Full Simplicity: The Art of Renunciation and Letting Go

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Full Simplicity: The Art of Renunciation and Letting Go. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Kim Allen at The Sati Center in Redwood City, CA on September 02, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Full Simplicity: The Art of Renunciation and Letting Go

It's a delight to be here and have a chance to speak with all of you. I thought I would go in little segments and try to talk through the main topics of the book. Obviously, we can't cover quite everything, but I really want to hear any questions or comments that you have along the way. There might be some natural break points for that. I certainly don't want to talk the whole time; I hope we'll have something a little bit more engaging than that.

This book here—some of you probably already have it, but this is what it looks like. There's also an e-book version if you prefer not to kill the trees. I would say that it emerged from a long-time interest in, for lack of a better way of saying it, how laypeople can live something that approaches a monastic lifestyle. Obviously, there are major differences and there isn't an exact parallel there. I don't want to talk too much about that distinction or try to set up some kind of comparison and contrast. But it was more of an internal feeling of being drawn to a simple lifestyle, a renunciate lifestyle—one that creates conditions in life that support optimally being able to practice the Dharma, walk the path, and let go of what needs to be let go of in order to find freedom.

How we each accomplish that is a very individual thing. I saw people doing it as monastics and others doing it as laypeople. That's an abiding interest of mine: how we can really deepen the Dharma, especially in Western culture where it's not as established or simply folded into the national understanding.

The book luckily doesn't try to accomplish all of that in one shot, but it really began as a deep dive in the research area of what the term nekkhamma^[1] really means. The word nekkhamma is usually translated as "renunciation." We'll talk about that translation choice in a moment. But I wanted to understand more about what this idea means. What was the Buddha saying when he used that term, which he does fairly frequently in his teachings? So I did a literal search on the Pali Canon and read all the suttas that explicitly use that term. I read them in English, of course, after I searched the Pali to make sure I got them all.

I read all the suttas that explicitly use this term and let them steep in my mind, and I found that they had some sequence to them. The first part of the book is my sequencing of all these suttas that explicitly include the word nekkhamma. Of course, there are many other suttas that have that concept, that idea, or that flavor to them, but I was just looking for the ones that actually use the word. It's interesting to note that the other Dharma terms most closely connected with nekkhamma are things like wisdom, happiness, faith, and freedom. So it's maybe not what we expect from the English term "renunciation."

Just a couple of quotes that stood out for me give this flavor. From the Anguttara Nikaya: "There are these two kinds of happiness. What two? Sensual happiness and the happiness of renunciation. Of these two kinds of happiness, the happiness of renunciation is the foremost." It states right up front that this is a better kind of happiness. And then from the Dhammapada, which is always delightful: "Even the gods envy the awakened ones, the mindful ones, the wise ones, who are intent on meditation and delight in the peace of renunciation." So again, we see a very high status and sense to this word.

Does the English word "renunciation" quite capture the flavor of how it's held up in the suttas? Probably not. If we just say that word, there are many ties to austerity or to other religious ideas that may create a sense of drawing back or not quite understanding what the term refers to. It doesn't seem like it would point toward wisdom, happiness, and faith. And yet, I haven't found a better single word to translate nekkhamma, because it fits the actual experience pretty well.

The actual experience of nekkhamma is to release, to let go. There are many other words that also mean letting go, but this is one specific form. In Buddhist practice, letting go is always accompanied by lightness, ease, and some form of peace. Often we're letting go of things that we didn't want to let go of; our ignorance and clinging didn't want to release them, so there is resistance. But when it finally releases, we see that the mind has managed to renounce something it thought it needed.

In the end, I like the word well enough. Since there isn't a better single word, I've decided to embrace it. I put it in the title of my book and in the titles of all the courses I teach about this. I unabashedly use the term to make sure that people who show up are okay with it, and it seems to work out well enough. After all, you're all here! Everybody here is okay with the word renunciation, unless you came to object to it. [Laughter]

If we can get over the baggage of the word and focus more on the experience of it, then I think it's quite good. In contrast, the other kind of happiness—sensual happiness—is likened to terrible things in the texts. It's likened to a dog gnawing on a meatless bone, not getting any satisfaction from it. Sensual pleasure is likened to going against the wind with a torch, or parading around with borrowed goods that don't belong to us until the owner sees us and takes them back, which is an embarrassing experience. It is also likened to living in a dream world, so it's very delusional. Each of these captures some of the flavor of the disadvantages associated with that real but lower kind of pleasure.

