Renunciation, we're talking about letting go in a different way, we're renouncing something. Now, I don't know about all of you, but many if not most of you have stopped alcohol and drugs, renounced them. We let them go, we're saying, "I'm not going to have that any more". It's a type of renunciation.
Now - anger. Can you renounce anger? If you can renounce it to one hundred percent, you're partly enlightened. That's great. So I imagine that most of you have not renounced it one hundred percent, let's say all of you. But can we try to renounce anger? Can we say, "I don't want it any more"? Now, the reason why most of us have renounced alcohol and drugs is that we have actually seen it's not happiness. It's not going to produce everlasting happiness, it actually creates more Dukkha in me, therefore I don't want it any more. I understand it's Dukkha; I let go of it because of that. Can I understand that anger is Dukkha? Can I then say, "I don't want it any more"? That type of renunciation is even greater than renouncing alcohol and drugs.
Now, monks and nuns take on certain vows - they don't have many clothes, they don't eat in the afternoon, they don't have sex, there are quite a few other things they take on as vows, as rules within their ordination process. They're renouncing certain things for a period of time. That doesn't actually mean they have really let go of it inside yet. On the outside, yes they have, on the inside maybe they have, maybe they haven't. I've seen people who had been monks, yet after being a monk, they drank alcohol. So even though they were able to let go of it while they were a monk they were not able to let of it inside for a long term renunciation.
So when we look at the word renunciation it's not the outward form that's most important, we're going to look at the inside. As to your possessions, how much do you need? If somebody saw how many shirts I have they would think, "Why does Steve have so many shirts?" That's what I personally think when I open the door if I'm not thinking very clearly. Why do I have so many shirts? Because I wear white ones in the Wat and I have colored ones out of the Wat, because otherwise people see my passport that's underneath the shirt. So I have dark ones for outside the Wat and white ones for in the Wat. So basically I have twice the amount of shirts that I need. Not just that, but to make sure that people don't get too upset in the retreat, especially new meditators, I have clean shirts that I wear for the retreat. I have stained shirts that I wear in between retreats, when I'm doing dirty work. So I not only have the white shirts and the dark shirts, I have two types of white shirts. But inside, it's not really important to me. So the renunciation factor inside - I only need a handful of shirts, that's fine, wherever I go it's really only a handful I use. In retreat I use a handful, out of retreat I use a handful, when I travel it's just a handful that go in my suitcase.
So, even though a person may have a lot, inside they may have actually renounced more than a person who has a little. So this is very interesting, too. One of the most famous people in the scriptures is a man named Anathapindika. A millionaire, probably a billionaire by today's standards. When he met the Buddha he was a billionaire, after meeting the Buddha he was partly enlightened. Yet he stayed a billionaire. He stayed a billionaire until he died, but he was partly enlightened. Inside he had renounced, he was using all that money to help people. He was the one who provided soup kitchens, unemployed people got money, he hired everybody in, and he was like the whole social security system of the area. But he couldn't stop making money, it was like his businesses were just that way. I have no idea really what he did, but even when he was totally broke at one time, because he had done so much good merit, money came to him automatically, but he kept giving it away. So outwardly people would see Anathapindika living in luxury, but he was partly enlightened and inwardly he was not attached to the luxury.
So this is also important when we think of the word renunciation. How much we have renounced is really on the inside, how much we've let go. We're not always able to tell from the outside.