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# Renunciation and Liberation
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------A talk given at the Wenzhou Buddhist Association in 2009
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By Master Jiqun
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- Part One: The Origin of the Monastic System
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-- 1. The Origin of Renunciation
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-- 2. The Buddha's Renunciation
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- Part Two: The Meaning of Leaving Home
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-- 1. Leaving the Secular Home
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-- 2. Leaving the Home of the Five Aggregates
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-- 3. Leaving the Home of Afflictions
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-- 4. Leaving the Home of the Three Realms
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-- 5. Samsara and Liberation
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- Part Three: Generating Renunciation---the Foundation for Liberation
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-- 1. The Importance of Generating the Aspiration
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-- 2. Generating the Right Aspiration
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- Part Four: A Life of Discipline---the Groundwork for Liberation
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-- 1. A Life of Simplicity
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-- 2. Democratic Management
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- Part Five: Right View of Emptiness---the Key to Liberation
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- Part Six: Closing Words
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Today I would like to explore with you the question of "renunciation and liberation." Most of you here have already left home to become monastics. So what does this way of life really mean for us?
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I believe that when most people renounced the home life, they did so for the sake of liberation, for realizing the Way, for fulfilling the ultimate meaning of human life. Yet looking at the current state of the Buddhist community, very few continue to hold this original resolve after ordination. More often, people simply treat the renounced life as a lifestyle, gradually forgetting the goal of liberation. In other words, they merely live a life of celibacy, vegetarianism, and monastic robes, differing from laypeople only in outward appearance. Beyond that, they stay busy each day with practical concerns---food, clothing, shelter, transportation, social niceties. Some go even further, eagerly chasing fame and gain, eagerly forming cliques for personal advantage.
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To leave home in this way is merely to leave one home only to enter another---it is to be a shaven-headed layperson in monastic guise. As monastics, we must understand what this identity truly means, know why we left home in the first place, and what we are really supposed to do. Only then can we give this identity the substance it deserves.
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{#一出家制度的由来}
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## Part One: The Origin of the Monastic System
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{#出家的起源}
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#### 1. The Origin of Renunciation
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Traditional Chinese culture places considerable emphasis on this present life, taking "cultivate oneself, regulate the family, govern the state, and bring peace to all under heaven" as the path to realizing life's value. Only when born into unfavorable times would one retreat from society and attend to one's own virtue---but this was merely a fallback strategy, not an ideal choice; it is fundamentally different from renouncing the home life to practice the Way and pursue liberation. Western philosophy, meanwhile, concerns itself with investigating the origin of the world---questions such as what the first cause is, and how the universe came into being. It is only in Indian religious philosophy that particular attention is given to birth and death, samsara, and liberation, giving rise to a tradition of leaving family and worldly life behind to engage in spiritual practice.
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The earliest religion in India was Brahmanism, whose followers passed through four stages of life. The first is the brahmacarya stage in youth, beginning at age eight when one studies under a teacher and spends over ten years learning the Vedas and other texts. The second is the gṛhastha or householder stage, when one establishes a family and career, carries on the family line, and fulfills worldly responsibilities. The third is the vānaprastha or forest-dweller stage, when one retreats to the mountains and forests to devote oneself to spiritual practice and enter a religious life. The fourth is the sannyāsa or renunciant stage, when one renounces worldly attachments, leaves home, wanders in all directions, and pursues the supramundane goal. Thus, the renounced life is not unique to Buddhism but stems from India's cultural tradition and is common to both Buddhist and non-Buddhist paths. At the time, many non-Buddhist schools in India had systems of renunciation, collectively known as śramaṇa, whose main characteristics were abandoning family life, reducing material desires, and persevering in ascetic practice, mostly living by begging for alms. Many of these practices were later adopted by the Buddhist saṅgha, such as wandering, alms-round, and the rains retreat.
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{#佛陀的出家}
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#### 2. The Buddha's Renunciation
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Before he renounced the home life, the Buddha was a prince who enjoyed a life of luxury in the palace, sheltered from the sufferings of the world. But on a journey outside the palace one day, he discovered a world utterly different from what he had known within it. He saw people withered and decrepit with age, hobbling along unsteadily; he saw people tormented by illness, drawing their last breaths; he saw people torn apart from loved ones by death, overcome with grief. And not only that---he also saw the cruel reality of sentient beings killing one another for survival, the strong preying on the weak. He saw farmers toiling under the scorching sun, drenched in sweat; he saw old oxen ploughing the fields with heads down, suffering the lash; he saw insects overturned by the ploughshare, dying in an instant. Just to obtain the food needed to survive, how many living beings endured suffering or even lost their lives. All this caused the kind-hearted prince deep sorrow, and he keenly felt the brevity and illusoriness of wealth and rank.