Once we see this contrast between renunciation and sensual happiness, the mind wavers a little bit. Especially as laypeople who haven't given up as much, there's a sense of, "What's wrong with these things that I enjoy?" There are some interesting suttas about that, too. The Buddha says that even he found this non-intuitive at the beginning. He talks about how he was attached to youth, life, and health, and didn't initially see that renunciation would be peaceful because of his enjoyment of these aspects of life.

There's another quote that's even more direct, where the Buddha talks about the time before his awakening: "Even I myself, before my awakening, when I was still an unawakened bodhisattva, thought, 'Renunciation is good, seclusion is good.' But my heart did not leap up at renunciation, didn't grow confident, steadfast, or released, seeing it as peace. The thought occurred to me, 'Why is it that my heart does not leap up at renunciation? I have not seen the drawback of sensual pleasures. I have not cultivated that insight. I have not understood the benefit of renunciation. I have not familiarized myself with it.'" Even the Buddha-to-be had to go through an active process of understanding the drawbacks of common pleasure and the real benefits of the pleasure of letting go.

If the Buddha had to do that, we are probably going to have to do that too. It's okay that we have questions like, "What is wrong with this?" or "What's so great about letting go?" These are explorations to be done in our own experience.

Where does nekkhamma appear most commonly in the suttas? Probably the clearest place is in the second step of the Eightfold Path. It is one of the three wise intentions: the intention of letting go (renunciation), along with non-ill will and non-cruelty. It's placed alongside the impulse to care, to be kind, and to be compassionate. If you look in other suttas, you see that it's not only intention, but it's also thought (vitakka) and perception (saññā). All of those are linked to renunciation being a skillful state.

I decided to call this the "attitude of renunciation." It's not a Pali phrase, but it captures the idea that we can cultivate thoughts, intentions, and perceptions of being able to release things. We can walk through the world with this attitude: How can I let go here? It's just like walking through the world with an attitude of metta: How can I help here? How can I be kind? This is a radically different way of being in the world. It’s incredibly helpful. If you get into a discussion where you think you're right and the other person is wrong, you can remember, "Oh right, I have this attitude of letting go. Maybe this is a moment to let go of my attachment to being right." It comes up with our preferences; letting go of them when appropriate really smooths things out.

The first part of the book explores how nekkhamma appears in the suttas. I set the three sections of the book up based on the three kinds of wisdom: the wisdom of hearing (taking in conceptual understanding), the wisdom of contemplation (reflecting on how this applies to our path and life), and the wisdom of experience.

If we're going to look at letting go, we also have to look at desire. How do renunciation, desire, and letting go fit together in the bigger context of the teachings? The Buddha had a lot to say about desire, as it's a big deal for humans. I introduce a paradigm where I break down desire, since the English word is a bit too broad and vague. We want to understand the different types of desire so we can distinguish the helpful ones from the harmful ones rooted in taṇhā^[2] (clinging and grasping). I came up with five different kinds of desire.

At one end, we have desires that are obviously harmful—the realm of taṇhā, addiction, thirst, and grasping. We know what it feels like to have lust for power, sex, or food go overboard to the point of harming our lives and relationships.

Another kind of desire includes basic needs associated with having a body: literal hunger, thirst, needing to go to the bathroom, wanting to put on a sweater when you're cold. Having a body brings in desires, and you don't get over those when you wake up. The less we've walked the path, the more dukkha^[3] potentially comes from these natural bodily desires.

The third kind includes all desires related to living a human life beyond basic bodily needs: the desire for a community, a family, a job, living in a suitable place, having access to food we like. For laypeople, this is a big area of push, pull, wanting, and struggle. The Buddha directed a lot of his teaching here because we defend these desires as absolutely necessary, yet he asked us to question how firmly we need all these things and how much cost they come with.

A lot of people live in that realm, but then we can move into desires that might serve us: the desire to meditate, to learn the teachings, to improve our ethics, to communicate better. These are aspirations or inclinations that serve us well. Laypeople often ask teachers, "Desire is supposed to be the cause of suffering according to the Second Noble Truth. What about the fact that I want to meditate?" And teachers explain that there are different kinds of desire, and it's okay to have these wholesome aspirations. The Buddha knew the human heart is full of wanting, so he used that to incline us toward skillful desires.

