一、This Concept Is About
Most people, when they first hear *chūlì xīn* (出離心), imagine something like giving up — becoming a monk, leaving the world, looking down on desire. Some imagine depression, some imagine hedonism's opposite, some imagine a stoic shrug. Almost none of these readings capture what the classical sources actually mean.
In the *Lamrim Chenmo* (《菩提道次第廣論》, Tsongkhapa's *Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment*), 出離心 is defined with surgical precision: 希求解脫之心 — "the mind that seeks liberation." That's it. Nothing about shaved heads, nothing about monasteries, nothing about hating life. The whole concept turns on what "liberation" means and what one is seeking liberation *from*.
What "liberation" actually means here
Liberation (解脫) is not freedom from a single bad day, a bad relationship, or a bad year. It is freedom from a specific mechanism. According to the *Lamrim*, what binds beings to saṃsāra (生死, the cycle of birth-and-death) is two forces working together:
- 業 (karma) — volitional action that has been performed and stored - 煩惱 (afflictions) — the inner afflictions: craving, aversion, delusion, and their countless offshoots
By the power of these two, a being "結成蘊身並相續受生" — appropriates a body-and-mind made of the five aggregates (五蘊) and is reborn again and again in the three realms (三界), the five or six realms (五趣 / 六趣: gods, demigods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, hell beings — the classical texts use both numbers, depending on whether Asuras are counted separately), and through the four kinds of birth (四生: womb-born, egg-born, moisture-born, spontaneously-born). This *continuation of the appropriated aggregates* (結蘊相續) is the actual texture of bondage. Liberation is release from this continuation.
This is the first thing to keep clear: 出離心 is not "I want my life to be nicer." It is "I want this whole cycle of being-thrown-into-a-body-and-suffering-and-throwing-into-another-body-and-suffering-again to stop."
The decisive point: 解脫 is not natural cessation
The *Lamrim* makes a philosophical point that most people skip past, and that most popular accounts of Buddhism also miss. Liberation is not the natural moment-to-moment passing away of conditioned things. Everything that arises already passes — a thought, a feeling, a breath, a life. If mere passing were liberation, no practice would be needed, and everyone would already be free.
What liberation actually targets is future continuation: the arising of *another* body, *another* round of aggregates, *another* birth. So long as the antidote (對治) has not arisen, 业 and 烦恼 remain potent and will keep producing fresh 结生相续 (continuation of rebirth). Liberation is the moment when, through the force of the antidote, this future continuation is stopped.
This distinction matters enormously in practice. It explains why meditation, ethics, and study are not optional add-ons but the very mechanism by which future suffering is interrupted. It also explains why a person can have a perfectly pleasant life and still lack 出離心 — pleasant or unpleasant, the cycle continues.
煩惱 is the deeper root
Here's another point the *Lamrim* hammers home: of the two binding forces (业 and 烦恼), 烦恼 is the primary target, 业 is secondary. The text states: 「若無煩惱，縱有多業亦不受生；若有煩惱，即使沒有宿業，也能迅速重新造集業。」 — "If there is no 烦恼, even vast accumulated 業 will not produce rebirth; if there is 烦恼, even without past 業, new 業 is quickly accumulated."
This means: a being without 烦恼 is a closed door. Karma piles up outside, but no new body is built. A being with 烦恼 is an open door. Even a small amount of past karma becomes the seed; even if there is none, new karma is rapidly manufactured by the active afflictions. Therefore 出離心 — the mind seeking liberation — directs its fire at destroying the 烦恼, not merely at "purifying" past karma.
The two faces of 出離心
出離心 is not one-sided grimness. It has two structural faces, and both are required:
- 厭捨三有 — weariness, repulsion, even a "nausea-like" turning-away (如欲嘔吐般的厭患) from the three realms. This is the face of having genuinely seen the harm of saṃsāra — its impermanence, the smallness of its pleasures against the vastness of its harms, the way all five (or six) realms are cooked by the three sufferings. - 欣樂欲得出離解脫 — a joyful, eager *desire* for liberation. Not flat acceptance, not grim resignation. A leaning-toward, like someone thirsty leaning toward water.
A person who only feels the weariness and has no joy in the seeking has not yet generated full 出離心 — they may simply be depressed. A person who romanticizes liberation but feels no real weariness with saṃsāra has only conceptual 出離心 — it's a word in their mouth, not a posture of the heart.
