Loneliness: Rhinoceros-Horn Sutta from a Lay person's perspective How can a lay person benefit from this beautiful sutta? It is about being reclusive as a key for good insight and enlightenment.

Does this sutta apply for short period of loneliness like Retreats? Or should it be taken literally and is only for monks?


  "Laying aside all violence, respecting all beings,
   never harming even one of them,
   one should not wish for a son,
   nor neither for any companion.
   One should wander solitary as a rhinoceros horn.
  ...
   The considerations which exists for sons and wives is like
   a spreading bamboo entangled, a solid web of bars,
   Like a single young bamboo shoot up free, not caught up with others
   One should wander solitary as a rhinoceros horn."


Khaggavisana Sutta
According to Chogyam Trungpa, loneliness is the heart of Sila, Buddhist discipline. As such, the spirit of loneliness must permeate one's practice, whether one is ordained or not. Critically important at "hinayana-level", loneliness temporarily steps aside for the Mahayana phase, only to return with Vajrayana, this time to stay.

Loneliness begins with making commitment to the spiritual quest:


  The refuge ceremony cuts the line that connects the ship to the anchor; it marks the beginning of an odyssey of loneliness. We are
  suspended in no-man's land in which the only thing to do is to
  relate with the teachings and with ourselves. 


In terms of actual practice, loneliness translates to following guidelines:


Not looking for entertainment in any shape or form.
Giving up one's need for companionship, for relationships.
Relying on one's own resources, not waiting for help.
Taking a stance, however suboptimal, without confirming it with an external authority all the time.
Working towards one's goal (Enlightenment), instead of giving the entropy a free hand.
Learning to trust one's fundamental goodness.



  A lonely person could still relate with other people. You could be lonely, alone, and living in the midst of society at the same time. Aloneness does not mean you have to be a mountain hermit.


This loneliness -- the feeling that no one is going to descent in a golden chariot to take you to Nirvana, help you, or even acknowledge your existence, and that therefore your Enlightenment is on you and you alone, is solely between you and the universe -- is what eventually develops into wakefulness, or Bodhi.