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Just when he felt lost about life and did not know which way to turn, he met a wandering śramaṇa. In that person the Buddha saw hope for life, saw the hope of extinguishing suffering and transcending birth and death---and that hope was spiritual practice, was liberation.
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It was through this inner journey that the Buddha chose to leave home. It meant a complete break from his former life. He gave up his throne, gave up his family, gave up the lavish pleasures that ordinary people could only dream of. He even sent his garments and belongings back with his charioteer, shaved his head and beard, and wandered with an alms bowl, embarking on a path of practice with nothing to his name. Thus, leaving home means giving up worldly possessions, and it means giving up all attachments.
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After the Buddha left home, he sought out the various spiritual practitioners of India at the time, undergoing six years of asceticism and countless hardships, until he finally realized his true nature beneath the bodhi tree. After his awakening, at the request of Brahmā, he taught the Dharma for forty-nine years, liberating countless beings. During that time, many people followed the Buddha, leaving home to practice the Way, forming a vast saṅgha. Following the Buddha's teachings, with three robes and one bowl, they wandered in all directions, and through their practice and realization of the Dharma, they spread the path to the cessation of suffering and liberation.
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As monastics today, we need to understand what kind of renounced life the Buddha actually led, and what kind of renounced life his disciples who followed him in practice led. Through the classical accounts of the Buddha's life and the saṅgha's way of life, we can see that although the Buddha and his disciples did many things, these can be summed up as inner cultivation and outward teaching. Internally, they diligently advanced on the path, severing delusion and realizing truth; externally, they transformed the world and guided society, benefiting humans and devas alike. In truth, this is also the fundamental duty of every monastic. The sages of India did this, and so did the great masters of China.
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{#二出家的内涵}
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## Part Two: The Meaning of Leaving Home
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To leave home does not only mean a change in outer appearance, a change in lifestyle, or leaving one's family to enter the saṅgha. More crucially, it means leaving the home of the five aggregates, leaving the home of afflictions, and leaving the home of the three realms. This requires our effort for the rest of this life, and indeed for all lives to come.
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{#出世俗家}
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#### 1. Leaving the Secular Home
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What we mean by "secular" here is worldly family and emotional bonds. As monastics, we seem to have already given up family life and the worldly love and attachment that go with it. Yet quite often, after arriving at a monastery, we quickly turn the practice center into a substitute family. The attachment and the greed, hatred, and ignorance we develop toward this new "home" may be no less than what we would have built up running a secular household. If so, then what is the point of leaving home?
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We need to understand that the true purpose of leaving home is not to abandon the family itself, but to abandon the attachment and the ordinary state of mind that grow out of it---this is what truly constitutes the foundation of family. Such attachment is built on mutual craving and possessiveness, which in turn create the mind that draws lines between self and other, right and wrong, closeness and distance, liking and disliking. We give up worldly possessions and our emotional clinging to family members, but if we transfer that very same possessiveness and clinging to the monastery, then we will simply develop a whole new set of ordinary mental patterns around this new object, with no essential change whatsoever.
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{#出五蕴家}
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#### 2. Leaving the Home of the Five Aggregates
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The "five aggregates" refer to our psychophysical being, encompassing both the material and mental dimensions. The Buddhadharma holds that the five aggregates are merely an instrument in the continuity of life; there is no so-called "self" within them, nor can they represent the true "self." Leaving the home of the five aggregates means freeing ourselves from attachment to these aggregates, rather than what we do now---identifying the five aggregates as "I" and then using that very identification to bind ourselves. When we are happy, we think it is "I" who am happy; when we are angry, we think it is "I" who am angry. At every moment, we are stirred up and unsettled by this "I."
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The *Agama Sutras* contain the concept of "laying down the burden"---the burden being the load of suffering created by our attachment to the five aggregates. Laozi also told us, "The reason I have great trouble is that I have a body. Were I without a body, what trouble would I have?" From the moment we are born, we begin serving this body---busy feeding it, busy giving it drink, running around to satisfy its every emotion and craving. How exhausting. The reason we are so willing to do this is that in our perception, this body represents "me," these emotions represent "me"---they feel like inseparable, inborn parts of who we are. Given that, it seems we have no choice, no way out. It never occurs to us that these things can actually be set aside, can be relinquished.
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The Buddhadharma tells us that the five aggregates are not the so-called "self" but rather a product fabricated by ignorance in the course of life's continuity. Once we lay down the burden and cast off this deadweight, life will not be diminished. On the contrary, it will be at ease because the bonds have been loosened, and liberated because the load has been released. With this understanding, we no longer need to blindly obey its every demand and follow its every impulse, and we can cut off the various afflictions that arise from this.