The *Lamrim*'s simile is exact: a northern child, sick of every form of turnip (蔓菁), wanting only the fried noodles (炒麵) his family once had. The child does not hate *food* — he is starving for one specific thing. Likewise, the practitioner does not hate *experience*; they have seen that every form of worldly pleasure, no matter how dressed up, is still saṃsāra, and they want out. No more turnips, no matter how prettily arranged.
Where 出離心 sits in the path
The *Lamrim Chenmo* organizes the entire Buddhist path into three scopes (三士道): the small scope (小士道, focused on better rebirth within saṃsāra), the middle scope (中士道, focused on liberation for oneself), and the great scope (大士道, focused on full Buddhahood for the sake of all beings).
出離心 is the defining mental posture of the middle scope. It is the heart of what one cultivates after seeing that even a good human or heavenly rebirth is still inside the cycle, and that the cycle itself is the problem. Without this heart, one can practice ethics, meditation, and wisdom — and these will produce good rebirths, not liberation.
Crucially, the *Lamrim* is explicit that 出離心 is not opposed to compassion (悲心); it is the foundation for it. The text states: 「若在自己身上思惟生死中的總別諸苦，便成為引發出離心之因；若在其他有情身上思惟同樣的苦，則成為引發悲心之因。」 — contemplating suffering on *oneself* generates 出離心; contemplating the same suffering on *other beings* generates 悲心. And: if 出離心 has not actually arisen first, the cultivation of great compassion cannot reach its crucial point. A bodhisattva who has not first generated 出離心 is building a mansion on sand. This is why, in many traditional presentations (for instance, Śāntideva's *Bodhicaryāvatāra* / 《入菩薩行論》, which the *Lamrim* draws on), the opening meditations are precisely about the fearful nature of saṃsāra — not because the bodhisattva hates beings, but because they have to be honest about what is happening to all of them before they can vow to help.
This is also why 出離心, despite the word "renunciation" in English translation, is not a Hīnayāna-only concept. Both Śrāvakas (聲聞, the "listeners" or personal-liberation-oriented disciples) and Bodhisattvas (菩提薩埵, those vowed to full awakening for all beings) generate 出離心. The Bodhisattva simply generates it *without* setting it as the final goal. The 出離心 is the very motor that drives them to seek the complete liberation that alone can help every being effectively.
二、Lived Walk-through: 出離心 in the Day
Let's map the classical mechanism onto ordinary contemporary life — phone, desk, partner, child — strictly by the classical definition, and flag where popular readings go wrong.
Scenario 1 — Late-night doomscrolling
You're lying in bed. The plan was sleep at eleven. It's now 1:40 a.m. You have scrolled through news, arguments, outfit pictures, hot takes, three different controversies. You know you should stop. You cannot stop. The next video, the next post, the next little hit of certainty or outrage or comparison.
Mapping by classical categories: - 業 (karma): The volitional acts performed during scrolling — clicking, reading, mentally arguing with strangers, half-consciously agreeing to advertisements, the bodily posture maintained, the breath held shallow. - 煩惱 (afflictions): The actual drivers. The thirst for novelty (a form of craving/貪欲). The anger or contempt at the bad takes (a form of aversion/瞋恚). The half-formed belief that *if I just get enough information, I'll be okay* (a form of delusion/癡). The comparison with others' curated lives (嫉妒/嫉妒的近亲). The subtle pride of being informed (慢). - 結蘊相續 mechanism: The being on this bed is being-thrown-into-another-moment-of-being-thrown-into-another-moment... Each moment of scrolling produces a small karmic imprint and a small strengthening of the 烦恼 that *fueled* the scrolling. None of these imprints, taken singly, looks dramatic. But together, they constitute the "結成蘊身並相續受生" that the *Lamrim* is pointing at. Not in some distant life — *tonight*. The appropriation of *this* body, *this* night, *this* consciousness-stream continues.
Where 出離心 would land: The classical two-face. First, 厭捨 — not hating the phone, but clearly seeing that the entire field of "what the phone offers me at 1:40 a.m." is still saṃsāra. News of conflict, the dopamine of outrage, the warm fuzz of someone agreeing with you, the small pleasure of feeling informed — all of it, every flavor, is turnip. The 北地孩童 has tried enough forms of the root. Second, 欣求 — a real leaning-toward liberation. Not "I want to be a better sleeper" — that's a better-turnip wish. Rather: "I want the underlying mechanism — this pattern of being hooked by something external — to be genuinely unwound."
