It’s Ango season, so while we are still a few weeks out; the Priests and Unsui are currently running around behind the scenes making final adjustments, updating links, cleaning altars and prepping for all the wonderful activities.
This time of year one thing that usually rolls around in my mind is Ango Commitments, what will I list in the forum as the something I’m going to give up.
The short announcement reads like this:
My first year, I decided to give up watching TV and making purchases that weren’t truly needed. I don’t think it went very well. I started making excuses for purchases, then reasons to watch TV, etc. Looking back, I don’t think I really understood why I was giving something up. So other Ango items took priority, and it fell by the wayside.
My dad is Catholic and every year practices Lent. Almost every year he gives up coffee; now it’s important to note my dad loves coffee… I would guess he drinks a pot or so a day (I mean we don’t count because it would scare you.) But every year he drinks his last cup for 40 days sometime in Feb and makes his way through those days without. It’s a running joke that anyone he works with is happy when Easter finally passes and they celebrate with good coffee all around on Monday.
For years I would call my dad on Ash Wednesday and ask if he was giving up coffee that year, and what he drank that morning. (Yeah I’m an awful daughter sometimes, but it’s all out of love.) Last year, I finally asked, “Dad you do this every year. You know you can give it up and make it; so why do you keep doing it?” He said, “I give it up every year so I will remember each day how fortunate I am and that I should be grateful every day.”
That really struck me, and last year when Ango rolled around it changed my perspective on “Giving up something you love”. There is a term in Buddhism that isn’t used a lot in Zen schools, renunciation. It’s defined as “the formal rejection of something, typically a belief, claims or course of action.”
But beyond that definition; is the act of renunciation meant for much more? In my mind it is a way to create perspective. To examine the things we have that bring us joy and our relationship with them. Do we cling to them so tightly that going without them for a short time is impossible or do we grasp them lightly experiencing what they bring us, enjoying them for the moment they are and releasing the grip once it passes?
I read this blog post from Gesshin Greenwood recently, http://thatssozen.blogspot.com/2019/...unciation.html (sidenote: I have not read the book, so I have no comments on it.)
The post had this quote inside which really stuck with me:
For me this quote is very much two-fold. First, is that renunciation isn’t really about giving up the things you cherish. For example, it isn’t about not drinking the coffee, or not watching TV. But instead it is about changing your perspective on these things.
Often, we talk about examining things, looking for the truth in things. The act of renunciation is the same process. We take something that we love, that we won’t want to do without and then we examine our relationship with it closely by getting rid of it for a time. How does the perspective of that activity or thing change with that examination?
As Gesshin says in her blog, “I believed I could will myself to renounce. But renunciation comes from understanding, not force.”
So for me the point of the practice is to develop a greater understanding of myself and why I do the things I do. As I think about what to give up with year, I realized that the “give something up” commitment isn’t meant to be a self-help checklist. It is meant to be an examination that helps us change our perspective on things.
To that end I debate the following, is giving up something that I want to give up the same as giving up something that I want in my life? For example, if I gave up ice cream because I was allergic to dairy and really shouldn’t be eating it anyways. Will it cause the same examination of the relationship and shift in my gasping? Or would the examination of something that I intend to go back to after Ango allow for a better examination of my clinging?
What do you think?
Gassho,
Shoka
PS- Here is a longer article/discussion on the practice of Renunciation. It is a panel style article, with four priests from different traditions. It is interesting to see the different perspectives on the practice.
This time of year one thing that usually rolls around in my mind is Ango Commitments, what will I list in the forum as the something I’m going to give up.
The short announcement reads like this:
Give-up Something: Commit to give up one or two items or passions one truly loves during the Practice period, for example, sweets after meals, luxurious meals, cigarettes, television, consumer purchases of luxury items.
My dad is Catholic and every year practices Lent. Almost every year he gives up coffee; now it’s important to note my dad loves coffee… I would guess he drinks a pot or so a day (I mean we don’t count because it would scare you.) But every year he drinks his last cup for 40 days sometime in Feb and makes his way through those days without. It’s a running joke that anyone he works with is happy when Easter finally passes and they celebrate with good coffee all around on Monday.
For years I would call my dad on Ash Wednesday and ask if he was giving up coffee that year, and what he drank that morning. (Yeah I’m an awful daughter sometimes, but it’s all out of love.) Last year, I finally asked, “Dad you do this every year. You know you can give it up and make it; so why do you keep doing it?” He said, “I give it up every year so I will remember each day how fortunate I am and that I should be grateful every day.”
That really struck me, and last year when Ango rolled around it changed my perspective on “Giving up something you love”. There is a term in Buddhism that isn’t used a lot in Zen schools, renunciation. It’s defined as “the formal rejection of something, typically a belief, claims or course of action.”
But beyond that definition; is the act of renunciation meant for much more? In my mind it is a way to create perspective. To examine the things we have that bring us joy and our relationship with them. Do we cling to them so tightly that going without them for a short time is impossible or do we grasp them lightly experiencing what they bring us, enjoying them for the moment they are and releasing the grip once it passes?
I read this blog post from Gesshin Greenwood recently, http://thatssozen.blogspot.com/2019/...unciation.html (sidenote: I have not read the book, so I have no comments on it.)
The post had this quote inside which really stuck with me:
Bhikku Bodhi explains, "real renunciation is not a matter of compelling ourselves to give up things still inwardly cherished, but of changing our perspective on them so that they no longer bind us. When we understand the nature of desire, when we investigate it closely with keen attention, desire falls away by itself, without need for struggle."
Often, we talk about examining things, looking for the truth in things. The act of renunciation is the same process. We take something that we love, that we won’t want to do without and then we examine our relationship with it closely by getting rid of it for a time. How does the perspective of that activity or thing change with that examination?
As Gesshin says in her blog, “I believed I could will myself to renounce. But renunciation comes from understanding, not force.”
So for me the point of the practice is to develop a greater understanding of myself and why I do the things I do. As I think about what to give up with year, I realized that the “give something up” commitment isn’t meant to be a self-help checklist. It is meant to be an examination that helps us change our perspective on things.
To that end I debate the following, is giving up something that I want to give up the same as giving up something that I want in my life? For example, if I gave up ice cream because I was allergic to dairy and really shouldn’t be eating it anyways. Will it cause the same examination of the relationship and shift in my gasping? Or would the examination of something that I intend to go back to after Ango allow for a better examination of my clinging?
What do you think?
Gassho,
Shoka
PS- Here is a longer article/discussion on the practice of Renunciation. It is a panel style article, with four priests from different traditions. It is interesting to see the different perspectives on the practice.
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