The Buddha was pretty clear. If you wanted to experience complete liberation, it was best practice renunciation – to leave all worldly things behind: Family, sex, alcohol, fancy food, music, entertainment, frivolity, etc. Why did the Buddha recommend this? Why do fully ordained Buddhist monks and nuns still live this way? Are the Buddha’s teachings on renunciation relevant for householders?
Quicklinks to Article Content:
The Buddha’s Recommendations for Renunciation
Renunciation Through Homeleaving Isn’t Necessary, and Yet…
What’s Wrong with the “House Life?”
If I could prove to you that complete renunciation would result in your awakening – and that you would live in complete peace and simple, sublime joy for the rest of your days – would you give up the pleasures of your life, whether they are sensual, simple, or sublime? The time you spend with family? The privacy and comfort of your own home? Your freedom to travel? Your hobbies and entertainments? Probably not. I haven’t. So where does that leave us in terms of practice? In this episode I want to really honestly explore the relevance to householders – if any – of the Buddha’s teachings on renunciation.
In the oldest Buddhist texts, the terms “householder” and “lay person” are used interchangeably. The Buddha had many serious students who were not monastics, and these folks were not referred to as “lay” in the sense that you might contrast a “lay” practitioner of something with a professional, where the lay person is usually has less education, training, or credentials than a professional (which in this case would be the ordained Buddhist monastics).
Instead, the Buddha’s non-monastic followers were differentiated by the fact that they practiced while maintaining a household, including both the physical and social dimensions of that word. It’s not so much that such students “hold” a physical “house,” it’s more that they are characterized by living within a household. Monastics were, by contrast, homeleavers. Not only did monastics do without a house of their own, they also left behind maintaining a family, supporting dependents, having a livelihood that paid the bills, and functioning within the larger society in the ways expected of an ordinary citizen.
In the world of Buddhism, Buddhist householders have always vastly outnumbered those who spend their lives under monastic discipline, whether that discipline takes the form of Vinaya vows or residency in a monastery. Many of us who are considered “ordained” within our particular lineages of Buddhism or Zen are also householders. I spent about eight years under monastic discipline, but subsequently I resumed the life of a householder.
Should those of us who live as householders just ignore the Buddha’s teachings about renunciation as irrelevant to us? Is it skillful to conclude renunciation is completely unnecessary for our practice, or are we just conveniently deluding ourselves? I’m going to argue that it should be deeply significant to us that the Buddha recommended homeleaving as the ideal path to liberation even if we are not going to literally leave home to practice.
The Buddha’s Recommendations for Renunciation
First, let’s explore some of the Buddha’s teachings on renunciation. These come primarily in the form of recommendations to his followers about how best to practice.
In the Pali text the “Samaññaphala Sutta: The Fruits of the Contemplative Life,” the Buddha explains to King Ajatasattu the nature and merits of the contemplative life lived by his monastic disciples. (This translation Thanissaro Bhikkhu.)
“There is the case, great king, where a Tathagata appears in the world, worthy and rightly self-awakened. He teaches the Dhamma admirable in its beginning, admirable in its middle, admirable in its end. He proclaims the holy life both in its particulars and in its essence, entirely perfect, surpassingly pure.
“A householder or householder’s son, hearing the Dhamma, gains conviction in the Tathagata and reflects: ‘Household life is confining, a dusty path. The life gone forth is like the open air. It is not easy living at home to practice the holy life totally perfect, totally pure, like a polished shell. What if I were to shave off my hair and beard, put on the ochre robes [of a monk], and go forth from the household life into homelessness?’
“So after some time he abandons his mass of wealth, large or small; leaves his circle of relatives, large or small; shaves off his hair and beard, puts on the ochre robes, and goes forth from the household life into homelessness.
“When he has thus gone forth, he lives restrained by the rules of the monastic code, seeing danger in the slightest faults. Consummate in his virtue, he guards the doors of his senses, is possessed of mindfulness and alertness, and is content.” [i]
The sutta goes on to describe in what ways a monk lives “consummate in virtue,” explaining how he or she refrains from killing, stealing, and sexual activity. They also refrain from false, divisive, or abusive speech, and from idle chatter. In addition:
“He abstains from damaging seed and plant life.
“He eats only once a day, refraining from the evening meal and from food at the wrong time of day.
“He abstains from dancing, singing, instrumental music, and from watching shows.
“He abstains from wearing garlands and from beautifying himself with scents and cosmetics.
“He abstains from high and luxurious beds and seats.
