ABSTRACT
If the Indigenous Tibetan curriculum were to be depicted in an image, it would be the Refuge Tree. As a foundational meditation in Tibetan Buddhism, the Refuge Tree is imagined “in the distance” on an island set in a clear lake. On the island is a magnificent tree in which the lineage of teachers, texts, community of friends, and visible and invisible beings that support our enlightenment dwell. Meanwhile, on the shore of the lake, we stand in supplication, our mother and father behind us and behind them, the infinite sentient beings, human and non-human, upon whom ourexistence depends, whose hopes are manifest in us, for whom and with whom we go for refuge in the promise of that tree.
