In our Western cultures, the idea of renunciation doesn’t always inspire us. We tend to think of it as deprivation, something that might be good for us in the end, but is not that much fun now. But another way of understanding renunciation is as nonaddictiveness to sense pleasures. From this perspective, renunciation holds out the possibility of happiness now. The less addicted we are to the seduction of sense pleasures, the less commotion there is in the mind. We experience greater ease and simplicity of living.