I place the wish to awaken in a separate fifth category because it is so powerful and important. When it arises, it often feels different from the other skillful desires.

As we refine our understanding of desire, we realize that letting go is actually what moves us along the path. Transitioning from worldly desires—having a good job, family, or house—toward wanting to improve our ethics or learn to meditate involves a certain letting go. We have to release our fascination with worldly desires to cultivate more refined ones. We see an interesting trade-off: to aspire toward something greater, we must let go of something less refined. The Buddha stated this in the Dhammapada: "A wise person will let go of a lesser happiness to attain a greater one."

We start to see that there are many types of letting go. Renunciation is a volitional release, a deliberate turning away. Eventually, we begin to feel a non-volitional kind of letting go emerge. We use effort to create certain conditions in the mind and life, and then we wait—and something eventually comes in and releases on its own. The Visuddhimagga says it's wisdom that does that job, but it is no longer personal effort. Renunciation sets up a resonance with these deeper forms of letting go. We gain confidence through releasing what we can volitionally, and then the heart takes over and helps us release things we didn't consciously know how to let go of.

In the third part of the book, we look at how nekkhamma plays out in practice experientially. When laypeople undertake practices of letting go, there are foundational values required: valuing simplicity, mindfulness, and discernment. Renunciation can be done skillfully or unskillfully. If we let go in a way that is evocative of aversion, denial, or extreme austerity, that is unskillful. Impulsively throwing half your stuff into the dumpster might just be aversion and agitation.

Valuing simplicity as a guiding principle helps us decide what to let go of: we let go of things that complicate our lives. Having less physical stuff is simpler. Having less mental activity—rumination and speculation—is also simpler. I use the opening lines of the Metta Sutta^[4] as a guideline for this: "Let them be able and upright, straightforward and gentle in speech, humble and not conceited, contented and easily satisfied, unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways..." Imagine the ease of just being straightforward and gentle in speech without playing games to look good in someone's eyes.

Simplicity of mind doesn't mean you stop thinking carefully or organizing. It means getting rid of the unnecessary layers—the speculation about what others are thinking, the endless reviewing of our calendars to plan for maximal comfort. Releasing all of that actually enables the mind to have a deep understanding of the Dharma.

Once people have this foundation, renunciation practice plays out in three arenas: the material realm (having less stuff), the mental realm (letting go of complicated storylines, papañca^[5], and habits), and the realm of identity, which is the deepest.

I run courses where laypeople do experiential renunciation practices. These are framed as learning explorations, never as a pass or fail. In the material realm, I might ask people to clean out a closet and give away anything not used in two years. In the mental realm, people might try giving up complaining for a few weeks. In the realm of identity, we practice classical approaches to training the perception of not-self.

The insights people share from these exercises are profound. One person cleaning out old journals realized their true value had been in the doing, not the keeping. Another noticed, "What's in my closet says something about how my mind works." People trying to give up complaining discovered a compulsive quality to their thoughts—a sign of taṇhā. They found that once they became mindful in the middle of a complaint, they couldn't just stop it because it had a compulsive grip. Watching the mind fall into a view or storyline is a fascinating process.

Eventually, people saw how these mental patterns build identity. One participant noted, "Upon seeing or hearing something, I would run straight into papañca and selfing, making these things all about me." This habitual selfing is powerful and hardwired, but stepping away from it feels like relaxing a fist into an open hand.

Over the long term, renunciation leads to less need to enact it as an intentional practice. The mind naturally learns to let go. In the suttas, when the mind is fully awakened, renunciation remains as a naturally present value. The monk Sona, upon declaring his Arahantship^[6], stated that his mind was intent upon renunciation because he was completely devoid of lust, hatred, and delusion. It is a natural posture of an awakened mind.

In the final section of the book, I describe the "contemplative life" for laypeople. A lay contemplative is someone who studies the early Buddhist teachings and dedicates their life to the Dharma. This usually means stepping away from conventional pursuits like making a lot of money or gaining high status, and finding alternative livelihoods.

