RENUNCIATION: What are we really giving up?
By Yangsi Rinpoche

When students of Tibetan Buddhism hear that the renunciation of every worldly thing [home, family, friends, property, fame, duration of life, and even health] is a precious goal, the prospect of living like a yogi in a Western world can seem just too hard to contemplate.

But if we look at what Nagarjuna (often referred to as “the second Buddha,” circa 200 B.C.E.) said – “Acquiring material things or not acquiring them; happiness or unhappiness; interesting or uninteresting sounds; praise or criticism: these eight worldly dharmas are not objects of my mind. They are all the same to me…” – we can see that he was advocating a change of mind, not necessarily a total abandonment of things.

Nancy Patton asked Yangsi Rinpoche, the reincarnation of the renowned practitioner and Lharampa Geshe Ngawang Gendun, how to deal with the eight worldly concerns: attachment to praise, comfort, good reputation, and gain; and aversion to their opposites, blame, discomfort, bad reputation, and loss. Rinpoche said:

“Generally speaking, the point is to renounce all attachment or aversion to these worldly things from the mental point of view. It doesn’t mean that you have to give up everything. What you have to give up is how you are grasping at things; how you perceive objects or situations, thinking that they are the essentials of this life. It doesn’t mean that you have to give up your own self.

“Let’s imagine a fancy car: Some people would say, ‘Oh, it’s so important! I have to have it.’ It’s the concept of having that car that becomes so important. It’s about how we perceive and respond to things. We are responding by having strong expectations, and we are grasping at what it means to us. Yet another person may have a fancy car and be not at all attached to it as such. For example, when His Holiness the Dalai Lama is in Dharamsala, he sometimes rides in a Mercedes Benz, and some people might say, ‘Why does he have a Mercedes Benz?’ [Certainly it is a safe and reliable car and many prominent people choose it for those reasons as well as for its status, but] from His Holiness’s side, he is not grasping at it; it’s no big deal to him. The main thing to consider is, are you having this kind of car to show off, or do you have another point of view toward it? If you have it so you can show off, it’s better not to have that car; instead have a regular one – or get the bus.

“Renunciation, from the lam-rim point of view, applies not only to this lifetime but to all future lifetimes and to all samsara. It is a huge way of thinking. But when it comes down to this present life, we need to understand how to renounce current situations, how to overcome the mental pressure on ourselves...”

This article can be read in its entirety in Mandala