Words From The Master - 08 April 2008

Renounce what you don’t have

A beautiful Zen story: Two Zen monks came to a river in spate. As they were about to cross, there came a young maiden who requested their help to cross the turbulent river. One of the monks without any hesitation lifted her in his arms and carried her across the river.

The monks then went on their way to a monastery nearby. After many hours the second monk exclaimed, “I am disappointed with you. You should not have touched that woman.” The first monk answered: ‘I put that woman down many hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?”

When you live in the present, you stop carrying the baggage of your past into your future, which guarantees misery. Many people come to me saying that they wish to renounce the life of a householder and become an ascetic, a sanyasin. They see the way I live in bliss all the time, and think that once they too don saffron robes they will be blissful. Not so. I tell them, renounce what you do not have; there is no need for you to renounce what you already have. I tell them, stop worrying about becoming a sadhu; a householder with no baggage on his spirit is far more likely to attain truth than a sadhu who has not still renounced what he does not have.

It is the desire for what one does not have: the dreams, fantasies and the deep desires, that lead us into trouble. These then are the first list of baggage that needs to be discarded. Buddha said: Desire is the root cause of all sorrow. The desire that Buddha talked about is the desire for what we do not already have, what we do not need, what we can do without; desires that are not our own, but are born out of greed, fear, lust and jealousy. There is no end to desire. There is none amongst us who can truthfully say that once we achieve what we desire today, we shall be satisfied. Tomorrow is another day and brings forth more desires than what we had yesterday. Desire breeds desire; desires are never satiated upon fulfilment.

For most people material life is the way to live. Renouncing material life in search of an unknown spiritual goal is foolishness. What is needed is to reach the balance between material life and spiritual life that leads to enlightenment. This is possible and certain. We should live in the present. Living in the here and now, in space and time, within the boundaries of our own being guarantees enlightenment. Meditation is the key to being in the present – it leads you into enlightenment and bliss.