Few Buddhist practices are as profound as “leaving home” (Sanskrit: pravrajita), the deliberate act of stepping away from conventional life to follow the path of the Buddha—leaving behind the comforts of family, living in accord with the dharma, and serving the sangha. And yet, in our modern world, that can look a bit different from that of Buddhism’s ancient roots. What does leaving home mean today?
A History of Leaving Home
To better understand leaving home as practiced in present-day America—and specifically in Soto Zen Buddhism, my own lineage—it’s important to keep in mind a few key developments.
Since the time of Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, around 2,500 years ago, leaving home has been the defining feature of the monastic path. A newly ordained monk or nun would leave their family and possessions behind and set out into the world to seek enlightenment. But this was not just a physical departure. It was an abandoning of worldly attachments and the duties of household life. The primary focus was on renunciation: cutting one’s ties to worldly desire, living with minimal possessions, and dedicating one’s life to the study, practice, and teaching of the dharma.
This practice evolved significantly with the introduction of Buddhism to Japan. From the earliest days of Japanese Buddhism, various state powers went to great lengths to exert control over the growing religion. One key measure was the refusal to allow the Vinaya Pitaka, the monastic code set forth by the Buddha, to be adopted. This decision would have lasting consequences centuries later, particularly during the Meiji Restoration, when, in 1868, the imperial government passed a series of laws aimed at weakening Buddhism’s influence, attempting to secularize the religion. Four years later, in 1872, an edict allowed monks to marry, amongst other measures meant to undermine the religion’s standing, in what is now seen as a global feature of Buddhist Modernism across Asia. Without the guidance of the Vinaya Pitaka, many monastics took advantage of this new opportunity, resulting in a blurring of the lines between monastics and the laity.
Around the late 19th century, Japanese immigrant laborers brought Buddhism to the United States, with the majority identifying as Jodo Shinshu Buddhists, following a tradition that stressed the experience of ordinary laypeople over monastics. By the 1950s and early ’60s, Buddhism began to flourish on America’s West Coast thanks in part to the teachings of Zen and Shin philosophers like D. T. Suzuki and Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, as well as the British Buddhist evangelist and Beat Era icon Alan Watts. While embraced by many in the US, Buddhism simultaneously encountered a cultural landscape already deeply shaped by Christianity, with both Protestant and Catholic conceptions of clergy and monasticism influencing the broader religious context.
Today, the landscape of dharma practice in America is vast and varied. There are training monasteries, Zen centers, small community zendos, online sanghas, and everything in between. One of the unique contributions of American Zen Buddhism, prefigured in its historical development, has been the gradual blending—some might say erosion—of the boundary between monasticism and lay practice. While many monastics still leave home to train in monasteries, they also often marry, have children, own homes and cars, and hold jobs outside of their roles as Buddhist clergy. This leads to the seemingly paradoxical situation where home-leaving often doesn’t mean actually leaving home.
My Own Journey
My decision to become a Zen priest was not always evident to me. (“Priest” here is a translation of the Japanese word “bozu,” which is one of several words applied to those who leave home. It’s also often translated as “monk” or “nun.” In the English-speaking world, people often refer to Japan’s married male monastics as priests to distinguish them from celibate monks, but in Japan, there is no clear-cut distinction. Unlike in the Catholic Church, in Japan, the difference between priests and monks is largely semantic and can frequently be open to interpretation.)
Even just five years ago, I would never have imagined the shape my life would later take. And yet, I had long been dissatisfied with my work, and so had been gradually disentangling myself from the householder’s life. I’d bought a modest car with cash, refrained from purchasing property, and had generally stayed away from romantic relationships.
At the time I was considering becoming a schoolteacher, but part of me knew I had found my true calling in Zen. While one can never quite feel ready for such a significant life change, as my leaving home ordination drew near (or shukke tokudo in Japanese, “leaving home and attaining the way”), the idea of leaving home and taking up the monastic life became more and more compelling.
It’s quite easy to take refuge in impermanent things, like closets full of forgotten belongings, but once one lets go, an incredible lightness remains, like dropping a weight you hadn’t realized you’d been carrying.
My only hesitation was leaving my son behind in Michigan. He was 19 and a half when I left, so no longer a child, and with my leave, he went to live with his mother, half-sister, and maternal grandparents in a big house in the woods. While I was able to steel myself against the loneliness, it was the absence of the incidental encounters that cast the longest shadows on my heart: no longer bumping into him in the kitchen, not hearing his footsteps at night. But in this connected world, no one’s terribly far away. We often catch up and hang out on Discord, as long as there isn’t a retreat going on at the temple.
Finally, in February 2024, shortly after taking my home-leaving vows, I quit my job, gave up my apartment, and donated most of my belongings. And yet, in spite of my Zen training, this was a difficult process. It’s quite easy to take refuge in impermanent things, like closets full of forgotten belongings, but once one lets go, an incredible lightness remains, like dropping a weight you hadn’t realized you’d been carrying.