There are three pillars that underpin a lay contemplative life: renunciation (which counters greed), care/compassion (which counters hatred), and wisdom (which counters delusion). These three are mutually reinforcing. The more we let go through simplicity, the more space we have to care for others, and the greater wisdom we have to appropriately balance our lives.

Q&A

Question: What are the five other things that people are intent on upon awakening?
Kim Allen: I'll refer you to the sutta, it's AN 6.55. They're all good, but the very first one is renunciation.

Question: I am imagining a talk about climate change and simplicity. To what extent have you taught that or would you teach that?
Kim Allen: You've pointed to the most obvious application for this attitude in the world. We simply have to be using less in the West; our footprint is way out of proportion. More subtly, it is incredibly valuable to know that there are forms of happiness not limited to the material world. Sensual happiness is always limited—if I eat an apple, you cannot enjoy that same apple. But the good feeling of being honest in the world is infinite in supply. It doesn't get in the way of anyone else's happiness. If people don't know that deeper happiness exists, they will grasp onto sensual pleasures. The Buddha himself said, "If you don't know any other kind of pleasure, of course you'll be attached to sensual pleasures."

Question: A participant in your course mentioned that "Dharma practice has thinned out the habits." I am slowly realizing that the practice is paying off—I still have the habits, but they seem to be thinning out.
Kim Allen: Thank you for highlighting that. It starts out feeling thick, dense, and entangled. It's not that one day it is suddenly all gone; it is a gradual thinning out, a fading away (virāga^[7]). Because it's such a tangled mass, we only release a little piece at a time.

Question: Renunciation scares the heck out of me! I feel like I'm stuck in the addiction category and can't see myself letting go. Is it possible to focus on loving-kindness and wisdom instead, since renunciation is so scary?
Kim Allen: You're not alone! The Buddha noted 2,600 years ago that for some people, the idea of renunciation feels like standing on a precipice. Doing the other practices, like the heart practices (metta), builds a staircase down that cliff so it doesn't seem like a terrifying drop-off anymore. They all lead to the same place eventually. Start where you can.

Question: SN 27.1 says, "A mind imbued with renunciation is declared to be capable of directly knowing anything that can be realized." Could you explain that?
Kim Allen: Here, nekkhamma is being used as the attitude of renunciation. Sometimes in meditation, the mind is sharp and clear, and you feel, "If I could just see a little bit farther, something could release." If the mind has the willingness to let go—rather than "I want to see farther"—it enables the mind to actually see things. Having the willingness to release interest in any of the sense doors is what allows direct knowing.

Question: I have renounced certain past things, like addiction to anger, but it still shows up in small, subtle ways. With alcohol, if a thought came up, I forcefully threw it out. Do I treat these subtle things the same way, or just be mindful?
Kim Allen: With strong substance addictions, we have to be very strong. But the subtler forms just indicate that the root is still in the mind, and it will be for a while. Seeing it helps a lot. The tendency of the mind toward grasping doesn't go away completely until the third stage of awakening. Joseph Goldstein defines renunciation as "non-addiction." Are we addicted to anger? Are we addicted to dukkha? We can recognize it as an addiction if the mind keeps returning to it compulsively. Seeing it clearly and understanding the suffering it brings is what helps the heart finally release it.

Question: I have a question about the use of technology. Getting a shed designed online took me two weeks of researching and contacting people. It takes so long that I get frustrated. How can I get away from that compulsion without failing to do my due diligence?
Kim Allen: You've zeroed in on technology being a massive area of compulsion, which is exactly why people give up their phones on retreat. I point back to the Metta Sutta's instruction on simplicity of mind. The practice is discerning how much time you can spend researching something while remaining clear, before the mind gets agitated and tense. Spread it out, limit the time, and discern how much you really need to do.

Question: I recognize the need for renunciation, but I don't know where to start. I feel caught because when I try to let go, my mind clings to the idea of "I need to let this go," and then I am "working on" letting go, which feels like the wrong approach.
Kim Allen: I would love to eliminate the phrase "work on" from Dharma practice, because it just brings in more clinging! We think, "I have this problem, now I need to work on it." But in practice, sometimes you just sit and follow your breath for 20 minutes a day, and three months later you realize you are less angry at work. You didn't "work on" anger at all, but something changed. Start by observing how your mind operates and investigating where your dukkha is. Understanding where things feel sticky, entangled, and complicated is a great thread to start pulling on.