cannot force it to stay. No matter how much we dislike or fear an experience or impression, it is already in the process of changing into something else. There is a remarkable simplicity discovered as we harmonize our own life with the natural story of all life, which is change. From the moment of our birth, our life has been teaching us about letting go. There is remarkable complexity in seeking to bend and mold life’s story to support our personal agendas of craving and aversion. We are not separate in any way from the process of change, not just detached observers. We are part of this life with all of its seasons and movements.
Aitken Roshi, a much beloved Western Zen master, once said, “Renunciation is not getting rid of the things of this world, but accepting that they pass away.” A deep understanding of impermanence is an insight that has the power to transform our lives. Understanding the nature of change deeply and unshakably loosens the hold of craving and aversion, bringing calmness and great simplicity. To study life is to study impermanence. This insight into impermanence is not a breakthrough experience but an ongoing exploration of what is true. Take a walk through the rooms of your home—can you find one single thing that is eternal, that is not already in a process of change? Explore your body—it speaks to you of the inevitable process of aging and change. Walk through the rooms of your mind with its cascade of thoughts, plans, anxieties, memories, and images. Can you hold on to any of them? Can you decide only to have pleasant thoughts or ideas, only pleasant feelings or sensations? Neither sorrow nor complexity are born of this changing world, but of our grasping and aversion, and our desire to seek the unchanging in anything that is essentially changing. As you take those walks through the rooms of your life and mind, ask yourself whether anything you encounter truly holds the power to dictate your happiness or sorrow, or whether it is more true that the source of happiness and sorrow lies within your own heart and mind.
When we hear the word “impermanence” we tend to nod our heads wisely in agreement—it is an obvious truth. Yet, when caught in craving or aversion, we suffer bouts of amnesia, convinced that everything is impermanent except this experience, feeling, or thought. Life continues to be our greatest teacher, penetrating these moments of forgetfulness, if we are willing to listen and pay attention. In truth, there is no choice but to let go; the nature of impermanence tells us that no matter how desperately we hold onto anything, it is already in the process of leaving us. Our choice is whether or not we suffer in the course of meeting the inevitable arrivals and departures, the beginnings and endings, held in every moment of our lives. Each time we are lost in craving or aversion, we open the door to a flood of thoughts, stories, strategies, and images. Each time we learn to let go, we open the door to peace and simplicity, to joy and appreciation.
Renunciation is not a spiritual destination, nor a heroic experience dependent upon great striving and will. Renunciation is a practice of kindness and compassion undertaken in the midst of the small details and intense experiences of our lives. It is the heart of meditation practice. We learn to sit down and let go. Each time we return our attention to the breath or to the moment we are in, we are practicing renunciation. In that moment we have let go of the pathways of stories and speculation about what is happening, and have turned our attention to what is actual and true in each moment. The practice of renunciation is essentially a celebration of simplicity.
A group of businessmen renowned for their dishonesty went to visit a great Indian saint, intent on earning the merit they hoped would balance their covetousness. Sitting down, they proceeded to sing her praises, extolling her great virtues of wisdom, renunciation, and simplicity. After listening for some minutes her face creased into a smile and she began to laugh. Disconcerted, the group asked what was so amusing to her. Answering she said, “It is not I who is the great renunciate, it is you, because you are living in such a way that you have renounced the truth.”
Moment-to-Moment Renunciation
Letting go is a present moment practice. We learn to sit down and let go. We love deeply and let go. We embrace wholeheartedly the laughter and joy of our lives and let go. We meet the challenging, disturbing, and unpleasant, and let go. We are always beginners in the practice of renunciation. Each moment we begin we are following the pathways of freedom rather than the pathways of sorrow.
Studying life, we see the truth of the process of change from which nothing is exempt. Understanding this deeply we live in accord with its truth, and we live peacefully and simply. We liberate the world, other people, and ourselves to unfold and change according to our own rhythms, withdrawing our personal agendas rooted in craving and aversion. Letting go, we liberate ourselves from the burden of unfulfilled or frustrated desire. We learn to rest in ourselves and in each moment. Reflecting on impermanence, we begin to appreciate deeply the futility and unnecessary sorrow of being lost in craving or resistance.
Renunciation comes effortlessly to us in times of calm and ease. Nothing stops; sounds, sights, thoughts, and feelings all continue to arise and pass—seen and appreciated wholeheartedly. Yet none of them gains a foothold in our minds and hearts, our inner balance and well-being is undisturbed; there is a natural letting go. There are times in our lives when calm and balance seem to be a distant dream as we find ourselves lost in turmoil, struggle, or distress. In those moments we remember the freedom of being able to let go, yet the intensity of our struggle overwhelms us. In those moments, the first step towards peace is to recognize that we are lost. In those moments, it is not more thinking, analyzing, or struggle that is required; instead we are invited to look for simplicity. In these moments of complexity, letting go requires investigation, effort, and dedication—recognizing the sorrow of being entangled.
The Buddha spoke of wise avoidance, a word that may carry for us associations of denial or suppression. There is a difference between wise avoidance and suppression. Suppression is the unwillingness to see; wise avoidance is the willingness to see but the unwillingness to engage in pathways of suffering. In moments of intense struggle, renunciation happens in a different way; by learning to step out of the arena of contractedness. We turn our attention to the fostering of calm and balance. Bringing our attention into our body, to listening, to touching, to breathing, we learn to loosen the grip of struggle and confusion. Recovering a consciousness of expansiveness and balance, the understanding of the nature of our struggle comes more easily to us and we may discover we can let go.
It is easy to let go when there is nothing that we particularly crave or resist. Yet it is in the midst of our deepest obsessions and resistances that renunciation holds the power to transform our heart and world. Our capacity to let go is often clouded by ambivalence and reluctance. We know we suffer through overeating, but the second plate of food really does taste so good. We know that our anger towards another person makes us suffer, but if we were to let it go they may get away with the suffering they inflicted. We know that fantasy is a poor substitute for happiness, but its flavor is pleasurable. We know we may suffer through exaggerated ambition, but the feeling of pride when we attain our goals justifies the pain. Pleasure and happiness are too often equated with being the same; in reality they are very different. Pleasure comes. It also goes. It is the flavor and content of many of the impressions we encounter in our lives. Happiness has not so much to do with the content or impressions of our experiences; but with our capacity to find balance and peace amid the myriad impressions of our lives. Treasuring happiness and freedom, we learn to live our lives with openness and serenity. Not enslaved to the pleasant sensation, we no longer fear the unpleasant. We love, laugh, and delight, and hold onto nothing.
The appetite of craving arises from the pain of disconnection. The pain of believing ourselves to be incomplete or inadequate compels us to seek from the world all that we feel unable to offer ourselves. This pain of disconnection is not always acute; at times we describe it as boredom, forgetting that boredom is never a description of reality but a description of a state of mind superimposed upon reality. Boredom is often a surrender of sensitivity, clouding our capacity to see, listen to, and touch each moment as if we have never encountered it before. The antidote to boredom is not more sounds, sensations, and experiences, but recovering our capacity to see anew in each moment. The world we think we know,
