The Beauty of Renunciation

It is fair to say that many of us start the New Year with good intentions. We promise ourselves we’ll eat better or exercise regularly or take on a particular ethical precept more intensively. We’ll aim to start something and try and stop doing other things. And while this is admirable it is reckoned that only about 9% of New Year resolutions actually last and are successful. There are a few reasons for this including just acting from convention rather than an integrated decision that you’re really behind, or not anticipating obstacles and that sometimes it will be hard and so we get dispirited and give up. Another reason is accountability; we’re more likely to succeed if we tell someone else what we plan to do or even ritualize the intention as we do on retreats over the New Year period. If we’re not accountable to someone else who might ask us if we’re following through our plan, we’re more likely to fail.

In terms of our practice, we’re often encouraged to have a period of reflection that may well lead to something of a re-set or reorientation. We take stock of how the past year/period has been and anything we’d like to focus on for the coming year. This can be very helpful. It’s also squarely within the realm of renunciation.

Here I’m talking less about renouncing or giving up ‘things’, or bad habits though they have their place in renunciation. These things according to Buddhist teacher Tenzin Palmo are easy to give up. Quite possibly we won’t agree with her here and find it very difficult to make long term changes such as spending less time on our phones or getting ourselves out for a run during the cold winter months. Habits often have deep and strong roots and, as well as our intention to change a habit, other supporting factors need to be in place to have a chance of succeeding.

Tenzin Palmo is saying it’s easier perhaps to make a change like moving into a Buddhist Community or meditating everyday – but how easy is it to actually live every day with a bunch of relative strangers, or to actually be present to what’s happening during meditation. Habits are not just the big moments but all the follow up ones and renunciation is exactly the same.

One of the most supportive mental factors in renunciation is mindfulness. When we commit to being present in the moment, we relinquish other possible actions, or even inhabiting other worlds, for example, of fantasy or wish-fulfilment. Every time we choose awareness we let go of, even just for a few moments, the habits that provide us with some degree of comfort, security, or pleasure, in our lives. Habits are usually formed for precisely this purpose; they reduce uncertainty and feelings of instability in us. They keep us removed from our existential anxiety.

Our habits keep us circling around the pleasures of the senses, and when we’re mindful we’re less concerned with seeking sense pleasure and more interested in being with what’s happening right now. We might feel that the pleasures of awareness and wisdom are less certain rewards – our experience is often either quite dull or at least, a bit of a mixed bag!

However, each moment of reconnecting with awareness strengthens awareness. It also strengthens our capacity to be with that mixed bag with spacious, kindly awareness. Over time this lessens the attraction of seeking pleasure through particular habits of eating or reading or entertainment. We start to choose alternative pleasures such as the satisfaction of presence, the pleasure of interest in the mind, and of recognizing subtle mind states.

This allows for another kind of renunciation to come into play. When wisdom is stronger and working with awareness the mind releases its identification with certain kinds of inner mental and emotional processes through seeing them more clearly.

I think this is what Tenzin Palmo is talking about when she goes on to say ‘genuine renunciation is giving up all our fond thoughts, all our delight in memories, hopes and daydreams, our mental chatter.’ She is pointing to the subtle level of attachment to ideas and dreams that reinforce a sense of self; they add up to what makes me feel like ‘me’.

Mindfulness and wisdom practice help us see how we’re addicted to sense experiences, including the mind ‘sense’ and they don’t necessarily need to be pleasant ones. Any experience that gives the security of ‘I’m here’, ‘this is me’ – even if it’s dull or painful, is worth it.

True renunciation is freeing ourselves from the sticky ties that bind us. The flavour of it is less ‘giving up’ than ‘letting be’ to enable ‘letting go’. According to the Dharma teacher Andrew Cohen  ‘renunciation is where you are allowing yourself to be obedient to the call of the heart….renunciation keeps that spontaneous natural interest in freedom and allows it to manifest and express itself uninhibitedly.’

And it has to start with the precious present; whether it is a moment of sleepy mind, dull mind, wild distracted mind – it is enough to be aware and clearly know. Here we can touch the beauty of the renunciant mind.