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Renunciation; eating and drinking; intercourse; passionate love; accumulation of wealth; children; building up the world; life; leadership; vengeance; wisdom; worship; and rest.
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I will then present each one to reason, mention the arguments for it, establish what warrants renunciation of it, and clarify its rightful domain.
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The Book of Complete Renunciation.
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Chapter One: On Renunciation.
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I say: certain people held that what a person must practice in the abode of this world is renunciation, wandering in the mountains, weeping, grief, and lamentation over this abode.
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They said: we prescribe this because it is an abode of transience, carried off together with its inhabitants, stable for no one.
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However long a person has been in it and however settled his eyes were, it eventually turns against him: his joy becomes grief, his honor becomes humiliation, his happiness becomes misery.
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As it says: 'A rich man lies down and is not gathered; he opens his eyes — he is gone. Terrors overtake him like waters; a storm sweeps him away in the night' (Job 27:19–20).
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Even if a person strains with all his effort to establish control, his ignorance overcomes him.
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If he tries to be clean, his filth overcomes him; if he tries to be healthy, his bodily corruption overcomes him; if he tries to be wise, his tongue's rashness overcomes him.
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As it says: 'If I justify myself, my own mouth condemns me; though I am blameless, it would prove me perverse' (Job 9:20).
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Not one person knows what will befall him in it — illness, catastrophe, bereavement, grief, loss, and other afflictions.
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As it says: 'Do not boast of tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth' (Prov. 27:1).
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The more a person gets from it and the more he sees of it, the more intense his thirst for it; and the more he tries to cling to it, the more the ropes and anchors are cut from his hands.
As it says: 'Whose trust is a spider's web and whose confidence is a spider's house — he leans upon',