Renunciation

To recieve something, we have to first empty our hands and then open them. Many times, they are full or we simply just refuse to open them and would just complain that no one gives us anything.

The world speaks to us constantly, we do not realise it. That is where renunciation is needed. Renunciation does not mean turning our backs to the world and all that we know, our parents and our friends. Renunciation is simply giving up our greed, anger and delusion. When we renounce our opinions and our thinking, the world directly contact us and everything becomes clear. In Chinese renunciation is 出家 literally translated as 'leaving home'. Home is a place that you know or stay. Somewhere you are familiar with, a place of comfort. Our minds, our thoughts, our opinions, our methods, our preferences, that is our home, our world. Our world is created by the mind. So renunciation or leaving home, is an act of courage, an act to step out into the world as it is, and not living in the warped vision of the world that we have. It is an act of leaving trash behind, not attaching to these trash and steeping out, moving on. However, are the things which were left behind included in the real world that you are stepping into? Of course, the world encompasses everything. So by stepping out, renunciation, you are not truely leaving anything behind. You are just seeing things as they are, in the same world, encompassing all.

That is why, it is said that renunciation is enlightenment. Giving up, emptying and opening is receiving.

--lessons and thots from reading No beginning, No end. The Intimate Heart of Zen by Jakusho Kwong Roshi