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{#出烦恼家}
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#### 3. Leaving the Home of Afflictions
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Some might say: we avoid afflictions as desperately as we can---could anyone be so foolish as to make their home in affliction? Yet this is exactly what happens. In reality, many people live in a state of constant affliction and turmoil, unable to free themselves---and this is precisely making a home in affliction. Because we lack clear awareness of the inner dimension of life, whenever an affliction arises we quickly become immersed in it. We then identify with it, treating the affliction as "me"---just as we say in everyday speech: "I am so annoyed," "I am so angry," "I am in so much pain," and so on.
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When these problems are bundled together with "I," they are magnified and intensified. Their destructive power increases exponentially. What spiritual practice does is, on the one hand, bring clear awareness to afflictions as they arise; and on the other, keep them at bay by upholding precepts, calm them by cultivating concentration, and subdue them with wisdom. In the end, it completely destroys the citadel built out of affliction.
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{#出三界家}
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#### 4. Leaving the Home of the Three Realms
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The three realms---the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm---still lie within samsara. To leave the three realms is to leave samsara, and the foundation of samsara is the delusion and karma within our own minds. Thus, leaving samsara is not about leaving something external; the key is to leave behind the very source that produces samsara. People today have some difficulty accepting the idea of samsara, since it involves past and future lives, which conflicts with the education they have received and lies beyond the reach of their cognitive faculties. Indeed, it may even be that not every monastic believes in samsara or in cause and effect. In truth, samsara is not as remote as it seems---it unfolds in every present moment. We can recognize it by observing our present circumstances.
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Everyone has their own pursuits and needs. These pursuits and needs repeat endlessly, like a child addicted to games who, having cultivated a need for gaming in his mind, is constantly preoccupied with it. And the more he plays, the more his need for the game grows. This process is samsara in microcosm. Its starting point is a need within our minds, and its end point is the object that need chases after. But in fact, this end point has never left the starting point. Even as we satisfy the need, it grows again within us, so that the end point once again becomes a starting point. On and on it cycles, turning without cease.
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{#轮回与解脱}
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#### 5. Samsara and Liberation
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The same dynamic applies to people in every walk of life. A business owner thinks about his business every day, and this drives him to stay busy with business affairs every day. In the course of his work, attachment grows, which in turn drives him to work even harder. In fact, managing a monastery is no different. If each day we only think about how to run the monastery well, without integrating our work with spiritual practice, without approaching it with the right attitude of awakening oneself and awakening others, then our attachments will likewise increase in the course of our work, and we will likewise fall into the state of samsara.
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Liberation means that nothing can disturb you. If you can reach this state, then even if you remain in samsara alongside sentient beings, doing the very same things, you can still transcend the mundane world and still do everything with a mind that is selfless, non-abiding, and free of grasping. Otherwise, we fall into one mental trap after another, and their destination is samsara---endless samsara. So we must step out of the craving that manufactures samsara, for this is the very root of samsara. Whatever we crave, we manufacture a samsara related to it. Crave fame, and we manufacture a samsara of fame; crave gain, and we manufacture a samsara of gain. So long as there is craving and need in the mind, we will be controlled by that craving and need, and pulled by them onto the tracks of samsara.
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The renounced life is a way of living aligned with liberation. The key is that we must live it in accordance with the Dharma and the Vinaya. Only then can the renounced life become a contributory condition for liberation. If we live in the saṅgha with an ordinary, worldly mind, then this kind of renunciation has absolutely nothing to do with liberation. As monastics, we especially need to recognize the importance of liberation. Otherwise, we cannot become qualified monastics. For if our inner cultivation has not yet passed muster and our own problems remain unsolved, then there is naturally no question of outward teaching or benefiting others.
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{#三发出离心迈向解脱的根本}
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## Part Three: Generating Renunciation---the Foundation for Liberation
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Taking the path to liberation requires a powerful aspiration for liberation as our driving force, and that aspiration is renunciation. Though the concept of renunciation is familiar to everyone, how much do we really understand it? Do we truly recognize its importance? In fact, many people are quite hazy about this issue, and this is precisely the obstacle that prevents our practice from gaining traction.
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{#发心的重要性}
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#### 1. The Importance of Generating the Aspiration
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Generating an aspiration is of paramount importance in the course of practice. To generate an aspiration, in plain terms, means choosing what kind of mental state you want to develop. Our minds are composed of various mental states: among them, negative mental patterns such as greed, hatred, pride, and jealousy, as well as positive mental patterns such as compassion, a sense of conscience and shame, and kindness.
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Where do we live each day? Not, in fact, in the reality we imagine, but in this formless, invisible, and ever-shifting inner world. For example, whom do I like or dislike? What do I do or not do? Who is directing all of this? It is, in fact, the mind making its choices. Why do you like someone? It is the mental pattern of craving at work. Why do you want something? It is the mental pattern of possessiveness at work. And not only that---all of our actions arise from the mental patterns that correspond to them.
