On Trying To Be Buddhist

Renunciation - Part 3

Yesterday I ended with two questions:  does the goal of liberation require this thoroughgoing abnegation; and  is monasticism the best or only way to achieve it?

That first question really has to be considered first - it involves asking what liberation is.  Rather than get into a long discussion of this, I'd like to give a few quotes from a teaching by Khenpo Migmar Tsering, who was a highly accomplished and revered Sakya lama.  In a teaching on the philosophy of liberation, he first discusses the basic meaning of liberation: release from suffering.  He goes on to describe the different Buddhist schools of thought that developed and eventually he comes to the distinction between the relative, or conventional, and ultimate views of reality. 

...whatever appears to the worldly mind is true only to that mind and so it is only conventional and not ultimate. In this case, what appears to be true to the beholder is not so in the real sense, because the object in question does not exist by its own and the mind of the beholder is tainted with delusions.  By this reasoning all types of worldly mind are considered as false and whatever appears to them is not real...

The ultimate truth is the object of a perfect knowledge. For the sake of explanation it is divided into two kinds, the nominal ultimate truth and the actual ultimate truth. That which is the object of analysing mind is nominal truth. In fact this is the mental image of the ultimate truth, which is projected in the conceptual mind of the meditator. It is through image of the ultimate truth that one is trained in the study and meditation of the ultimate truth. The actual ultimate truth is said to be beyond thought and expression. It is the actual mode of being of every phenomena.

Liberation means becoming freed from the perspective of ordinary, conventional reality, which is in fact unreal, into this "actual mode of being of every phenomenon."   Note that it's the very unreality of conventional 'reality' that produces its unsatisfactoriness and is the root of suffering. 

What is involoved in this shift?  Does it require some form of asceticism?

Renunciation - Part 2

What is renounced and why?  As soon as I began looking for material on the Internet, I came across a blog post that was very helpful.  The author begins the main section:

In Buddhist circles, renunciation is spoken of most often in reference to an individual’s choice to take up the robes of a monastic, to shave one’s head and ‘renounce’ the life of a layperson in order to practice Buddhism in a dedicated manner.

A nice description from the Buddhist perspective, which is where I want to start. 

To put it another way, what is renounced is the rich, pleasant, and varied material life of a layperson (at least of the fortunate ones) to enable a more dedicated spiritual practice, and presumably speed one toward the goal of that practice, liberation. 

The questions here lead off in two different directions, both alluring.  First - does the goal of liberation require this thoroughgoing abnegation; and second, is monasticism the best or only way to achieve it?
Questions for tomorrow.

 

Renunciation - Part 1

I'm becoming more and more convinced that a radical form of renunciation is inevitable for serious Buddhist practioners.  It's quite different though, from the type one starts with.

A simple definition from Merriam - Webster's:
Renunciation:  the act or practice of renouncing : repudiation; specifically : ascetic self-denial...

Asceticism is encouraged in most religions for some members at least.  In Buddhism, especially in the earlier forms, renunciation meant the monastic life. 

This practice of renunciation raises so many questions - what is renounced?  Why - what is it in aid of?  In discussions of modern, especially western, Buddhism, there is sometimes the implication that much of the asceticism of early Buddhism is not essential and can be dispensed with.  Is this so?

What is renounced and why - that's where I'll pick up tomorrow.