Miscellaneous Discussions on Buddhism (Part One)
Chapter Six: On Leaving Home and Staying at Home
I. The Difference Between Leaving Home and Staying at Home
First, let us say what a home is and what the concept of home means. A home: first, there is a house where the whole family lives together; second, there are family members—parents, or a spouse, or children—who accompany one another and depend on each other; third, there is a shared worldly life, such as eating and drinking, daily living, entertainment, and so on; fourth, there is common property and material resources as the foundation of shared living, with channels of economic income; fifth, there are common life goals and rules.
When these conditions are combined together, they become a family. This applies only to the human realm of the desire realm in the Saha world, because the desires of sentient beings in the human realm are heavy and thick, and they need houses to cover their acts of sexual desire, to prevent others from peeping and being mocked. In the earliest human world of the Saha world, it was devas of the second dhyāna heaven who descended to the earth. Because they greedily ate the richness of the earth, their bodies became heavy and they could not fly back to the heavenly palace, and they had no choice but to remain living on the earth, becoming human beings. The earliest humans were devas of the second dhyāna heaven, and had no marks of male and female. Later, as humans multiplied, emotions arose among them, and they greedily loved one another, and humans then developed the marks of male and female. When these men and women engaged in acts of desire together, at first they avoided others, and only later did they build houses and gradually form families. With children from this point on, families came into being, and the home appeared.
It can be seen that the home cannot be separated from men and women, and cannot be separated from acts of sexual desire. If there were no acts of sexual desire between men and women, people would not form families, and there would be no children. The desire-realm devas, whose lust is slight, have no families; even the humans of Uttarakuru in the north have no families. All the devas of the form realm have no marks of male and female, no lust, and are all in meditative concentration (samādhi); they have even less in the way of families, and need not run about everywhere to support a household, nor need sources of income. Therefore it is said that the home applies only to the human realm of the Saha world, and the matter of leaving home exists only in the human realm of the Saha world. Where there is no family, the question of leaving home or not does not arise; moreover, since there is no need for sources of income and no need to run about supporting a household, such beings do not count as laypeople either.
The buddha-lands where Buddhas and bodhisattvas reside are all heavenly environments, even more sublime than the environment of the heavens. They have no marks of male and female, no worldly life, no need to toil for a living, no worldly enterprises—everything they do is for the benefit and happiness of sentient beings, all is buddha-work. Therefore Buddhas and bodhisattvas have no need to manifest a so-called "left-home" appearance like that of the human realm of the Saha world; there is no need to shave their heads bald and remove the threads of affliction—they have no afflictions; there is no need to wear the left-home clothing of the human realm of the Saha world. Their physical bodies themselves have no bondage, and neither Buddhas and bodhisattvas nor sentient beings attach to the mark of the physical body. Whatever appearance they manifest is a left-home appearance, not a lay appearance, because there are no lay affairs whatsoever.
We sentient beings of the human realm of the Saha world cannot be mentioned in the same breath as the Buddhas of the ten directions, nor with all the bodhisattvas of equal enlightenment and wondrous enlightenment, nor with the bodhisattvas of the ten bhūmis, thinking that the sentient beings of this evil world of the five turbidities need not manifest the left-home appearance, need not leave home, and are just the same as those who have left home.
In fact, for everyone living in this world, the difference between leaving home and staying at home is enormous. Laypeople are all burdened by worldly life and cannot extricate themselves; the limitations they face on the path of cultivation are very great. Many people are distressed by the burdens of worldly life and cannot devote themselves single-mindedly to cultivation. Even if they wish to leave home, they are held back by karmic conditions and cannot do so; some people leave home several times only to be pulled back by karmic conditions. This is the true situation of the human realm of the Saha world. We cannot ignore this reality and insist that being a layperson is the same as leaving home, with no difference. In fact the difference is very great. Each person can ask his own heart; one must not put a tall hat on oneself, claiming to be the same as those who have left home.