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In the daily morning and evening recitations, we always chant: "If one wishes to fully know all the buddhas of the three times, one should contemplate the nature of the Dharma realm: everything is created by the mind alone." This verse comes from the *Avatamsaka Sutra*, and it tells us that the workings of the mind ultimately give rise to the ten dharma realms. These comprise the four noble realms and the six ordinary realms: the former include buddhas, bodhisattvas, śrāvakas, and pratyekabuddhas; the latter include devas, humans, asuras, hell beings, hungry ghosts, and animals. All these life forms, and all their manifold distinctions, are not simply given by nature but are rooted in our different mental patterns. Awakening to buddhahood depends on it, and so does falling into lower states.
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Why can we awaken to buddhahood? Because all sentient beings possess the innate potential for buddhahood---the latent essence of awakening, also called buddha-nature. At the same time, however, life is also characterized by beginningless ignorance, by innate self-grasping and afflictions that, if left unchecked, will steer us toward the unwholesome paths.
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What directs the course of life is precisely those ceaseless, moment-by-moment thoughts. Every thought that arises leaves a trace in the mind, and through constant repetition these traces accumulate into habits. Habits become mental dispositions, which in turn develop into character, and character eventually solidifies into personality. The kind of mental disposition and personality you have determines the kind of life environment you will create. Thus, every mental impulse represents a life path, and following that direction will eventually give rise to an entire world.
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Regrettably, people tend to focus only on outer outcomes and overlook inner causes and effects. When we do something wrong, if we do not see immediate retribution, we harbor the hope of getting away with it and think it does not matter---we can do it again tomorrow. This is profoundly shortsighted. For the ālaya consciousness has faithfully recorded every detail of this information. As we repeat the act, the force it has built up in the mind grows stronger. We can well imagine: if what the ālaya consciousness stores is nothing but unwholesome information, what will the face of our life be, and what destination will it head toward?
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In society, many people stop at nothing to get things done, and in the process they ruin their own minds. The same happens in the Buddhist community. Because we do not understand how mental patterns operate, we fail to make wise use of the mind in our activities. Though we may accomplish the task, we have already strayed onto the track of the ordinary mind---attached to status, or to our undertakings, or to fame, recognition, and material gain. And when this happens, interpersonal conflict is unavoidable.
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We must realize that everything we do has two kinds of results: an outer result and a mental result. And the latter is far more important than the former. For the outer result is temporary, while the mental result is lasting and can shape the course of life for a long time. Do not assume that a misdeed simply passes once it is done. In fact, it forms a mental force within the mind. This is an unhealthy, negative kind of information, which from a psychological standpoint is the cause of mental illness.
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Buddhism holds that wholesome actions attract happy results, while unwholesome actions attract painful results. This happiness and pain are not only outer but inner as well. When a thought of compassion arises, the mind is open and gentle; when a thought of hatred arises, the mind is distorted and turbulent. These results are something we can feel and experience right here and now.
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If the power of a mental pattern is strong enough, it will cause physiological reactions and affect the health of the physical body. Some people tormented by afflictions suffer so much they even resort to self-harm or try to take their own lives. Why? Because their minds can no longer bear these afflictions, so they need the body to share the burden or to combat it by destroying the body. See, then, how astonishing this power can be. Where does such power come from? In fact, we ourselves continually indulge and grow it.
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So the aspiration we generate not only determines what mental state we develop but also determines what kind of personality we will form and what kind of destiny we will attract. This question is simply too important. And it is from this perspective that generating the right aspiration is the very foundation of practice. The root is the cause---if the causal ground is not true, the fruit will be distorted. If the seed is wrongly planted---if, for instance, we try to become a buddha out of greed or selfish motives---then there is absolutely no way to succeed.
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Whatever kind of mind we have will lead to a corresponding life result. This aspiration encompasses the initial motivation and also the attitude we bring to each present moment in the course of our work. Sometimes we genuinely begin an endeavor with a noble spirit of benefiting others, but as the work goes on, we gradually drift off course and stray into the track of the ordinary mind. This is extremely common. For the ordinary mind represents our primordial ingrained habits; unless we are constantly vigilant and make a deliberate effort to reverse course, we easily fall into the momentum already built up.
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{#正确的发心}
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#### 2. Generating the Right Aspiration
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The Buddhadharma tells us that there are two kinds of right aspiration: renunciation and bodhicitta.
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What we call renunciation is the aspiration to leave samsara. As we said earlier, we must not only leave the secular home but also leave the home of the five aggregates, the home of afflictions, and the home of the three realms. In this sense, renunciation is what helps us actualize the true meaning of leaving home. We need to ask ourselves: have we generated this powerful aspiration---I want to leave the secular home! I want to leave the home of the five aggregates! I want to leave the home of afflictions! I want to leave the home of the three realms! Without these aspirations, it is impossible to complete the practice of liberation.
