With a developed sense of renunciation, we realize that our usual reliance on pleasure prevents us from having complete happiness.
Our usual compulsive habits need to be worn out, and we don’t have much time to act on them anymore. The more we realize that satisfying our pleasures will never add up, the more we can let go of our expectations for sense pleasures to be the answer to happiness ever after.
Instead of getting too tight around what we want or don’t want, we can remind ourselves to let go of any circumstance and adopt an attitude of both enjoyment free of attachment and radical acceptance.
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Try out enjoying what you have and what is coming your way without constantly wishing things to be different. At the same time, don’t expect any lasting solutions from the tangible items you enjoy. Relax into your appreciation and remember that all pleasures are fleeting.
Set your site on a higher form of happiness than what temporarily satisfies the senses. Go beyond your current wants and needs of what the world has to offer.
When you look in the mirror, realize that you are not the reflection in the mirror. Mindfully observe your reflection for what it is. This should be enough to tell you that you are not what you see in the mirror.
Through letting go of identifying with the wrong thing, the sense world will lose its grip on us. Keeping this in mind, we don’t have to get lost in the pleasures of the world, nor claw into our ownership of precious objects or drain ourselves in misery over misplaced stocks on the stock market.
We do not need to spiral down when things don’t go our way. Instead, renounce the world in a healthy sense. Get your head out of the norm box and take some fresh breaths. Let go. Remember. This too is a fleeting moment.
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Instead of taking refuge in sensory objects to resolve our dissatisfaction, we place our reliance on our inner light and highest potential, knowing that we are beyond measurable, powerful, and capable.
A sincere spiritual path of renunciation often indicates an abandonment of the pursuit of all material comforts, such as a home, intimate relationships, jewelry and investments etc. Something that we associate with the life of a nun or a monk. So-called worldly renunciation. An act of letting go of that which binds us to the material world, done in the interest of achieving enlightenment.
Still, there have been spiritual adepts throughout history who have managed to renounce their attachment to the world of sensory pleasures and adopted a way of relying on their inner resources for happiness while remaining in a worldly lifestyle. Kings and Queens of great wealth have even successfully carried out this type of renunciation without abandoning their riches.
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Most broadly, renunciation can be understood as letting go of whatever binds us to ignorance and suffering. The Buddha taught that genuine renunciation requires thoroughly perceiving how we make ourselves unhappy by grasping and greediness. When we understand the suffering that comes with allowing our greedy minds to continue in an unhealthy way, renunciation naturally follows. It becomes a positive and liberating act, not a punishment.
What can you renounce today?
Can we learn to live with less and let go of attachment to having things in a certain way? What if a healthy sense of renunciation is more than going forth into the homeless life of a nun or a monk?
Our greed and grasping that we indulge in are intoxicants that dull our natural clarity, but if we work our mind, a way out of this miserable state will follow.
Greed is permeating our minds on a global scale and has done so for thousands of years. We are reaching out for illusory objects left and right, which are already in the decay process as we approach them. It is true that not everybody is set up for challenging themselves with being content with less. We might not be ready to live in a tiny house, eat oatmeal porridge for dinner, and watch the stars at night instead of buying a bigger home, overeating and watching digital screens as a source of joy and fulfillment.
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But in a rapidly changing world, we need to seriously contemplate our lifestyles and act on the insights we derive.
Since not even when we know that the world depends on us making a rapid u-turn in this regard do we seem to find enough motivation to override our ingrained habits of reaching out for new shiny objects: a car, a smartphone, a new house.
What does one little plastic container matter? Thinks billions of people…
Instead of habitually turning to fleeting sense pleasures as your source of refuge, set your site on a higher form of happiness. Go beyond your current wants and needs. Place your reliance in your inner light and highest potential whether you live as a royalty or a monastic, or someone in between. Rest assure that we are all beyond measurable, powerful, and capable of making that u-turn.
Blessed be,
Chimey
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