Where the common mis-mapping goes wrong: Many self-help framings treat this as a *habit* problem ("just use a screen-time app"). The Buddhist diagnosis is sharper: it's not that you have a bad habit; it's that the 煩惱 of craving-for-novelty-and-certainty is fully intact and the screen is a delivery device for it. A new habit won't reach the root. The root is what 出離心 is actually pointing at.
Scenario 2 — The career ladder, or "I'll be okay when I get there"
You're thirty-five or forty-five. The next rung is in sight — promotion, the bigger title, the option package, the chance to be at the table. You are working sixty hours a week, sleep-deprived, your chest tight on Sunday evenings, your relationship thinner than you'd like. But there's a story running: *once I get there, I'll have margin. Once the equity vests. Once the kid is in school. Then I'll live.*
Mapping: - 煩惱: 貪 (craving for a future state that is imagined as solid and self-satisfying), and a quiet 癡 (delusion) about the future — imagining it as stable when, classically, every conditioned thing is 剎那不住、滅壞無常 (momentary, impermanent, decaying). The promise-of-future-pleasure being used as fuel to keep grinding. - 業: The volitional acts performed under the spell — the emails sent at 11 p.m., the missed dinners, the tone of voice with your partner that is technically polite but is not actually present. - 結蘊相續: The mechanism here is particularly clear: *the future I'm chasing is a future birth-in-this-life*. A new position, a new identity, a new body-of-responsibility. The being on this side of the promotion and the being on the other side are, in classical terms, two different appropriations of aggregates, and the bridge between them is built by 業 propelled by 煩惱. The *Lamrim* is not interested in whether the bridge is to a fortune-500 company or to a heavenly rebirth — the mechanism is structurally identical.
Where 出離心 lands: 厭捨 — clearly seeing that the future-being-okay-that-I-am-imagining is itself saṃsāra. Even if it arrives, it will pass, and I will be back where I am now, with another rung to chase. 欣求 — not "I want more leisure" (a nicer turnip) but "I want to understand and undo the mechanism by which I am forever reaching for the next borrowed body of experience."
Mis-mapping to watch for: Many people reframe this scenario as a "values clarification" problem — *just clarify what matters!* That is a useful exercise, but it is not 出離心. You can clarify values and still be running on 貪 for a different, more ethically-shaped future. 出離心 goes one step further: it questions whether *any* future-self-as-goal is the structure of release.
Scenario 3 — Conflict in an intimate relationship
A small fight escalates. You know the pattern: someone feels unheard, the other gets defensive, both retreat, both feel abandoned, both re-engage with sharp edges. The cycle has happened before. You can predict the next move.
Mapping: - 煩惱: 瞋 (aversion/hurt) and 癡 (delusion about the other as a fixed enemy, and about "self" as a fixed entity being attacked). Also implicit 貪 — for things to have gone a certain way, for the other to be a certain way. - 業: The harsh word, the silent treatment, the sarcasm, the stonewalling — each a small volitional act. These are real karma. They will produce results. They will not be neutralized by insight alone, but they cannot be neutralized without 煩惱 being addressed. - 結蘊相續: The "結" here is palpable: two people appropriating a shared emotional body that repeats. The conversation is its own kind of aggregate-continuation.
Where 出離心 lands: Here is where the popular reading goes most wrong. 出離心 is not "I should leave this relationship" (world-rejection = a different turnip). It is not "I should transcend the relationship by being above it" (spiritual bypassing). It is: clearly seeing that the entire dynamic — my hurt, my defensiveness, my expectation, the other's patterns — is saṃsāra in miniature. All of it: the good moments and the bad, the love and the resentment, the past and the imagined future, the personality I think I am. 厭捨 is not disgust at the person. It is the genuine turning-away that comes from recognizing: even the best version of this cycle is *still* this cycle. 欣求 then is the wish that *something in the mechanism be actually different*, not rearranged.
Mis-mapping to watch for: "I'm so done with this" said in anger is the wrong kind of 厭捨 — it's aversion in costume, and aversion is one of the 煩惱. True 厭捨 is closer to a quiet, clear seeing. It does not have adrenaline in it.
Scenario 4 — Parenting anxiety
Your child is struggling — socially, academically, emotionally. You are awake at 3 a.m. running scenarios: what if this, what if that. You are trying to control the uncontrollable. You love your child and the love itself has become a vehicle for 煩惱.
