Renunciation
August 12, 2026
"Do not be afraid of freedom from desire and fear. It enables you to live a life so different from all you know, so much more intense and interesting that, truly, by losing all you gain all."
– Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
This essay has been edited from its original form, first published to the True Nature community on May 15, 2025
On Monday, I gave up my rights to the home where my ex-husband and I raised our three children. On Tuesday, I gave up my son’s childhood in the undeniable face of his 18th birthday. I have surrendered over, and over, and over. I never tire of surrender, fortunately, since it seems to me to be absolutely required in order to experience any significant ease in life. If anything, I tire of my resistance to surrender even though I know very well it is unavoidable in order to move forward. Maybe you wouldn’t even notice my resistance to see me or to speak with me, but I feel it: the illusion of a separate self who desires influence over the future, and perhaps even the past. I hold her lightly, and with compassion. If I said I renounce her and her ideas - my illusory self - would you think it harsh?
I’ve long associated the word renunciation with a standard definition that denotes outright rejection - a metaphorical if not literal turning one’s back completely on a position, ideology, or way of life. Religion offers consistent support for this view, with its models of monastics, priests, and others who vow to give up a broad swath of normal life experiences such as marriage, sexual relationships, intoxicants, and accumulating wealth (obviously this doesn’t apply to all or even most religious traditions, but some renunciation is common in many spiritual communities).
This view of renunciation, however, lacks the nuance that is the stuff of real life. I don’t simply mean to state the obvious that handling some money or having only committed, non-harmful relationships are reasonable positions to take. Rather, the rigid way in which “renounce” is usually defined can exacerbate the hopelessness and low-spiritual-self-esteem that is both common and can be an almost impenetrable hindrance for even the most sincere meditators.
One of my favorite masters of old is Da Hui, a 12th century Chan teacher, who worked to dismantle the false hurdle of renunciation for lay practitioners (that’s all of us: lay practitioners just means meditators who aren’t full-time monastics). He not only believed in the capacity of lay practitioners to awaken, he took the position that they generally had more powerful, deep, and effective insights because they had to work harder to keep practice front and center in the context of their complex daily lives than did monastics. That harder work on the part of lay practitioners, Da Hui observed, was so powerful that it naturally resulted in profound realizations that he rarely witnessed in the monastic community.
In a retreat I attended last week, the teacher offered the perspective that renunciation for lay practitioners doesn’t mean to literally give anything up that is a normal, necessary part of daily life, but to see clearly that those necessities are truly less important than we assume. In other words, renunciation for a lay practitioner calls for renouncing only that the position of those things - family, security, shelter - should lie above the spiritual path. This is easy to accept if one agrees that all of the things within life, no matter how much we love or want them, no matter how much we even require them to continue living (food, water, breath), will come and go, and will ultimately go. The path, however, remains.
The path is what has facilitated my greatest growth in clarity, equanimity, and skillful action. Without hesitation I can say I renounce the idea that anything I want or anyone I love could be more important than my practice. It is my practice that allows my relationships to improve. It is my practice that allows me to let go of my son’s childhood more gracefully. It is my practice that allows me to sign over my rights to the house where I raised my children with peace and clarity. It is also my practice that allows me to feel my grief and be enriched by it, rather than harmed.
Fully free and fully feeling - this is what renunciation promises - and delivers to the extent that I keep my heart and my hands open. When I allow everything that must come and go to come and go, I’m not really giving anything up: I’m merely relaxing into the nature of things. It strikes me as deeply poignant that it seems to be human nature to resist the inevitable, and in so doing, increase suffering. I suppose it does offer us a beautiful point of connection, though: I have compassion for our resistance to surrender - yours and mine.
I renounce my resistance. When I forget my own renunciation, I trust that life will kindly remind me of my intention held in wiser moments.
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