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So why should we leave home? Why leave our families and enter the saṅgha? Because the most distinctive feature of secular life is that it is saturated with possessiveness. This possessiveness becomes a contributory condition for the ordinary mind and a contributory condition for samsara. What is samsara? Its root is the greed, hatred, and ignorance in our minds; its supports are the secular life to which we cling. Our clinging to relationships, status, self, and everything else---these are exactly the supports on which samsara is built. And by the same token, our clinging to the monastery and to our present identity can also become supports for samsara---this is something we need to be particularly watchful about.
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The purpose of leaving the secular home is precisely to remove these supports. If, after removing some, we add others in their place, samsara still will not stop but will proceed on its course as before. Some might ask: why must we leave samsara? Are there not many pleasures in it as well? Setting aside the bliss of the heavenly realms, even in the human world there is the joy of family harmony and the delight of professional success. The Buddhadharma tells us that in terms of sensation, human life is not pure, unadulterated suffering. Besides painful feelings, there are also pleasant feelings and neutral feelings that are neither painful nor pleasant. But we must recognize that these pleasures are not essential in nature---they are only surface appearances.
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This is why Buddhism maps these feelings onto three kinds of suffering. What we normally think of as suffering, Buddhism calls "suffering of suffering" (*duḥkha-duḥkhatā*)---pain experienced both inwardly and outwardly. What we normally think of as pleasure, Buddhism calls "suffering of change" (*vipariṇāma-duḥkhatā*)---though it brings happiness for the moment, this happiness is temporary, and as soon as the pleasant condition changes, it leads to suffering. As for what is neither painful nor pleasant, Buddhism calls it "suffering of conditionality" (*saṃskāra-duḥkhatā*): all conditioned phenomena flow and change, without a single moment of stability, and their final outcome is still suffering, not happiness.
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So we can see that there is no essential happiness in samsara. By "essential," I mean happiness that remains happiness whenever and for however long we enjoy it. Can we find such happiness anywhere in the world? Obviously not. What is more, all the happiness in samsara is built on delusion and karma and tied to our craving. Once we become dependent on it, this so-called happiness turns into a cause of suffering, and the problems multiply endlessly. Consider the conditions that have emerged in recent years---mobile phone dependency, email dependency, internet dependency---every one of them a human creation. Why would these tools that bring us such convenience give rise to illnesses? It is precisely because of excessive dependency. The deeper the dependency, the more severe the resulting condition.
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Conversely, if we reduce our craving and clinging to the world, that itself is the beginning of liberation. It is like a rope---the more we care, the tighter it pulls. But when we loosen our grasp, even though some past habitual patterns remain, we no longer generate new ones, and we no longer identify with them.
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The key to practice lies in clearly seeing the faults of samsara. Only when we see through them thoroughly can we give rise to a genuine aspiration for renunciation. People say that monastics have seen through the worldly dust and let go of all ties. Let us look into our own hearts: have we truly seen through? Have we truly let go? And after seeing through and letting go of that worldly dust, have we then grabbed hold of yet another kind of dust, this time bearing a Buddhist label?
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As followers of the Mahayana path, after we generate renunciation we must go further and generate bodhicitta. Many people set renunciation and bodhicitta in opposition, assuming that they represent two incompatible directions---world-transcending and world-engaging. In truth, renunciation and bodhicitta share the same goal: liberation. The only difference is that renunciation emphasizes personal liberation, while bodhicitta extends this aspiration for liberation outward, vowing to lead all sentient beings to liberation. Thus, renunciation is the foundation of bodhicitta, and bodhicitta is the extension and fulfillment of renunciation.
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{#四律仪生活迈向解脱的基础}
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## Part Four: A Life of Discipline---the Groundwork for Liberation
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The Buddha told us: the precepts are the foundation for rightly following the path to liberation. "Rightly following" means that the precepts serve liberation; they are the rules of the road that keep us traveling safely toward liberation.
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The precepts are also called "individual liberation" (*prātimokṣa*), meaning that every precept we uphold keeps us from falling into a corresponding habitual pattern, and thereby liberates us from the bondage that pattern creates. When we uphold the precept against killing, we do not fall into the habit of killing; when we uphold the precept against stealing, we do not fall into the habit of stealing; when we follow a life of simplicity, we do not fall into material craving. Thus, the true function of the precepts is to block habitual patterns, not merely to impose external restrictions. The roots of all unwholesome actions are none other than greed, hatred, and ignorance. By regulating our conduct with the precepts, we aim to stop the continuity of greed, hatred, and ignorance, and thereby stop the continuity of samsara.
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This power comes from the effect of the precept essence. What is the precept essence? It is the inner self-restraining force that guards against wrongdoing and averts evil, formed in the mind upon proper reception of the precepts. Endowed with this self-restraining force, when we encounter external conditions we will remind ourselves: this is to be done, this is not to be done. With each reminder and each act of practice, the power of the precept essence grows, eventually shaping a monastic character that accords with the Dharma, transforming us completely from a layperson steeped in worldly habits into a pure and dignified saṅgha jewel, consistent within and without.