Mapping: - 煩惱: 貪 (for a particular outcome), 瞋 (against the present reality that is not matching), 癡 (delusion about controllability and about the child-as-fixed-entity-with-a-fixed-future). - 業: The well-meaning interventions that, fueled by anxiety, become over-control. The withdrawn presence. The "helpful advice" that is actually for the parent's own relief. - 結蘊相續: The appropriation of "parent-of-struggling-child" as an identity to maintain. This identity needs continual karmic feeding — vigilance, worry, intervention — to keep being itself.
Where 出離心 lands: 厭捨 = clearly seeing that even the most loving parent who exhausts themselves in vigilance has not touched the underlying problem. The love itself is being used as fuel for a mechanism that keeps producing more worry, more fixing, more exhaustion. 欣求 = the wish for the mechanism to be transformed, not the situation. (The classical texts are explicit that 出離心 does not mean not loving one's child; it means *how* one loves being transformed.)
Mis-mapping to watch for: "Detachment" in the colloquial sense — going cold, withdrawing emotionally, deciding not to care — is *aversion* in disguise, not 出離心. Genuine 厭捨 of the cycle can co-exist with full engagement with the child. It just stops running on the parent's 煩惱-fuel.
Scenario 5 — "Treat yourself" consumer culture
You had a hard week. The algorithm has noticed. There is a small luxury purchase, a trip, a meal, a wardrobe addition. You feel the pull: I deserve this. I have earned this. The pleasure is real. It also evaporates.
Mapping: - 煩惱: 貪 in its most contemporary costume — the sensation of deserving, the small boost to self-image, the idea that the future-self-after-purchase will be more okay than the present self. - 業: The act of purchase, the supporting beliefs spoken internally, the comparison with others. - 結蘊相續: The endless loop of self-as-consumer-who-must-be-comforted, which is itself a small identity being appropriated, again and again.
The classical point, made sharp: The *Lamrim* notes that worldly pleasures have 利益微小而損害重大 — small benefit, great harm. The benefit of the purchase is a few hours of mild elevation. The "harm" is not moralistic — it is structural: every round of this loop strengthens the 煩惱 that drives it, and so conditions the next loop. This is precisely the "結成蘊身並相續受生" mechanism operating in a $9.99 subscription box.
Where 出離心 lands: Not "I must not enjoy things" — that would be aversion. Rather, clearly seeing that even when the turnip is delicious, it is still turnip, and the child is still sick of turnips.
A note on what all five scenarios share
Notice: in every case, the 煩惱 is active, in the present, structuring the experience. The 业 accumulates *around* it. And the *Lamrim*'s punch-line applies universally: remove the 煩惱 and the whole chain is interrupted, even if 业 remains. Remove only the 业 and the 煩惱 will simply manufacture new 业. This is why 出離心 is fundamentally directed at the heart's posture, not at behavior-modification.
三、Why Contemporary People Need It
It is reasonable to ask: the classical presentation of 出離心 comes from a monastic culture in 7th-century Tibet and earlier India. Does it translate? My argument is that the contemporary situation has actually *intensified* the conditions 出離心 is the antidote to, in ways the classical authors could not have predicted.
The architecture of distraction has been industrialized
Classical saṃsāra had its distractions — markets, festivals, families, entertainments. But a person in classical India or Tibet had genuine periods of unstimulated mind: walking a road, sitting by a fire, working in a field. The contemporary situation is different. The smartphone, the algorithmic feed, the notifications, the infinite scroll — these are not merely distractions, they are machines designed to optimize engagement by feeding 煩惱. Every "you might also like" is a small machine for 貪. Every outrage headline is a small machine for 瞋. Every conspiracy theory is a small machine for 癡 (delusion presented as clarity).
This is not to say that technology is evil. It is to say that, in classical terms, the contemporary person is swimming in a higher-density stream of 煩惱-stimuli than any previous generation. Without a corresponding counter-practice — without 出離心 as a posture of the heart — the stream wins. The classical prescription has therefore become, in some sense, more necessary, not less.
Hedonic treadmill as 結蘊相續
Modern psychology has documented the hedonic treadmill: humans return to a stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events. This is, in classical terms, exactly the 結蘊相續 mechanism operating within a single lifetime. The "better job" promised relief; it delivered a brief spike, then baseline. The "perfect partner" promised relief; delivered a brief spike, then baseline. The dream house. The dream body. The dream vacation. Each appropriates a new "body" of experience; each, in time, requires a new one.