With my belongings put away, I placed what remained in my car and set off for the Nebraska Zen Center in Omaha. They had recently launched a program to help train newly ordained Zen priests in running a local center. To me, it seemed almost too good to be true.
Training in Nebraska
People often ask me what it’s like to run a Zen center, and I tell them that it’s a lot like putting on a play every week, where you’re the lead actor as well as the head writer, whose job it is to write a monologue from scratch each time. What’s more, you also live in the theater, and the theater simultaneously serves as a community center, where all sorts of programs and projects and meetings are going on all week long. Lastly, I tell them that running this theater is the best job you’ve ever had and that every moment, no matter how hectic (or peaceful, because it’s often incredibly peaceful), is an absolute joy.
The Heartland Temple at the Nebraska Zen Center has its own rhythm, and the Sunday service is its beating heart. Every Sunday, the sangha gathers together to meditate, chant the sutras, and listen to a dharma talk. Right there you find all three jewels: the Buddha, the teacher; the dharma, the teaching; and the sangha, the community of practitioners.
However, much like in a Zen monastery, the temple’s daily rhythm is shaped by the morning and evening meditation periods: up at 5:00 a.m., to bed at 9:00 p.m. Outside of that, there’s a lot of flexibility in how I fill my days. At first, I was a bit intoxicated by such an open schedule. I didn’t plan my days out and just floated like a cloud from task to task. This was nice in theory, but I ended up overextending myself. So I returned to a modified monastic schedule. This tried-and-tested routine is important for balancing meditation, daily responsibilities, and adequate rest. In addition to morning and evening meditation, the schedule includes meal times, rest periods, temple cleaning, checking emails (running a temple requires a lot of emailing), temple upkeep, maintaining relationships with the sangha, and community outreach.
A single kind word can spread from person to person, ricocheting throughout the world
And although I do my best to stick to the schedule, the job of a Zen priest never really stops. I often find myself in conversation with sangha members about the joys and sorrows of their lives, and the emotional and karmic journeys that brought them to the center. Emotions don’t follow a strict timetable, so it’s not unusual for a conversation to stretch an hour or more on an odd Sunday afternoon or Tuesday evening. What an honor it is to see this side of people and to share my own twisting path through the dharma with them.
One of the most important things to keep in mind is that everything done at the temple is for the benefit of the sangha. In a more immediate sense, this means serving the people who come week after week to meditate, chant, and ask questions. But in a broader sense, it’s done for the benefit of all beings. And it’s not just the obvious activities I’m talking about. It even extends to something as simple as waking up early and going to bed on time. Even that is done for the sangha. I need to be well-rested and alert for morning meditation, to have a clear, focused mind when engaging with the sangha, and to remain mindful of myself while facing the challenges of each day.
Teaching, communication, and living the dharma extend far beyond the temple. While activities like food drives directly impact the community, what might not be so obvious is the influence of living in peace and extending compassion to everyone we encounter. This is karma that reverberates throughout space and time. A single kind word can spread from person to person, ricocheting throughout the world: If you take the time to listen to a loved one this morning, that may inspire them to speak more kindly later to a coworker, which could help that coworker be more patient with their children in the evening, and so on and so on. This is the dharma in action. This is how we live and teach at the temple.
The Reason Why
And that is ultimately why I left home. It wasn’t an easy decision to give up my old life and live on the goodwill of the sangha, but I couldn’t overcome my dissatisfaction with the dusty lay world. A dissonance rose up within me, preventing me from fully embodying my vow to live for the benefit of all beings.
And yet, truth be told, the Zen center is not the end of my journey. I’ll be heading off to the monastery soon to take part in an ango, a three-month-long intensive meditation retreat. These summer rain retreats have been taking place since the time of the Buddha. Where I’ll go after that, I do not know. I’m drifting like a cloud from place to place and pooling like water at the feet of the many teachers I find along the way.
Like the Zen monastics before me, I reside somewhere between a householder and a monastic. In the West, we often look to figures like Vimalakirti, the householder-bodhisattva, who outshone even the Buddha’s top monastic disciples. He taught that the path to full awakening is available even to those deeply enmeshed in the concerns of the world. Which is partially where I find myself, but also partially in the realm of renunciation. And for a Zen practitioner, this liminal space is comfortable and intimate. It allows great freedom of movement and practice. Although I own a few more things than the monks of old—I handle money and drive a car—I also feel incredibly free and at peace, more so than I ever have before.
When I left home, I told my son I would wander for a year or two and then return. Well, I’m coming to the end of the first year, and another year seems just about right. After that, I’ll likely settle down, whether at a temple, monastery, maybe even back at a regular day job, but knowing that a life can be lived so unencumbered will always be a true refuge.