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Meditation on Renunciation – Middling Scope P . - 094

Four Meditations of Middling Scope

  • 1 Renunciation

  • 2 Determination to abandon self-grasping ignorance (root of samsaric rebirth)

  • 3 Resolve to enter & progress on the path to liberation

  • 4 Contemplation of the ultimate truth of cessation

Meditation on Renunciation – Purpose

  • Enter, progress on, and complete the path to liberation (Nirvana)

  • Identify: what to know, abandon, practise, attain

  • Buddha (Sutra of the Four Noble Truths): “You should know sufferings” → know future-life sufferings to generate renunciation

Why Focus on Future Lives

  • Present-life pains are brief; future-life sufferings are endless

  • Using human life for lasting freedom & happiness is the greatest meaning

  • Without this aim, we mimic animals, pursuing only temporary comfort

Major Sufferings in Samsara

  • Six realms all lack freedom, dominated by delusions & karma

    • Animal: exploitation, constant fear, no capacity for Dharma

    • Hungry ghost: extreme hunger & thirst over centuries

    • Hot hells: body & fire indistinguishable; torment for millions of years

    • Desire-realm gods: conflict, dissatisfaction, intensified desires

    • Demigods: crushing jealousy, prolonged mental & physical pain

    • Humans: four principal sufferings (birth, sickness, ageing, death) + pervasive dissatisfaction

Human Sufferings (Summary)

  • Birth: confinement, heat, fear, pain during gestation & delivery

  • Sickness: loss of strength, dependence, frustration, medical hardships

  • Ageing: decline of beauty, strength, senses & memory; isolation, regret

  • Death: separation from possessions, loved ones, body; fear if no spiritual protection

  • Additional pains: separation from desired objects, meeting the unwanted, unfulfilled wishes, poverty, environmental harms

Core Insight

  • All miseries arise from “contaminated rebirth” under self-grasping ignorance (inner poison of delusions)

  • External conditions are secondary; root problem is samsaric existence itself

  • Genuine renunciation = intense, wise fear of endless impure life

Object of Meditation

  • Firm determination to liberate oneself permanently from sufferings of this and countless future lives (renunciation)

Actual Practice (Contemplative Steps)

  1. Reflect on endless future-life sufferings; recognise urgency

  2. Conclude: “I must prepare protection now with this rare human life.”

  3. Hold the determination single-pointedly for as long as possible

  4. Repeat until a spontaneous, stable wish for permanent liberation arises

Result

  • The moment true renunciation is generated, one enters the path to liberation → leads to the “supreme, permanent peace of mind,” \text{Nirvana}, source of pure and everlasting happiness.