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Before we left home, we were all laypeople who grew up in secular life. Now, to become qualified monastics, teachers and models for humans and devas, we need to undergo a process of being remade like a product. The means of transformation are precepts, concentration, and wisdom. Through upholding the precepts, we cultivate the outer image of proper Dharma conduct; through concentration and wisdom, we cultivate an inner bearing that is transcendent and free of worldly taint. This is the fundamental distinction between monastics and laypeople. Once we possess this quality, we will maintain composure in the face of the five desires and six sense-objects and will not be drawn into them. If we care about the same things laypeople care about, and pursue the same things laypeople pursue, then what separates us from them?
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So in what ways do the precepts align with liberation?
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{#简朴的生活}
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#### 1. A Life of Simplicity
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The early śramaṇas of India mostly lived by begging for alms and esteemed asceticism. They believed that desire is the root cause that prevents liberation, and that only by counteracting it with asceticism can one cut the root of desire. The ascetic practices they chose mostly involved tormenting the physical body---baking under the blazing sun, soaking in river water, living like cows or dogs, and so on---thinking that in this way they could drive desire out of the body. After the Buddha renounced the home life, he too underwent six years of asceticism, eating only one sesame seed and one grain of wheat a day, until his body grew emaciated, like a withered tree. But he discovered that this approach to practice was not ultimate and could not lead a person to liberation. So he abandoned those fruitless ascetic practices, accepted the milk gruel offered by the cowherd girl, and after his body recovered, sat in meditation beneath the bodhi tree for seven days, finally attaining perfect awakening.
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Does this mean Buddhism does not advocate asceticism? Not at all. What the Buddha opposed was merely the arbitrary, meaningless tormenting of oneself. At the same time, he consistently advocated a simple way of life marked by few desires and contentment, believing this to be conducive to liberation. When the saṅgha was first established, the Buddha directed his disciples to live according to the four reliances---always begging for food, dwelling at the foot of a tree, wearing rag-robes, and using medicine made from decomposed matter---a practice also known as the dhutaṅga. However, such an austere life was more than most could sustain through sheer determination. So the Buddha then instituted the three robes, allowing monastics to accept garments offered by lay donors. Later, he further allowed "one of each article," permitting disciples to possess certain daily necessities, but only one of each kind. That is to say, every item was for use, not for accumulation, so as to avoid attachment to material things.
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In addition, the Buddha stipulated that monastics should not settle permanently in one place after leaving home. During the Buddha's time, apart from the three-month rains retreat, monastics spent the rest of the year wandering freely in all directions, with no fixed abode. Master Hongyi exemplified this well, having lived in many different places over the course of his life. Why should we change our dwelling frequently? It is because once we stay in a particular place for a long time, we easily become attached to it, and settling down also gives rise to a web of interpersonal relationships. This attachment and these relationships, in turn, stir up all kinds of ordinary mental states.
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Some might feel that these rules are separated from us by a vast distance of time and space and may not suit the saṅgha of this place and this era. But we must understand that although the Vinaya manifests in response to causes and conditions and is shaped by specific regional features and historical contexts, every rule was established by the Buddha in light of human weaknesses. Therefore, we ought to look through these precepts and grasp the Buddha's painstaking intention, to understand the spirit behind the articles. The main reason ordinary beings fail to attain liberation is attachment. And attachment is tied to possession---the more we possess, the more attachments we build. Each attachment becomes an obstruction to liberation, a rope that binds us.
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During the Buddha's time, the saṅgha would also accept offerings of land, vihāras, and other assets from lay followers. As a community, it could be quite wealthy, but when it came to each individual monastic, the life remained simple and frugal. The Vinaya contains clear provisions on many details of daily life, such as the three robes and the one-of-each rule. Any extra belongings beyond that were considered excess articles, which could be kept for a specified period (seven days, ten days, or one month) and then had to be given away; otherwise, one would commit a forfeiture offense (*naiḥsargika-pāyantika*).
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For monastics take liberation as their goal and the transmission of truth as their mission. If they too become attached to material desires and preoccupied with managing their lives, that is clearly a fall---a fall from pursuing truth to pursuing worldly concerns, from pursuing liberation to pursuing samsara. We must remember: every possession can become an attachment, a latent obstacle to liberation. There is a famous Chan story about Master Jin Bifeng, a meditator of profound attainment who was nevertheless so attached to his alms bowl that even in deep concentration he could not let it go, and nearly got caught by the ghostly minions. Once he realized this, he immediately smashed the bowl to pieces, and from then on, he was free of all entanglements and left no trace. The Vinaya texts contain many similar accounts: some bhikṣus, fearing that their clothes would be taken after death, were reborn as snakes, worms, or spirits to guard the belongings they had used in life. How deluded, how pitiable.