Without 出離心, a person can spend an entire life chasing the next body of experience, never noticing the mechanism. The classical account simply puts sharper language on what is now a well-documented human pattern.
"Wellness culture" can be the opposite of 出離心
It is striking that contemporary wellness culture, despite using vaguely Buddhist vocabulary, often functions as a more sophisticated form of the same mechanism. "Be present" becomes a productivity hack. "Detach from outcomes" becomes a strategy for getting more outcomes. "Inner peace" becomes a lifestyle accessory next to the yoga mat and the weighted blanket. These are better turnips. They can even temporarily reduce the heat of 煩惱. But they leave the underlying mechanism intact.
This is why a strong, classical 出離心 is needed now more than ever: it is the only posture that refuses, at the root, the entire game of re-arranging the cycle while calling it escape.
出離心 is the prerequisite for genuine compassion
It is fashionable in some contemporary circles to skip 出離心 and go straight to "loving-kindness to all beings." The *Lamrim*'s diagnosis is unflinching: this does not work at depth. Why? Because a person who has not genuinely seen the harm of saṃsāra in their own case is operating on a sentimental compassion that has not yet felt the actual stakes. Compassion that is not backed by 出離心 can become:
- Performative ("I'm a kind person") - Naive ("everyone is basically fine") - Burned-out ("I tried to help and they didn't want help") - Passive ("the world is painful so I'll just feel sad about it")
The *Lamrim*'s logic: only when I have genuinely seen that I myself am in a burning house does my wish to help others out of *their* burning houses become real, action-worthy, and not just emotional. And then, from that real compassion, the great scope of the bodhisattva path opens up — not as an escape from 出離心, but as its natural flowering.
This is why 出離心 is the necessary foundation, not a stepping-stone to be discarded.
四、Common Misreadings and Clarifications
Misreading 1 — "出離心 means leaving the world (出家 / going to a monastery)"
Clarification: Etymologically, *naiṣkramya* does mean "stepping out / going forth," and in early Buddhism the term is closely related to *pravrajita* — the formal "going forth" into monastic life. But the *Lamrim* is explicit that 出離心 as a posture of the heart is not identical with monastic robes. A layperson with strong 出離心 is practicing the heart of the middle path; a monastic without 出離心 is wearing robes over an intact mechanism of saṃsāric craving. The order of priority is heart first, form second. Conversely, the form (monastic life) can be a powerful support for the heart, which is why it has been preserved for 2,500 years. But it is a support, not the thing itself.
Misreading 2 — "出離心 means depression, world-hatred, or nihilism"
Clarification: This is perhaps the most common Western misreading, fed partly by images of "the gloomy Buddhist" in popular culture. Three points against it:
First, 出離心 has two faces, 厭捨 *and* 欣求. Pure gloom has no 欣求 in it. Pure gloom is the loss of one of the two faces — and is therefore closer to the 瞋 (aversion) that 出離心 is meant to *cure*, not produce.
Second, the "disgust" is therapeutic, not nihilistic. The *Lamrim* uses the language of nausea-like weariness (如欲嘔吐般的厭患). This is a clinical metaphor: when the body has ingested poison, nausea is the body's intelligent response. It is not a hatred of food; it is a recognition that this particular food is poison. To mistake nausea for nihilism is to mistake the body's intelligence for the body's despair.
Third, classical contemplatives who had full 出離心 were notably joyful. The historical record — the Pali suttas' depictions of the liberated monks, the Mahāyāna descriptions of bodhisattvas, the Chan/Zen records of awakened teachers — is full of laughter, equanimity, freedom. 出離心, fully ripened, becomes the soil for a very particular kind of joy that does not depend on the world being a particular way. This is the joy of the *naiṣkramya* — the freedom of having stepped out of the mechanism, not the joylessness of never having been in it.
Misreading 3 — "出離心 means I should not enjoy anything"
Clarification: No. The *Lamrim* never teaches that worldly pleasure is metaphysically evil. It teaches that worldly pleasure is structurally incapable of delivering what it promises — permanent satisfaction. The 北地孩童 is sick of turnips, not of food. The liberation being sought is not the cessation of experience; it is the cessation of the appropriated-and-continued-by-業-and-煩惱 kind of experience. This distinction is sometimes hard to hold. But holding it is part of the practice.
