Is Renunciation the Highest Happiness?
Renunciation is not a matter of doing something or having to create something, or getting rid of something or exterminating something in life. Rather it is moving towards non-contention, a sense of rest and relaxation—not having constantly to try and manipulate and control and evade and maneuver any more. We are able to open in a fearless way and relax into the experience of the moment, whatever its quality may be. In opening to receive life, we still engage in the conventional level of reality—the social level of moral values, indentities, mother and father, livelihood and mortgages. If we grasp these things and expect complete fulfillment from them, we will always be disappointed. But if we see our life as an opportunity to understand Dhamma—the way things are—that is renunciation. This letting go is very freeing. Whatever comes to us is Dhamma, and there is a joy in being in contact with Truth, whatever its particular flavor.
Renunciation can sound like passivity, a “door mat” philosophy, but actually it is the opposite. True response-ability—the ability to respond wisely and compassionately to life—naturally arises in the non-attached mind. There can be both activity and letting go.
Excerpt From
Renunciation: The Highest Happiness
Sister Siripañña
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