“He abstains from accepting gold and money.” [ii]
Living a life focused on mindfulness, alertness, and sense restraint, the monastic is content. The sutta explains:
“And how is a monk content? Just as a bird, wherever it goes, flies with its wings as its only burden; so too is he content with a set of robes to provide for his body and almsfood to provide for his hunger. Wherever he goes, he takes only his barest necessities along. This is how a monk is content. ” [iii]
Renunciation Through Homeleaving Isn’t Necessary, and Yet…
The Buddha and his disciples ended up creating a whole division of the teaching devoted to monastic discipline, called the Vinaya. Ordained men lived according to 5 basic precepts (no killing, stealing, sexual activity, lying, or use of intoxicants) and 227 additional rules. Ordained women lived according to the 5 precepts and 311 rules. (Note: Although the fact women have additional rules may sound sexist, many of the additional or different rules have to do with their physical safety and with prohibiting them from doing the kinds of tasks for monks that the men would be used to having women do for them, preventing the women’s communities from simply becoming cooks and housekeepers for the male monastics.) A monastic renounces “sensual” or “worldly” pleasures. Sure, they may enjoy whatever food ends up in their begging bowl, or they may enjoy a cool breeze, but these are the very simplest kinds of pleasures and none of them are things the monk can count on or possess.
It’s important to realize that when the Buddhist teachings refer to “sensual” pleasures, they aren’t simply talking about the obvious physical pleasures like sex, intoxication, delicious food, beautiful houses, clothes, or furnishings, or listening to music. In the Buddhist view we have six sense organs – eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. Therefore, sensual or worldly pleasures are all of those things we enjoy through any of our senses, including the mind – including our relationships, the delight of learning and intellectual contemplation, the satisfaction of mastering or completing something, the stimulation of travel, or the joy of creative expression. Another way to think of these kinds of pleasures is that they are conditional. They depend on having or experiencing something – something we may or may not have access to at some point in the future. (I’ll talk more about the nature of worldly pleasure in the next episode.)
There are many benefits that can come from renouncing all or most worldly pleasures the way fully ordained monastics do, including greater peace of mind and much more time and energy to devote to formal practice. However, although ordination, or more accurately “the homeless life,” is clearly the path recommended by the Buddha to be especially effective, the Buddha taught monastics and lay people equally. Many of the suttas in the Pali Canon record teachings the Buddha gave to followers who were householders. The invitation to the homeless life would have been blatantly obvious to all the Buddha’s students, as he would have been surrounded at all times by monks. However, the Buddha never pressured his lay followers to leave home, or implied that this was necessary in order to practice.
When asked, Shakyamuni would say the homeless life was preferable – remember, he told King Ajatasattu the “’household life is confining, a dusty path… It is not easy living at home to practice the holy life totally perfectly” – but he acknowledged the high spiritual attainment of many of his householder students. At the Buddha’s time it was acknowledged that lay people were capable of achieving the second-highest level of spiritual attainment.[iv] The highest level was called “arhat,” and meant the person had achieved complete liberation and would never be born again. The second-highest was call “non-returner,” which meant they would never be reborn in this world, but would spend one last life in a heavenly realm where their complete liberation would occur.[v] That’s an awfully high level of attainment! Plenty of people – homeleaver or householder – were thrilled just to reach the lower stages of stream enterer or once-returner (see Episode 17 for more of a discussion about these different levels of attainment).[vi]
At first glance, it may appear that the Buddha recommended a life of homelessness and renunciation simply for those who were particularly ambitious, or maybe for those naturally inclined to such things. However, there’s something deeper going on here than a presentation of two alternative practice paths, one of which is bit dusty and constraining. It turned out the reason (according to the early Buddhists) that householders don’t attain arhatship is because if they do, they lose all taste for the household life and leave home.
In this translation of a Pali Canon text (from the Vinaya) by Bhikku Nanamoli, we hear the story of a young layman named Yasa who encountered the Buddha. The text says:
There was a clansman named Yasa. He was a rich merchant’s son and delicately brought up. He had three palaces, one for the winter, one for the summer, and one for the rains. In the rains palace he was entertained by minstrels with no men among them. For the four months of the rains he never went down to the lower palace.
Now while Yasa was amusing himself, enjoying the five kinds of sensual pleasures with which he was furnished, he fell asleep, though it was still early; and his attendants fell asleep too. But an all-night lamp was burning; and when Yasa woke up early, he saw his attendants sleeping. There was one with her lute under her arm, another with her tabor under her chin, another with her drum under her arm. The hair of one had come unfastened, another was dribbling, others were muttering. It seemed like a charnel ground. When he saw it, when its squalor squarely struck him, he was sick at heart, and he exclaimed: “It is fearful, it is horrible!”[vii]
(Note: In later, non-canonical texts, this story of Yasa is ascribed to Siddhartha, before he left home and eventually became Shakyamuni Buddha.)