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From another angle, the more we possess, the more time we must spend on everyday living, and correspondingly, the less time remains for practice. To help his disciples shut out distractions and devote themselves single-mindedly to the path, the Buddha established an entire system aligned with liberation that covers monastics' clothing, food, shelter, and interpersonal relations. That system is the Vinaya. Thus, the precepts are not the shackles that ordinary people take them to be. Quite the opposite---they represent a pure and dignified way of living, an all-around protection for the practitioner.
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{#民主的管理}
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#### 2. Democratic Management
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When the Buddha entered parinirvāṇa, he did not entrust the saṅgha to any individual disciple but instead established a system of democratic assembly. In the traditional Indian saṅgha, although the three key offices of elder (*sthavira*), rector (*karmadāna*), and temple director (*vihārasvāmin*) formed the core administrative layer, all major saṅgha decisions were made by common vote of the assembled monastics, based on the collective opinion. This system of saṅgha affairs decided by the saṅgha itself is grounded in the unique philosophical thought of Buddhism and is a concrete practice of selflessness and equality.
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After Buddhism was transmitted to China, it gradually shifted toward rule by individuals and emphasized the authority of the abbot. Yet in the traditional Chinese monastery, the abbot's primary responsibility was to lead the community in practice and provide moral and spiritual guidance; the actual administrative duties were carried out by an executive system composed of the prior and the senior seat, creating a structure of shared responsibility and mutual oversight. In more recent times, however, abbots have begun to show a drift toward totalitarian-style control. In many monasteries, even the smallest matters must be decided by the abbot personally. This has given rise to certain drawbacks both for individual practice and for the saṅgha's development. Some people spend their entire lives managing temples. Over decades, they unconsciously develop ingrained habits around this, pinning their life's value on these roles and building their cultivation goals on these positions. In the end, they feel uncomfortable when not in charge and may even feel a sense of loss, much like the retirement syndrome seen in society at large, which seriously disturbs their inner balance and calm.
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For a role can very easily become a support for the ordinary mind---"I am the abbot," "I am the Dharma teacher"---and then we cling to these identities as self, constantly reinforcing and attending to them, until attachment solidifies. Wherever we go, we carry these concerns with us and cannot let them go. Originally, participating in management is itself a practice of giving rise to bodhicitta, a task of benefiting oneself and others. But if our orientation is off, this very identity can become a huge obstacle to liberation. From another angle, identifying with and clinging to a particular status easily makes that status an object of pursuit, which then sparks contention and arouses greed and hatred. And indeed, such situations are anything but rare in today's Buddhist world. The result is that practice becomes the cultivation of "self," and the practice center is defiled into a marketplace of fame and gain. For this reason, monastics should not remain permanently in a particular identity or position but should rotate periodically. This can, on the one hand, lessen attachment to identity, and on the other, guarantee regular periods of quiet retreat.
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Since we resolve to seek liberation, we must match this resolve with a way of life that supports it. Otherwise, we may find ourselves manufacturing attachments every single day---attachment to identity, attachment to status, attachment to dwelling, attachment to relationships. And all these attachments are precisely the root cause that keeps ordinary beings from liberation.
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Thus, we must grasp the spirit behind the Buddha's establishment of the precepts and, relying on the Vinaya, build a way of life that accords with the Dharma and is pure. If we have not been reformed by precepts, concentration, and wisdom, then no matter how many years we have been ordained or what position we hold in the Buddhist community, we are still, essentially, thoroughly ordinary laypeople. For inwardly, our mind is still the ordinary mind; the quality of our life remains unchanged. We may wear the outer appearance of a monastic and take part in Buddhist undertakings, but all this only shows that our life has been tinted with a touch of Buddhism---or, perhaps, wrapped in a layer of Buddhist packaging. Beyond that, what else is there?
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{#五空性正见迈向解脱的关键}
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## Part Five: Right View of Emptiness---the Key to Liberation
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The core of liberation is right view and śamatha-vipaśyanā. Among them, right view serves as the eyes, the guide, and the standard for adjusting our mental patterns. Its function is to help us see clearly how samsara is manufactured, and how it can be dismantled. Then, through śamatha-vipaśyanā, we actualize right view in our mental patterns until it becomes a force of liberation.
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Long ago, the Buddha realized beneath the bodhi tree that the root of samsara is ignorance. What is ignorance? It is not knowing clearly---first, not seeing oneself clearly, and then not seeing the world clearly. Because of not seeing clearly, we begin to form mistaken assumptions about ourselves: this is self-grasping. Then we form mistaken assumptions about the world: this is grasping at phenomena. Because of these two forms of grasping, sentient beings give rise to delusion, create karma, and transmigrate through birth and death---this is the process of delusion, karma, and suffering.
