Renunciation | Step 14 of Awakening in 30 Steps

Renunciation: Evolutionary Self-Care.

Congratulations on making it to the first milestone on our journey of awakening!

The gradual path is comprised of a series of reflections that step-by-step lead us to three major milestone or realizations:

1) Renunciation, the determination to be free.

2) Bodhichitta, the determination to awaken for the benefit of others.

3) Correct View, the mind that realizes the ultimate nature of reality.

Renunciation is not about giving up money, possessions, family, or even life. It’s about giving up, once and for all, the unconscious life and the causes that perpetuate the cycles of misery.

By contemplating the Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind (away from samsara) or (towards Dharma) renunciation is established.

1) Precious Human Life

2) Death

3) Karma

4) Defects of Samsara

You can take the chicken nugget approach and get disgusted with samsara or you can take the self-care approach and love yourself so much that you must rescue yourself from samsara.

The Tibetan word for renunciation is nge jung meaning ‘definite emergence’ from compulsive life.

Learn more about the gradual path to awakening with the Lam Rim Meditations course.