Suddenly seeing sensual pleasures as a shallow distraction from our imperfect and ephemeral lives, Yasa leaves home and ends up encountering the Buddha. The Buddha hears Yasa muttering, “It is fearful, it is horrible,” and replies, “This is not fearful, this is not horrible. Come, Yasa, sit down. I shall teach you the Dhamma.” The Buddha does so, and then, “Just as a clean cloth with all marks removed would take dye evenly, so too while Yasa sat there the spotless, immaculate vision of the Dhamma arose in him: All that is subject to arising is subject to cessation.”[viii]
At this point, Yasa’s father comes looking for him. As the father approaches, the Buddha employs supernormal powers to hide Yasa from his father’s sight, so the young man’s contemplations are not disturbed. In the meantime, the father takes a seat and listens to the Dharma himself. Impressed, he quickly takes the three refuges (in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha) and becomes the first formal lay Buddhist. While listening to the Buddha teach his father, Yasa’s heart becomes fully “liberated from taints,” and he attains arhatship. Seeing this, the Buddha thinks:
“After this achievement Yasa is no longer capable of reverting to what he has left behind and enjoying sensual pleasures in the house life as he used to do. Suppose I now stop using the super-normal power?”[ix]
Yasa becomes visible to his father, and then takes up the practice of renunciation by asking for full admission into the homeless life as laid out by the Buddha.
What’s Wrong with the “House Life?”
What are we, non-monastic householder Buddhists, to make of this story of Yasa? What’s wrong with the “house life?” Clearly, according to the teachings, it is not simply a matter of household responsibilities – with the associated challenges and pleasures – interfering with our practice. Yasa was a pampered, rich, young man who had never encountered the Dharma before, but he was quickly able to comprehend the Dharma and attain awakening. If our determination is great enough, if our heart is open enough, if our mind is open enough, we can attain liberation no matter what lifestyle we have lived up until that point.
And yet the teachings seem to imply that if we do attain complete liberation, we will stop caring about our families, human relationships, responsibilities, careers – everything. From the point of view of a householder practitioner, this can sound like a very negative message! It may sound like the Dharma is like a jealous god who requires full and exclusive allegiance before it will give up its choicest rewards, so in the end you will have to surrender all the things most important to you, including your relationships. It may sound like there’s something inherently defiled or wrong about your worldly engagements, and if you keep practicing, eventually you’ll wake up to that defilement and reject them. Or it may sound like practice – if you take it all the way – results in you losing access to the experiences that make life meaningful, including love, compassion, and loyalty. Do you really want ultimate enlightenment if it’s going to make you into an emotionless person who can’t be bothered with human relationships or “worldly” affairs? Probably not!
It is valuable to explore deeply what enlightenment or liberation really means. Or, more accurately, it’s valuable to question our assumptions about what it means, because until we taste it for ourselves, we don’t know what it really means. Even if we’re not aiming at complete, perfect enlightenment (few of us are that ambitious), it’s important to know we’re walking a path that culminates in a worthwhile goal, or whether – if we want to maintain loving and meaningful engagement with the world – we should carefully stop short of complete spiritual liberation. In other words, if the ultimate goal of Buddhism is to stop caring about anyone or anything, we should use practice judiciously, to alleviate a little suffering and stress, but always keep in mind that we’re one of those practitioners who is too attached to the world to fully awaken.
I think it is tragic for us to believe the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice is to stop caring about anyone or anything, and that therefore the householder needs to leave full liberation to monks and nuns, or any disengaged, childless, parentless person who can leave behind all worldly affairs. This belief can be quite subtle, but I think it is pretty pervasive in many forms of Buddhism. Fortunately, this belief is based on a misunderstanding of the teachings.
Here’s the thing: Those of us who derive most of our happiness and sense of meaning from worldly pleasures find it difficult to imagine, but spiritual liberation in the Buddhist sense opens us up to an unconditional happiness and a sense of meaning that transcends anything else we have known. In other words, it’s not that love, compassion, loyalty, and the rest become unimportant to us, it’s that we experience something even more profound and satisfying. Subsequently, we are no longer dependent on conditional things, as wonderful as they might be, for our happiness and peace of mind. Then we have a choice – we can remain engaged in the world, or we can choose a life of incredible simplicity.
In the next episode I will continue this discussion, briefly reviewing the limitations of sensual or worldly pleasures. Then I’ll explore how engagement with the world, contrary to simply being a compromise, can be its own path of practice. Finally, I’ll return to the question of how the Buddha’s teachings on renunciation are relevant for householders.
Endnotes
[i] “Samaññaphala Sutta: The Fruits of the Contemplative Life” (DN 2), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.02.0.than.html .
[ii] Ibid
[iii] Ibid
[iv] “Udena Sutta: About King Udena” (Ud 7.10), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 3 September 2012, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.7.10.than.html .
[v] “Arahants, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas”, by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi. Access to Insight (BCBS Edition), 30 November 2013, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/arahantsbodhisattvas.html .
[vi] https://zenstudiespodcast.com/history5/#lay
[vii] Nanamoli, Bhikkhu. The Life of the Buddha: According to the Pali Canon (p. 48). Pariyatti Publishing. Kindle Edition.
[viii] Ibid (p. 49).
[ix] Ibid (p. 50).
Photo Credit
