Renunciation Day: The Dreamlike Illusion is a Sham
To practice Zen deeply a person must swim up the cultural stream.
Rather than Inauguration Day, I propose "Renunciation Day." Today and everyday.
This post is all about that. First, some background about why renunciation seems even more essential now.
An anecdote
After the 2024 election, Tetsugan Sensei and I were having a nice meal with my sister and her sweet husband. My sister, a woman with two advanced degrees, who's had multiple professional careers, who's traveled far and wide – and who knows well that Sensei and I enjoy a quiet life delighting in solitude – asked how we were doing with the election results.
After Tetsugan Sensei expressed her sadness and frustration, I said, "I'm renouncing worldly affairs."
My sister replied, "I have no idea what that means."
In any case, if my dear sister has no idea – and I suspect that it's not just my sister – it seems like a fertile topic to explore for those interested in the Buddha Way. From what I see in the Western Buddhist scene, and especially in the Zen swirl, I'd say renunciation is one of the aspects of the received tradition that has been not-so-well received, if it's considered at all.
Even those folks who are dedicated to Zen practice are often running around doing too much, and suffer from being overwhelmed and overextended. A common refrain is, "I just need to learn how to manage my time better." The idea being that we can do it all once our organizational skills have been perfected.
To practice Zen deeply a person must swim up the cultural stream
One of the primary points of resistance is going against the conditioning that tells us that doing more, having more, being more is how to best spend this precious human life. Think "hamster wheel." Think "capitalism." Think "being duped for someone else's fame and gain."
Meanwhile, many practitioners seem to take the practices of "cultivating few desires" and "homeleaving" only as metaphors. That is, these practices are commonly viewed as psychological adjustments wherein the practitioner gets to continue frantically indulging in sense pleasures without giving anything up. Such a "private mental experience" is the near enemy of truly renouncing worldly affairs.
Therefore, Tetsugan Sensei and I have decided to make renunciation the theme for the Vine of Obstacles Zen training group for 2025. We'll work on other topics too, like completing our study of The Platform Sutra, and then perhaps taking up study of Dogen's "Being Time," but we'll stay close to the renunciation theme throughout the year. Indeed, we have already begun to explore renunciation with our students, and in this post I share some of their wisdom, and questions, too.
Dosho Port
Key passages from the received tradition
To ground the conversation, I'll first share some passages that I find especially inspiring in this regard. And, instead of skimming through the passages to get to ... what? I suggest that you sit quietly and breathe with each one.
First, this from "Dogen's Inspirational Vow" (Eihei Koso Hotsuganmon):
Above is the beginning of a page-long piece that Katagiri Roshi instructed me, as a new Soto Zen homeleaver, to recite every day. Forty years on, I still do it most days. More about the forty years here (and "The Eight Understandings of the Great Person" that strike to the heart of the issue of attachment and renunciation):
Dosho Port
Second, the Sixth Ancestor, Huineng, had this to say in The Platform Sutra:
Speaking of the sham, one practice that I've undertaken for the next four years is to renounce the media, and embody this renunciation by not consuming any of what mainstream sources dispense as "news." That includes all the newsletters that riff with what the mainstream reports.
This goes against the grain of the culture, of course, including the progressive pond I swim in – and it goes against my own personal proclivities. You see, since sixth grade, when I scraped and saved my allowance (and did extra chores) so that I'd have enough money to subscribe to the U.S. News & World Report, I've been an avid follower of worldly affairs. And in my younger days, I took to the streets to engage in protests, as well. But recognizing that my attention (and, in my view, our collective attention) is the commodity that the "broligarchy" are profiting from, I call, "I'm out."
Now, when asked why I'm not following the news, I've been heard quoting the Sixth Ancestor: "... the dreamlike illusion is a sham." My 90 and 94 year old parents seem to agree with that.
And even though I'm no longer a sucker for the click bait of the broligarch's media empires, I find that I get the essential news anyway through conversations with people. Meanwhile, I save a lot of energy. That gives me more energy for the Way. As does not indulging the "oh my gawd, what stupid shit have they said/done now" response that merely reinforces the tsunami of stupid that has come to us with the internet. I've already done that for the last decade or so, and am not going back.
One criticism I occasionally hear about this renunciation strategy goes something like this: "What about the cries of all the many beings?"
However, by turning away from the relentless grind of the media empires of the ultra wealthy, I'm not turning away from the suffering of all the many beings, but cultivating energy for turning into it. If our access to suffering was limited by the contemporary endless news cycle, what about all the generations before the last century and especially prior to 1990 or so? Our dharma ancestors seem to have been quite in touch with the suffering of the world without having their incoming data curated by the present media monopolies.
For example, Will Rogers (1879-1935) just looked at how completely smoked the cigarette butts were that he saw in the gutter and knew how the nation was doing. Recently, at the gas station, I saw a young guy out in the -20 degree cold (maybe unhoused) with his pants sagging, and a very red sliver of his butt showing. Owww! There's some indication of how we're doing.
What are you renouncing?
And speaking of gaining energy by saving energy, here is Dahui (from The Letters of Chan Master Dahui Pujue, Broughton and Watanabe translation):
This is one of the most simple and powerful practice pointers that we regularly offer our Vine students.
What is "renunciation" in the received tradition?
The old master Zhiyi had much to say about renunciation (and pretty much everything else related to the buddhadharma).
Here is Zhiyi's definition:
What about the characters in Chinese that translate the Sanskrit?
So renunciation is to turn our backs and abandon something. What? The five desires. What are the five desires? There are numerous sets. One set is grasping for the objects of the five senses. Another is for food, fame, sex, sleep, and material possessions. Both aspects – turning our backs and abandoning – are vital. If we turn our backs without abandoning, we don't fully renounce, and are left identifying with whatever we turned our backs on by defining ourselves as against.
So, let go.
Vine students and their understanding of renunciation
In our Engagement Forum last week, Tetsugan Sensei and I asked students about their present understanding of "renunciation." Here are a few examples of their responses:
How about you? Paid subscribers, the comment section is open.
Central questions raised about renunciation – a sampling
We also asked Vine students to raise questions for further exploration during the upcoming year. Here is a sampling of those questions.
I have changed many patterns in my life, but as soon as I cut off some, other hindrances seem to appear. Is there a point where this bullshit ends?
How can I differentiate real renunciation from a cosmetic “holier than thou” variety like “0h, thank you but I am a Buddhist. I don’t drink” that ends up reinforcing the sense of self?
How can I know the true dharma from the false amid the emerging Mindfulness Industrial Complex?
Is intimacy with fear the gateway to renunciation?
How does one generate (more) renunciation power?
How can I better put renunciation into action?
I've had no choice in the recent past but to renounce most of what I thought was my life and I'm fed up with it – as though it were renounced for me. Is it with being fed up that I renounce? Or do I turn the light around on this scheming, pissed off and bratty woe-is-me bullshit to fully abandon worldly affairs?
What path-illuminating questions do you have about renunciation?
I invite you to join with us in making each day Renunciation Day – that is, turning our backs on delusion and letting go – so that we all can realize the Buddha Way together.
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Shushan's Eternal-Life Stupa
