Renunciation is the best way to isolate oneself from worldly dharmas.

The Buddha said in the sutras that even if a monastic sleeps all day long in the mountains, it is still better than wallowing in worldly dharmas. Why? Although sleeping all day is not cultivation, it also avoids being steeped in other worldly dharmas; gradually the mind's grasping at worldly dharmas diminishes, and finally one no longer thinks of worldly dharmas. At that point, if one reduces sleep, progress on the path will be swift.

This principle is the same as the situation of being reborn in the land of bliss (sukhāvatī) and dwelling inside a lotus palace. Inside the lotus, because one is isolated from the environment of worldly dharmas, there is no opportunity for such steeping; the mind's grasping will gradually be severed, evil thoughts gradually decrease, the seeds of evil karma will gradually wither, and once the mind-ground is purified, the lotus will open, and upon seeing the Buddha and hearing the Dharma, one can awaken to the Way.

This is the most clumsy method, but it is still better than evil steeping in worldly dharmas.

Therefore, no matter what kind of person it is, the Buddha will accept him into monastic life; even if he does not diligently cultivate after going forth, he can still reduce evil steeping. Back when the Buddha attained the Way, He persuaded everyone in His own family who could go forth to do so, regardless of whether they were married, leaving only His father Śuddhodana and one person who would inherit the throne. Among them, with His own cousin Ānanda, the Buddha used extraordinary means, tricking him into going forth. Because Ānanda was deeply attached to his wife, it would have been impossible to persuade him to go forth through normal channels, so the Buddha forcefully brought him to the monastery and did not allow him to return home—even his wife did not know. In the end, the Buddha took him on a journey to both the heavenly palace and the hells, and only then did Ānanda settle his mind on cultivating the Way. He did not return to lay life, and ultimately realized the arhat of the fourth fruit. This shows how important going forth is—that is why the Buddha used all kinds of methods to persuade people to go forth, painstakingly established the Saṅgha, and abided in the Sahā world to guide sentient beings with affinity into the gate of Buddhism.

In the Buddha's time, if a person with a wife and children wished to go forth, he did not need to divorce, nor did he need to seek the opinions of his wife and children; he simply gave his wife and children away to others, arranged for their future livelihood, and then went forth to cultivate the Way. Even if his wife and children did not live well in the new family, he would not return to lay life to care for them again—his resolve for the Path was extremely firm.

If someone wants to go forth but cannot, then there is no need to look for any excuse—there are no excuses to be found. One should still examine one's own mind: greed makes it hard to relinquish the worldly. This is the one and only reason, with no other.

We often hear people complain about how monastics do not cultivate, how they do not accord with the Dharma. But those who accord with the Dharma do not want to go forth, and those who cultivate do not want to go forth; if this portion of non-cultivating people also do not go forth, would the Saṅgha not be left empty? Where do monastics come from? They come from worldly dharmas. If all those outstanding people were not attached to the worldly and all came forth as monastics, then all monastics would be in accord with the Dharma, all would be cultivators, and the Buddhist enterprise would flourish. Nowadays, most people, as long as they can get by in the worldly realm, muddle along in it, grabbing whatever they can grab in the worldly realm; only those who have no way to grab anything anymore go forth. With this, how good can the monastery and Saṅgha possibly be?