II. Leaving Home Is the Best Way to Isolate Oneself from Worldly Dharmas
The Buddha said in the sūtras that even if a left-home person sleeps all day long in the mountains, it is still better than wallowing in worldly dharmas. Why? Although sleeping is not cultivation, it also involves no perfuming by other worldly dharmas. Gradually the mind's grasping at worldly dharmas diminishes, until 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 those reborn in the land of bliss (sukhāvatī) dwelling in lotus palaces. Inside the lotus, because the environment of worldly dharmas is cut off, there is no opportunity for perfuming; the mind's grasping gradually breaks off, evil thoughts gradually decrease, and the seeds of evil karma gradually wither. Once the mind-ground is purified, the lotus opens, one sees the Buddha and hears the Dharma, and can awaken to the Way. This is the most clumsy method, but it is still better than the evil perfuming of worldly dharmas.
Therefore, no matter what a person is like, the Buddha will accept him into the left-home life; even if he does not cultivate diligently after leaving home, it still reduces evil perfuming. After the Buddha attained the Way, He persuaded everyone in His own clan who could leave home to do so, regardless of whether they were married, leaving only His father King Śuddhodana and one person who would inherit the throne. Among them, with regard to His cousin Nanda, the Buddha used extraordinary means, deceiving him into leaving home. Because Nanda was deeply attached to his wife, it was impossible to persuade him to leave home through normal channels, so the Buddha forcibly took him to the monastery and did not allow him to return home—his wife did not even know. Finally the Buddha took him on a tour of the heavenly palace and the hells, and only then did Nanda settle his mind on cultivation, without returning to lay life, and ultimately he realized the arhat of the fourth fruit. It can be seen how important leaving home is—that the Buddha used all kinds of methods to persuade people to leave home, and painstakingly established the saṅgha, abiding in the Saha world, to guide sentient beings with affinity into the gate of Buddhism.
In the Buddha's time, if a person wished to leave home and had a wife and children, he need not divorce, nor need he consult his wife and children; he simply gave his wife and children away to others, arranged for their future life, and then left home 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 Way was extremely firm.
If someone wants to leave home but cannot, then there is no need to look for any excuse—there is no excuse to be found. Rather, examine your own mind: greed makes it hard to relinquish the worldly. This is the one and only reason; there is no other.
One often hears people complain about how left-home persons do not cultivate, how they are not in accord with the Dharma. Those who are in accord with the Dharma do not want to leave home, and those who cultivate do not want to leave home. If this portion of non-cultivating people also do not leave home, will the saṅgha not be empty? Where do left-home persons come from? They come from worldly dharmas. If all those outstanding people did not cling to the worldly and all came to leave home, then the left-home persons would all be in accord with the Dharma, all would be cultivators, and the Buddhist enterprise would flourish day by day. Nowadays many people, if they can get along in the worldly, get along in the worldly; whatever they can grasp, they grasp in the worldly. Only those who have no way to grasp anything anymore leave home. With things like this, how good can the monasteries and the saṅgha possibly be?
III. Adverse Conditions May Perhaps Be Buddha-Affinity
The formal acts (karma) and confessions of left-home monastics together do not allow others to eavesdrop, and the content of lay bodhisattvas' confessions is not casually made known to others. This is to prevent the spread of evil dharmas and avoid causing bad influence. Some adverse conditions may perhaps bring about buddha-affinity; what should not be untangled should not be untangled. If it is untangled, the buddha-affinity will not come to fruition. This includes all kinds of illnesses—what should not be meddled with should not be meddled with; if you meddle, the person will not enter the gate of Buddhism, and those who enter the gate of Buddhism will not cultivate diligently. For those whose worldly affairs all go smoothly, how many can normally and smoothly leave home to cultivate the Way? For those with buddha-affinity, the more adverse conditions the better—then they can cultivate diligently with single-minded focus. If you remove their adverse conditions, they will instead no longer study Buddhism and cultivate properly.
