Yes. All of the theories regarding Buddhism, rebirth, Buddhas, yesterday I mentioned the word Arahants, enlightened people, all of these different theories you aren't required to believe in order to be a Buddhist. When we think of being a Buddhist, it's answering yes to 3 questions. The 3 questions are very simple, but first I'm going to divert a little and ask you a question for which I know the answer for all of you anyhow but I'm going to ask you anyway - did you ever get polio? The answer's no, obviously by your legs none of you got polio. Why? Because most of you had a vaccine when you were young or you if you were a bit older when the vaccine came out, you simply missed out on getting polio.
But for those of you who got vaccines, how come the vaccine existed? A lot of people forget this. The reason a vaccine existed is because a man named Dr. Salk spent years in a laboratory trying to cure polio. And around 1952 or so, he did it, he discovered the cure. For most of us we were given either a little sugar or a shot with a needle in the arm or the hip, whatever, and we didn't get polio. Now how many of you have ever been conscious of being thankful to Dr. Salk? When I ask this question in interviews a lot of people say they didn't even know his name. They never once felt thankful for it, they took it for granted that they got a vaccine. A few other people, a small minority, knew about it and were thankful and so on, but the majority of people around the world just take it for granted that they don't get polio. They take it for granted that the milk is pasteurized, not considering Louis and Marie Pasteur. All of these different medical achievements were done by real human beings. It's nice to think about it, it's nice to contemplate about it, and it's nice to develop a feeling of thankfulness and respect for so many of those people who worked so hard to give us the benefits we have today, pasteurized milk, the polio vaccine, those are just a couple examples, there's many.
Now Dr. Salk was the person who discovered the vaccine, but the vaccine itself is important, because he could've experimented all he wanted and it could've been very nice work in the end, but if he didn't discover anything, then there's no benefit. So the fact that the vaccine exists is important. Ok, now Dr. Salk could play in his laboratory with his vaccine every day if he wanted to, and that still wouldn't do anything for us. So what else do we need? We need more people, all those doctors and nurses who started giving the vaccine to everybody else. Dr. Salk didn't do that. So we have these three elements. We have the original person who discovered the medicine, we have the medicine, and we have the people who spread the medicine.
Now we'll go back to the question, what is it to be a Buddhist? It's answering yes to three questions. Do you respect the Buddha? As a human being, a man who lived on the planet, do you respect him? He discovered what we call the Dhamma, the truth, all these wonderful techniques, the Four Noble Truths and so on. It's pretty easy to say, yes, for anyone who's done more than one retreat obviously likes what they're doing. It's pretty easy to say, "Yes, I respect the Buddha."
Now, do you respect the teachings? That's obvious too, because otherwise you wouldn't be here. The Buddha's long dead, but the teachings are still alive. So the answer to "Do you respect the teachings?" is yes. The 3rd question has different levels, but mainly the level is "Do you respect everyone who has perfected the teachings along the way, all the fully or partly enlightened people for over two thousand years, the people who have enabled the teachings to stay in its basically pure form up until today?" It's not just saying do you respect Rosemary and me for helping you to get it, but on the top level, do you respect the people who kept it pure? Because had it not been kept pure, then I might be teaching something that's not even true. So that's the top level.
Thus, if you answer "yes" to "Do you respect the Buddha, do you respect the Dhamma, and do you respect the Sangha, all those partly or fully enlightened people for over two thousand years," then yes, you're a Buddhist. You don't need to believe in rebirth, you don't have to know that there's 32 realms of existence, or other Buddhist Philosophical theory, but respect for the Triple Gem determines whether you're a Buddhist.