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Living in ignorance, sentient beings seek and pursue according to their desires. Whatever they feel they need today, they consider the most important thing and feel they must possess it. It is like children who need games, or adults who need fame and gain---in truth, these are all the workings of a deluded mind, illusory and absurd. But because we do not see clearly, we chase after them. In the course of pursuit, we may get a small taste of pleasure. This pleasure makes us cling and linger---like getting one taste of sweetness and then, once it is gone, constantly thinking about it, waiting for another chance to taste it. And so, pulled along by delusion and karma, we exhaust ourselves in the chase. Only when we recognize the bitter essence wrapped in that little pleasure will we no longer be deceived by the illusions that samsara creates and no longer hold expectations of them.
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In fact, samsara is not a concept unique to Buddhism but a concern shared by all Indian religions. They differ only on how samsara operates and how liberation is to be achieved. Some took rebirth in heaven as liberation, others took the four dhyānas and eight concentrations as liberation. In his own quest for the Dharma, the Buddha visited the most renowned non-Buddhist teachers of India and practiced the four dhyānas and the four formless concentrations. But he discovered that none of these were the ultimate path to liberation. At last, through his observation of dependent origination, the Buddha realized that sentient beings innately possess the wisdom and virtue of the tathāgatas---that is, the capacity for self-liberation. So liberation is not about sending life into another dimension of time and space, nor is it a state reached only after death. The moment we unlock the essence of awakening within, liberation is right here.
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The Buddha told us: the truth of samsara is suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and selflessness---all contaminated phenomena are suffering. In other words, a life built on delusion and karma, in whatever state it may be, is always marked by suffering, impermanence, and ceaseless change. The self constructed within this samsara is not actually you; it is only a product of ignorance. Life continues amid a chaotic jumble of emotions and mistaken notions, without any real ruling force. If we take our present personality to be "me," that is what the Chan school calls "mistaking the thief for one's own child." That is why Chan asks us to investigate our "original face"---we must transcend our present thoughts to realize it, rather than searching for it within our existing personality. Only by breaking through this deluded system can we clear away the clouds and see our original nature in full.
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Once we truly understand these truths, we can first of all stop intentionally creating samsara; second, stop identifying with the mistaken ideas we have built up in the past; and third, stop following the habitual patterns those mistaken ideas have cultivated. These points may sound simple, but putting them into practice is no easy task, because the habitual patterns and mistaken ideas built up since beginningless time have long since become our masters. We need to employ right view and meditative practice so that the power of clear inner observation can come into play, thereby adjusting the mind from its distorted state.
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In this process, reflection is crucial. The middle member of "hearing, reflection, and cultivation" is precisely this reflection; the second factor of the Noble Eightfold Path is right intention (reflection); the "wise attention" in the four Dharma practices is reflection; the analytical meditation taught in the *Lamrim* is also a practice of reflection. Of course, all of this refers to reflection carried out in accordance with the right view of the Buddhadharma---wise reflection, not the ordinary kind of wandering thought. Only in this way can right view be firmly established, allowing us to progress from wisdom through words, to wisdom through contemplation, and finally to the wisdom of ultimate reality.
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{#六结束语}
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## Part Six: Closing Words
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As monastics, we must not only take the attainment of liberation as our goal but also shoulder the responsibility of upholding the Buddhadharma, transforming the world, guiding society, and benefiting sentient beings. How are we to fulfill these tasks? The true benefit lies in transmitting the experience of liberation. This is not only what sentient beings need; it is also a crucial support for our own practice. When we wholeheartedly dedicate ourselves to benefiting sentient beings, our self-grasping naturally weakens. Thus, the practice of benefiting others is also aligned with liberation.
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The Buddhadharma distinguishes between the Śrāvakayāna and the Bodhisattvayāna. From the standpoint of Śrāvakayāna practice, monastics are enjoined to minimize involvements and undertakings. From the standpoint of the bodhisattva path, however, we are enjoined to embrace many involvements and undertakings, striving to do everything that benefits sentient beings. Yet we must be aware that without a transcendent state of mind, many involvements and undertakings can easily entangle us in worldly affairs and even send us plunging headlong into the track of habit, stirring up the ordinary mind that lies within. This requires special vigilance. Some might say: in that case, isn't it safer to minimize involvements and undertakings? Why go looking for trouble? But we should know that for a practitioner of the bodhisattva path, an orientation of merely cultivating and liberating oneself runs counter to the Mahayana spirit. Therefore, we need to integrate both: on the one hand, maintain a world-transcending spirit and cultivate the capacity for liberation; on the other, embody the spirit of compassion and nurture the ability to benefit others. Like the Buddha, with wisdom, one does not abide in the three realms of existence; with compassion, one does not abide in nirvāṇa. Because of wisdom, one transcends samsara and dwells in liberation and ease; because of compassion, one actively engages the world and liberates sentient beings.
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iacore