Misreading 4 — "出離心 is selfish — it ignores other beings"
Clarification: This conflates the *middle* scope with the *great* scope and misses the structural relationship. The bodhisattva path does not *replace* 出離心 — it *generalizes* the underlying concern. The bodhisattva's realization of 出離心 is not less than the śrāvaka's; it is *more* — because the bodhisattva sees that *every being* is in the same burning house and vows to help them out, which requires reaching *complete* liberation (full Buddhahood) rather than personal nirvāṇa. Some Mahāyāna texts (e.g., certain strands of the *Bodhisattva-bhūmi* literature, the *Daśabhūmika Sūtra* / 《十地經》) even argue that the *self*-seeking impulse of personal liberation must itself be overcome on the bodhisattva path — but this is a refinement of 出離心, not its abandonment. The bodhisattva's 出離心 is for all beings; the śrāvaka's is for oneself. Both are 出離心.
Misreading 5 — "出離心 is about purifying bad karma"
Clarification: This is a common lay-Buddhist misreading. The *Lamrim* is emphatic: 出離心 directs its fire at 煩惱, not at 业. Purification of 业 is part of practice (through confession, restraint, dedication of merit, etc.), but if 煩惱 remains intact, 业 will simply be re-accumulated. To focus only on 业 is like mopping the floor while leaving the tap running. 出離心 addresses the tap.
Misreading 6 — "出離心 is achieved once and then it's done"
Clarification: Not in the classical presentation. The *Lamrim* describes 出離心 as a cultivated and repeatedly strengthened heart posture, not a one-time event. The contemplative exercises — repeatedly turning the mind to the harms of saṃsāra, the impermanence of aggregates, the unreliability of pleasures — are intended to deepen the 厭捨 and 欣求 over years and decades. Even on the bodhisattva path, where the *target* of effort shifts to full Buddhahood, the underlying 厭捨 of saṃsāra (now on behalf of all beings) remains. One never "graduates" out of seeing the world clearly.
Misreading 7 — "出離心 = 'detachment' in the popular sense"
Clarification: "Detachment" in pop-spirituality usually means emotional withdrawal — "I just won't feel anything." This is not 出離心. It is aversion (瞋) wearing spiritual clothing. Real 出離心 allows full feeling, including grief, love, anger-as-passing-weather, joy. It simply does not cling to any of it as a final resting place, and it does not run from any of it as a final threat. A surgeon performing an operation must be fully engaged and fully disengaged at the same time — engaged with the patient's welfare, disengaged from identifying with the wound. This is closer to the right image.
Misreading 8 — "I already have 出離心 because I sometimes feel sick of the world"
Clarification: Conceptual 出離心 — the words, the assent, the occasional mood — is not the same as generated 出離心 (已生起之出離心). The *Lamrim* describes a stage where the heart has been so thoroughly turned that, even when worldly pleasure is presented in its most attractive form, the response is "I see what this is, I am not moved." The 北地孩童 before he got sick loved turnips too. Just feeling occasional disgust is the pre-stage, not the stage itself. The work of cultivation is precisely to take the conceptual assent and turn it into a posture of the heart that holds under pressure.
Where This Leaves Us
The classical image of 出離心 is not the renunciate fleeing the world, not the depressive who has stopped caring, not the stoic shrugging at fate. It is a clear-eyed turning of the heart that has seen, with both head and gut, that the mechanism of appropriation-and-continuation driven by 業 and 煩惱 is structurally incapable of delivering what it promises — and that has, on the basis of that seeing, stopped running the mechanism as its operating principle.
It does not require a monastery. It does not require Asian language or Asian ritual. It requires the willingness to look — really look — at what is happening every time the heart appropriates a new experience-as-self, and to let that looking produce a real turning.
That turning is the beginning of every genuine Buddhist path — śrāvaka, pratyekabuddha, or bodhisattva. Everything else builds on it.
The *Lamrim Chenmo* puts it this way, in a line worth holding: 「對所見、所聞、所憶念的一切世間安樂，皆辨認為仍屬世間、仍是苦而不可療治，乃至生起如欲嘔吐般的厭患。」 Whatever the world offers — seen, heard, remembered — recognize it as still belonging to the world, still being suffering that cannot be cured by more of itself, until a nausea-like turning-away genuinely arises.
That is 出離心. And it is as needed now as it has ever been — perhaps more so, because the world has gotten better at hiding its turnip nature behind prettier turnip-dressing than ever before.