Does Buddhism Renounce 'The World'?
 

Hello again.

My limited and respectful investigations into Buddhism (reading books, using online sources, attending local meditation classes, trying meditation on my own) suggest many things. One of these is that Buddhism is basically saying (sweeping statement I know) that we can create the conditions for cessation of suffering by deconstructing our habitual and long-established ways of engaging with reality. Thus we can if you like pare away all the accretions of error and ignorance which cause our problems.

It does seem to teach that the way to avoid suffering is simply to not get involved, which is of course very logical, but also seems to teach a renunciation of the world which is hard to reconcile with living in the world.

It seems to have a wonderful inner technology for deconstruction and renunciation, but can you still use the teachings if you don't want to renounce the world?

Is that fair enough? Or not.

Yes of course ! There are many lay buddhist practitioners in the world who have families and who work in normal jobs.



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Hi Mardale,
I think we need to say what is renunciation in a Buddhist sense (well I will give you it from my limited perspective)If we are in a difficult situation, we can give it up or renounce it by avoiding it!
We can call this renunciation however it is not the renunciation of samsara.

We may break up with a lover, so we decide to move to another town or county to escape/avoid the pain.
Is this renunciation? I would suggest not!

We may find society distasteful, venal, unfair or hurtful so we decide to remove ourselves from it,
We may feel better more spiritual and worthy as we cope without the modern conveniences. But again is this really renunciation of samsara? Is it Buddhist renunciation?

Quite often we get renunciation confused with religious observation or meditation. We feel we are renouncing samsara in our study or lifestyle choices, yet look at how we react when someone criticises that study, that path, that teacher, that tradition or that choice!

In reality what have we done by avoiding (not renouncing) our painful reactions to life?
We have turned the path into an object to be clung to!

For me renunciation of samsara can not be about avoidance or denial.
It is about our relationship to pleasure and pain.
When we begin to no longer attach ourselves to transient feelings and not rely on them for our happiness, then we begin to renounce samsara.

We see that it is not where we are, who we are with, what title we have or what level of this or that spiritual practice we have supposedly attained that can give us lasting peace.
It is futile to expect lasting peace based on transitory phenomena.

Certainly renunciation from a Vajrayana perspective is not giving up (in the normal usage of the word) nor is it avoidance of happiness or pleasure in the world.
It does mean breaking the pattern of clinging to our delusional, polluting, exaggerating distorting habitual reactions to pleasure and pain.

Without these habitual distorting attachments we are free to experience a fundamental engagement with the world including those around us.

http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/hands.gif

Ultimateley the ending of the round of rebirths is the goal yes. But it is not about renouncing the world. It is about understanding its nature. The more you understand it and yourself the less and less easily you get entangled in it. The less and less you want to get entangled in it because you realise what an effort it takes in energy and time to get entangled.

Normally we carry judgment with us. Evaluating things in good and bad and positive and negative. Imagine loosing that evaluation and just seeing the world as it is! That is what it is about. Then you really have freedom of choice because you realise that happiness and unhappiness is more or less a choice you can make and not as for most people a circumstance pushed upon you from the surrounding world.

Is that not freedom? That is as I see it the path of the buddhist worldling.

/Victor

no, but a legit Buddhist practise is to renounce attachment to the world of the five senses and the mind

thereby free oneself from the bondage of suffering.

http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/grin.gif

Yeah it seems like "If you don't want to wreck your car, then just don't drive it"... The more I look into it, it becomes a system to where, don't enjoy life, because when life lets you down, you will "suffer" or be dissapointed... However, this is my view as someone that is very new to the Buddhist view, and I will continue to study it, not as a Buddhist, but as a student...

Yeah it seems like "If you don't want to wreck your car, then just don't drive it" Isn't that avoiding the issue?

why not drive the car but don't get attached to it.

We enjoy flowers on the bushes in the garden but we don't go crazy when the flowers and leaves fall, likewise we can enjoy a summers day without railing and ranting at the coming of night.

Should we concrete over our gardens and refuse to go out on a summers day? Not for me!

http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...s/meditate.gif

True happiness is that which arises without cause in this world.

Happiness connected to a Car is still flawed even if it is a thunderbird. :). Joy arising from understanding the nature of the world by direct insight can not be dispersed as easily as the joy of a Car when wrecked.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit....031.nypo.html

In other words it is not about not driving the car. It is about being happy nomatter if you drive a car or not.

/Victor

In other words it is not about not driving the car. It is about being happy nomatter if you drive a car or not. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...milies/up2.gif

http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/hands.gif

Hi Joe

Wthout knowing how to drive a car it is best to take the bus or walk, but knowing how to drive a car one does not wreck it even when driving.

Likewise, without understanding attachment to sense experience there is no letting go of it, with understanding one can begin to let go.

http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/grin.gif

Okay, nice, again, please don't see me as some arrogant person trying to bash Buddhism, I am very new to it and trying to give it a chance as I initially saw it as a lot more than other views have to offer... I respect it, what I posted was just an impression that came to my mind seeing this thread.

No worries. Dude. :). The question is justified! And the answer is very hard to get.

If you give up your attachment to happiness and unhappiness alike. Then you can choose when or when not to be happy. But mostly at that stage you will prefer to be levelheaded.

Does that make any sense?

/Victor

JoeBlow,

No criticism of you was intended. Just giving a different impression.

Don't worry it didn't come across as if you were Buddhism bashing.

http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/hands.gif

Yes it does make sense, and thank you for the site you provided earlier.

Good.

Thanks for the replies.

I suspect that the spiritual path does entail renunciation, just as an adult must renounce childhood, simply to grow.

I think it is about a shift in desire. The more you cultivate the more you desire cultivation and the balance it brings.

/Victor

I was looking again at "Now Is The Knowing" by Ajahn Sumedho and I thought that this quote from the chapter 'Happiness, Unhappiness and Nibbana' was relevant to this thread.



"The goal lies away from the sensual world. It is not rejection of the sensual world, but understanding it so well that we no longer seek it as an end in itself. We no longer expect the sensory world to satisfy us. We no longer demand that sensory consciousness be anything other than an existing condition that we can skilfully use according to time and place. We no longer attach to it, or demand that the sense impingement be always pleasant, or feel despair and sorrow when it’s unpleasant.

Nibbana isn’t a state of blankness, a trance where you’re totally wiped out. It’s not nothingness or an annihilation: it’s like a space. It’s going into the space of your mind where you no longer attach, where you’re no longer deluded by the appearance of things. You are no longer demanding anything from the sensory world. You are just recognizing it as it arises and passes away."


http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/now_know.pdf


http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/hands.gif

So, in other words, we always have a choice of how we will react to situations in life? And we can choose to be happy with or without a car (or with or without a certain relationship in our life, for example), by allowing change to occur, and staying detached from the desire to keep things as they were before. Am I on track, as a very new student, with this idea of renunciation?

That's a good attitude to have in practise, however renunciation is another thing entirely. Renunciation is like choosing not to have a car even though you know you can just to experience what it's like not to have a car and to learn from it.