Mark Nunberg: The Liberating Joy of Renunciation

Uh, the Buddha's attendant, Ananda, was, uh, told by the Buddha that, you know, the Buddha said, "I'm gonna go practice for the afternoon and evening, and, uh, we'll connect later in the day." And while the Buddha was under a tree doing his meditation practice, uh, a lay person came up to Ananda and said to him, "Venerable sir, we are householders who indulge in sensuality.

We delight in sensuality.

We enjoy it.

We rejoice in it.

For us, indulging in sensuality, delighting in it, enjoying it, rejoicing in sensuality, renunciation seems like a sheer drop off.

Yet I've heard that in this doctrine and discipline," right, in the practices, [coughs] "that renunciation seems..." Oops.

"That in this doctrine and discipline, the hearts of the very young monks, nuns, they leap up at renunciation, grow confident, steadfast, and firm, seeing it as peace." So right here is where this training is contrary to the great mass of people, right? It's right here where this issue of renunciation doesn't make any sense to us.

How can it be, [laughs] you know, that young monastics, their hearts leap up at the idea of renunciation? Because frankly, like, maybe even tonight when we're hearing that we're gonna be discussing renunciation, and it's just interesting to see what happens in our heart.

You know, it's very common in me, in my heart at least, to think about all those places where I might feel like I'm indulging, you know, like indulging in sweets, or indulging in eating more food than I might need to eat for the health of my body, or indulging in entertainments.

And I, you know, I have my rationalizations.

I can talk about, well, these pleasures are kind of medicine.

They help my body and mind to relax and be healthy so that I can do good things in the world, right? And of course, the Buddha would never be making the argument that we should be averse to life generally and averse to the pleasures that come with life, right? We need to have a healthy relationship not just with pain, but also with pleasure and the gratification that pleasure delivers.

So what is, what is this experience of renunciation? And Ananda had this great reply when the, the lay person said that to him.

He said, "This calls for a talk, h- householder.

Let's go see the Blessed One." [laughs] You know? "Let's approach him, and on arrival, we'll tell him this matter.

However he explains it to us, we'll keep it in mind." So they go s- find the Buddha at the end of the day when the Buddha is coming out of his meditation, and Ananda explains just what the lay person said to him, how the lay people delight in sensuality.

And sensuality just means ...

It's kind of the orientation we generally live with, which is, given that I do wanna be happy, I'm assuming that you also want to be happy.

Generally, we seek that happiness by finding the pleasant experiences that we can find, that we can have in our lives, and avoiding the unpleasant experiences that we're able to avoid.

Right? So that's really what the word sensuality means.

It's a life that's oriented towards sense experience, seeking happiness, wellbeing through getting the sense experiences that we want and avoiding the sense experiences that we don't want.

So sensuality is just another word for living with the usual or ordinary orientation we human beings live with, as opposed to a more profound spiritual orientation that we'll be talking about tonight.

So here's the Buddha's response to this, uh, query, uh, lay people being dumbfounded.

Like, how is it, given how much my life res- revolves around seeking pleasure, pleasurable experiences and avoiding pain, how is it that even the young nuns and monks, their hearts leap up at renunciation? And so the Buddha said ...

I like this 'cause he's, he's so honest.