Many years ago a new meditator had an interview with Rosemary and she talked about the Ten Paramis during the interview. The retreatant got very exited. As you know we don't actually teach them in a regular retreat, so they got very exited during the interview and later on they wrote a note, saying, "Could you please write down the Ten Paramis, I would like to learn them." Well, it was my day to answer notes, so I answered it and I made a mistake. Instead of writing resolution, I wrote renunciation a second time. The next day they had an interview with me. They came in and they said, "I really want to tell you what happened yesterday when I received your note with the Ten Paramis on it, I was just so exited. I'd like to tell you what happened." I didn't know I had made a mistake.
So they started explaining, they looked at the first one and said, "Generosity, yes, yes, I could do more there. Morality, hmm, yes, I know I could do more there. Third one, Renunciation, and I thought, well, I don't know about this one, maybe the other one's are easier. Next, Wisdom, yes, good one. Next Energy, yes, that's fine, Patience, yes, yes, I need more Patience. Truthfulness, oh well, not as bad as Renunciation, they're all ok except Renunciation. What's next? Renunciation??!!?? Again??? Boy, does Steve know what I need!" Yes, all of you probably need more Renunciation.
What is it that we want to renounce? First of all you have to be careful about buying too many clothes, that's obvious. Any of you ever heard about the Filipino woman Imelda Marcos who had 1000 + pairs of shoes! She said, "Oh, but they are just gifts from the shoe companies." Right. So we have to be careful about how many clothes we buy. Do we really need that many clothes? Do we really need as many newspapers and magazines? These are little obvious things on a material level - do we actually need all those material things that we end up buying? That's one level of renunciation.
Renunciation of certain types of entertainment, do you really want to watch that violent movie? Can you renounce it? Do you really want to watch those TV shows for 3.5 hours a night or whatever it is for average people? Can you renounce it? There's entertainment to look at, as to whether or not you really need that or whether you can renounce it. There's renunciation regarding other types of entertainment, alcohol and drugs, to look at. Do you really need it?
Now when we're talking about all these areas, they are all external things that people grab onto in order to have happiness. They want more clothes to be happy, they want alcohol to be happy, they want to watch a movie to be happy. These are external things for happiness. As we develop more inner contentment, when we're happier inside, we don't want these things. We don't need these things. Granted we need clothes to a certain amount, but we don't need extras. When we're happier inside it's nicer to take a long walk instead of watching a violent movie. So these are outside things that are easiest to renounce in the sense that it's really not that hard. Look at them yourself. There's probably an area for each one of you to some degree.
Now more important than this is renunciation of anger in particular, and renunciation of jealousy and a lot of other mental factors. Can you renounce them or are you going to sit down and feed them sometimes? "Yes I can be angry, I should be angry, those people are jerks, blah, blah, blah..." Can we renounce anger, fear, jealousy and those things? So that's the mental level, that's on the inside. The more we renounce unbeneficial aspects inside, the happier and happier we become day by day. The happier we're on the inside, then of course it'll carry over that we don't need so much of the outside stuff.
Some people work from the outside first, some of the easy stuff, that's fine. Some people work from the inside first, and as they get more happiness then automatically they let go of the outside. It's pretty obvious, it should be obvious for all of you, that working on the inside is the most important area, because that'll cover both at the same time. If we only work on the outside area because we "should", and if we don't get it going on the inside, then it's always going to be a struggle.
There are a lot of monks that I have personally met, Western monks, who are having a lot of difficulties with the rules regarding in particular celibacy. Because they're actually not ready on the inside for it, and by trying to keep the outside rule, there're big struggles in many of them. Usually when they can't handle it well enough then of course they disrobe and then they're free to not worry about the celibacy factor and they're often, for many of them, more relaxed regarding it. But the inside work automatically will help outside work. Trying to force outside work on renunciation, does not always correct inside work. So that's a few ways to look at renunciation.