With renunciation, life begins.
--Amelia Barr, All the Days of My Life
Where compassion is the wish that others not
suffer, renunciation is the wish that I not suffer. What causes me
to suffer? Wanting. Renunciation, then, means not so much giving up
things, desires, or a way of life, but giving up desiring itself.
But to do so is not so easy.
One way is
to live with few wants or needs. When the pattern of wanting is not
constantly stimulated by life circumstances, the mind becomes calm
and clear, and in that clarity you find freedom from wanting. Such,
in essence, is the monastic way: external renunciation creates an
internal environment that leads to freedom.
Most of us,
however, live in circumstances that constantly stimulate desire:
desire for security, desire for emotional fulfillment, and desire
for identity. We need an internal approach to renunciation, and for
that we need to understand the nature of these desires.
One way we
seek to satisfy the desire for security is by having—having a job,
a bank account, a house, good looks, and so on. Yet a violent
storm, a car accident, or an upheaval in the financial markets can
eliminate in a moment what we regard as "mine." The fact of death
shows us that even our life isn't ours.
As for
emotional fulfillment, who hasn't felt a sense of disappointment,
perhaps betrayal, in a close relationship when we see that our
partner does not (and cannot) give us what we yearn for so deeply?
The themes of love and disappointment that have inspired art, from
Greek tragedies to modern pop songs, give eloquent testimony to the
difficulty of satisfying emotional needs.
Identity,
too, is an ephemeral goal. Our star-studded culture pushes each of
us to find out who we are and to take pride in being a unique
entity. The sense of self, however, is a shaky ship. The more solid
the identity, the more we feel a need to defend it. Even at the
height of success, many of us experience a restlessness, a
dissatisfaction, a need to do more, earn more, own more, or receive
more recognition. It's as if a small voice still whispers, "I don't
know who I am," and drives us relentlessly on.
Why do we
pursue these desires if they cannot be satisfied? The mechanism of
desire is based on a belief: I am incomplete as I am now. Desire is
misdirected yearning that tries to correct the imbalance created by
that belief. The belief, in turn, is based on a misperception: I am
separate from what I experience. We reach out to the world of
experience, identify objects that sing the siren song of
completion, and strive to get them.
Renunciation begins with the recognition that these ventures
cannot succeed: we are going to die, our emotional needs will never
be met, and being "somebody" separates us from the world. Such
recognition may be painful initially, yet it contains three keys
that open the doors to freedom.
The first
key is to stop seeking security. Time and again I have seen
students relax and open to the fullness of life when they
understand and accept that there is no security and that they are
going to die. They stop being obsessed with the look and feel of
their bodies, the size of their bank accounts, or how they are
going to survive. They let go of accepted criteria for success and
failure and do what really interests them.
Everything
in life comes and goes like apparitions in a dream. Right now, take
any object you "own": a flower, a book, a jacket, or a car. Look at
it and know that you will experience this object for only a limited
time, for a few hours, days, months, or years. Either it or you
will fade, crumble, or die. When you forget this and take the
object as something that is yours, you can't enjoy it for what it
is. When you remember that you don't really own it, you are free to
enjoy it while it is part of your life.
The second
key is to let go of expectations for emotional fulfillment.
Personal relationships are always a challenge, and I have
consistently found that when I stop wanting other people—friends,
family members, or colleagues—to be who I want them to be for me,
and accept them for who they are, things just go more easily, and
relationships are clearer and richer.
For most of
us, emotional needs are laid down early in life. They are
solidified reactions to the disappointments encountered in growing
up. And as adults, we spend our lives trying to get what we never
got as children. But the past is past. You cannot go back. When you
accept the resonance of these disappointments moment by moment and
don't try to avoid them, you discover a freedom to enjoy love,
affection, and companionship, even though it doesn't correspond
precisely to what you (mistakenly) feel you need.
The third
key is to know the groundlessness of experience itself: no one to
be, nowhere to go. One student, who manages the legal department in
a company, was concerned with how his employees perceived him and
whether they were loyal to him. When he let go of those concerns
and directed his energy into providing them with the resources they
needed to work effectively, his department became a happier place
to work, for everyone. Instead of trying to be someone, whether in
your own eyes or in the eyes of another, recognize that you are not
a thing, not an entity. What you are is a field of open, empty
awareness and experience, like the sky and rainbows that appear in
it. Without the burden of identity, you are free to respond
naturally and appropriately to any situation you
encounter.
"Well.
That's all fine," you may say, "but how do I actually move from
desire to renunciation?" You practice internal renunciation by
moving into the experience of desire, instead of trying to fulfill
or suppress it.
Pick
something you want: a physical object, a relationship, or some form
of recognition. Let the feeling of desire arise. Experience how it
arises in your body, feel all the emotions it triggers, and let all
the stories it tells just be there. Don't be distracted. Don't try
to control the experience. Don't work at anything. If you discover
another level of yearning, move into that. When you move into the
desire completely, a shift takes place and you know it as just an
arising in experience. Now look at the object of your desire again.
What has changed?
By going
into the experience of desire itself, rather than acting on it, you
let go of the belief that you are incomplete. The energy of desire
ceases to dictate behavior and, instead, fuels presence: being
completely in the experience of what is, internally and
externally.
The chains
of desire pull us into a life of frustration and suffering, while
renunciation cuts those chains. Renunciation, though often
understood to mean "giving up," is, more accurately, the
willingness to experience things as they are, not as we want them
to be. Here you discover true freedom, the deep, quiet joy that has
always been present in you.