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Many of us have taken refuge without fully understanding its fine points. What's the nature of the relationship with the person who gave your refuge, for example? Alex Berzin, one of the most knowledgeable scholars of Tibetan Buddhism, addresses this question in this excerpt adapted from Wise Teacher, Wise Student.

In the context of Tibetan Buddhism, refuge or vow preceptors are necessarily Mahayana elders. Moreover, they need to be spiritual mentors who have kept their vows purely for a certain number of years, depending on the level of vow conferred. This qualification adds gravity and authenticity to the event, as preceptors formally link their progeny to the traditions tracing back to the immediate disciples of the historical Buddha.

Refuge and vow preceptors need not be the same persons. Although they become one of our teachers in the context of our taking vows, they do not need to serve in other ways as our spiritual mentors. Moreover, taking safe direction or liberation vows with a preceptor connects us with Buddhism in general. It does not commit us to the specific Tibetan tradition of the preceptor, since all Tibetan sects transmit the same Indian lineage of vows. We become simply Buddhist practitioners, laypeople, or monastics, and not members of the Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyü, or Gelug order.

Some spiritual seekers formally take safe direction while still only students of Buddhism, Dharma pupils, or meditation or ritual trainees. Some take this step even as newcomers to Buddhism, knowing hardly anything of the teachings. Often, they do so by a spur of the moment decision made under group pressure, moved by the charisma of the teachers offering the refuge ceremonies.

Merely participating in a ritual, however, does not constitute taking safe direction. Nor does it make participants the disciples of the teachers conducting the ceremonies, nor members of their refuge progenies. Taking safe direction, in its full sense, requires that both the spiritual teachers and the seekers fulfill the qualifications for preceptor and progeny and for mentor and disciple. Especially essential is that the spiritual seekers have appropriate motivations at minimum, dreading emotional ill-being later in life. Moreover, the seeker needs not only the confidence that the Triple Gem provides a safe direction to avoidance of these troubles, but also the full intention to put this positive direction into their lives and to keep the refuge commitments and vows.

The refuge ceremony forms a standard part of all tantric empowerments. Since Tibetan lamas often permit insufficiently prepared spiritual seekers to attend empowerments, they also permit insufficiently prepared persons to take safe direction.

The traditional rationale is that, even if seekers lack the appropriate causes for taking safe direction, attending the ceremonies plants seeds of positive potential for future lives. The spiritual seekers need not understand anything that is happening. Attendance alone successfully plants seeds for the future, unless the persons have negative attitudes that would prevent them from receiving positive, or at least neutral impressions of the proceedings. Nonetheless, attending empowerment ceremonies in this way to plant seeds for the future, or to receive the "blessings," still does not make the lamas their refuge preceptors, let alone make them their tantric masters.