giving mind. What often happens, though, is that the imagined offerings to these beings can end up replacing offerings made to actual living sentient beings. We end up making tons of offerings to these Enlightened beings and forget about suffering sentient beings that may be right in front of us. Most religions would agree that giving helpful offerings to an actual live sentient being is more important than giving real or imagined offerings to a visualized superior force, but this can be very easy to lose sight of, especially through the habitual force of ritual. So we must take care and remain mindful and balance the amount of our prayer time with actually applying spiritual lessons in our relationship with the world and the sentient beings around us.