Meditation Is Not To Get Anything, But To Understand & Let Go

When we sit down to meditate,

There's often a lot of trying to get,

Trying to attain,

Trying to achieve,

A lot of grasping,

Trying to get jhana,

Get samadhi,

First,

Second,

Third,

Fourth jhana and so on.

At least attain upacharvatsa madhi in the neighborhood concentration.

Then of course the stages of inside stream entry up to avahana,

People trying to get that,

To attain that,

Or the different vipassana jhana,

The inside knowledges from the commentaries,

A lot of grasping,

Trying to get.

But actually in a meditation it's all about the letting go,

Letting go,

The dropping,

Abandoning,

Not accumulating,

Getting.

And all these states which people try to get to,

Attain,

To achieve,

Are actually expressions of different levels of not letting go basically.

So it can be helpful to remind oneself of that fact and to try to get into a mood or a mental mode of not achieving,

Not getting,

Not grasping,

But shedding,

Abandoning,

Dropping,

Letting go.

Sometimes even just these words can be quite helpful in appointing the mind in the right direction,

The letting go,

Letting go.

I am Pali nacchago,

Patinisago,

Mutti,

Annalayo,

Whatever,

Synonyms in Pali if you like that language to try to point the mind in the right direction.

So letting go rather than getting,

Abandoning rather than achieving,

Dropping,

Shedding,

Rather than grasping,

Renouncing,

Disengaging,

Rather than clinging.

But of course the next question is not how to do that.

And then again when people try to do it,

They often get quite desperate because we cannot just do or will or want letting go.

I am sure we have all tried that as Dharma practitioners and if you try to will that by will power or by desire,

Desiring to letting go,

There is a little bit of self-contradiction.

But the way the Buddha teaches,

The letting go is a result of seeing,

Of insight.

And one thing we can make an effort to see,

What we try to see,

This is where we can put some effort,

Not so much getting something,

Not even actively trying to let go,

But the effort is in seeing and observing and recognizing,

Watching with mindfulness and wisdom,

Applying the wisdom faculty to our experience here now.

In particular the areas that the Buddha pointed out,

For example,

To see,

To notice in our own direct immediate experience that holding on does not lead to happiness but is leading to suffering,

To disappointment,

To notice,

To see with proper wisdom that the grasping,

Clinging,

Accumulating,

That this is actually always disappointing.

So my recommendation,

My encouragement to look at that quite extensively in one's meditation,

To observe and to see this connection between holding on,

Grasping and suffering,

Disappointment,

Is quite easy to notice,

For example,

With mind states on the side of aversion and dejection.

The moment when we remember an old hurt,

An old little trauma,

What they have done to us,

How unfair,

When we latch onto that,

We can actually notice right away here now,

That the moment we hold onto that,

The suffering increases.

It's actually quite perverted,

Isn't it,

That we have this tendency of grasping and holding onto things which are immediately and outright painful.

It's also the same with dukkha,

Vedana,

Painful feeling,

Another thing which we often can directly immediately observe in our experience here now while we are meditating.

Unfortunately quite often in particular,

If you're sick or if you're getting older,

There can be various kinds of unpleasant and even painful feelings.

And again,

For some weird reason,

There's a strong tendency in our mind to hold onto painful feeling,

To grasp and cling to the painful feeling,

To take it as me and mine.

And the crucial one is then to see what is the result of that.

The result is then immediate increase in discomfort and pain and misery.

The more we are holding on,

The more we are quasping the pain,

Whether it's physical pain in the body or whether it is a mental pain,

Some old hurt,

Disappointment.

The moment we latch onto that,

The pain gets worse,

At least the mental aspect gets worse,

Sometimes even the physical aspect,

But very suddenly the mental one.

It's the same with dejection,

Depression.

The moment we identify,

We cling to that,

No,

I'm really down,

I'm me,

Poor me,

Going to save pity and there's all much worse.

On the other hand,

Again here and now,

In our present experience,

We can notice if we let go,

If we're dropping it,

If we're not holding on,

If we are disengaging straight away,

The suffering diminishes.

The anger wisest and memories of the incidents which triggered the anger,

Where we got hurt or harmed or offended,

Our tender feelings being offended.

But the moment we can drop it,

Loosen it,

At least,

Maybe not yet dropping,

But at least we loosen the attachment,

We are holding on not quite so tightly and straight away we can see how the suffering diminishes.

This is how we let go.

Disgassing,

Holding on gives me the suffering,

Holding on as a cause of suffering,

As a cause of pain.

Not just theoretically,

But while it's happening it's actually usually quite easy and possible in meditation,

Because things tend to be a little bit more subtle,

The mind is ideally now already quite focused and that's good to have some basic sama-tana built up in a certain level of calmness of samadhi.

To start off with,

Then I'm clearly looking and bothering and there's usually something we're holding on.

This is a good one to look out for,

Not looking out for,

Not straight away in Nibbana,

Looking out for Jhana and then being disappointed that we can't attain it,

But looking out for what are we actually holding on,

What are we attaching to.

There's this clinging,

Manifesting in our thinking,

In our images,

In our memories,

In our emotions,

Feelings and moods.

Usually we cling to all of that,

What I just mentioned,

The moods,

Feelings,

Emotions,

Memories,

Thoughts,

Cling,

Identify and grasp at that.

Which one prominently?

We just watch,

Observe that,

Analyze it,

Figure it out.

And then the next one we observe,

Notice,

Figure out how that is actually causing suffering.

As a very reliable function of our mind in general,

Almost in the subconscious that we want to be happy going after what we perceive as happiness and trying to get rid of what we perceive as painful and suffering.

So we can simply make this totally natural tendency.

Our ally,

We can utilize that.

All we need to do is watching,

Observing here now in our mind what's going on.

This is a clinging that is a grasping and result disappointment,

Pain.

And as a result of that seeing,

The letting go happens almost automatically.

But always never depend how clear one can see that.

But if you're working on seeing it again and again with greater clarity,

Then the result is usually in some form of letting go and dropping,

At least partially.

But even a partial loosening of attachment,

Even a small amount of letting go usually leads to a notice of the reduction of pain and suffering.

That immediately we should also notice mindfully and with wisdom and see,

Oh wow,

Exactly as the Buddha said,

I could see that this causes me suffering and my mind started dropping it and immediately another suffering goes away.

And as we continue in our Navipassana insight,

And that becomes more clear,

That repeatedly gets detected as it's happening in the mind,

Then the letting go is building up steam,

And we're really getting into it.

Of course with some forms of grasping and clinging,

And it may not be quite so immediately obvious and you may have to support it with reflections and analysis.

On the negative side,

Anger,

Dejection,

One can quite easily see that clinging to that causes suffering straight away.

Other things can have quite pleasant aspects,

One can get lost in some central fantasy or some beautiful memories or some very nicely feeling imaginations,

What I may be doing later in the future.

And that is more difficult to see,

That clinging to a central gratification is also suffering.

One can see it often directly meditation as well.

For example if you are with your meditation object,

Whether it's a breath or loving kindness,

And then these fantasies come up,

You're losing your meditation object,

And if you already have a certain level of calm,

Which is already required,

Refined and holds some happiness,

Then hopefully we can notice that going now into a fantasy or memories of any form of indulgence,

Non-spiritual but worldly indulgence,

We can see there's actually an inferior happiness.

And ideally we can notice that our mind drops from a superior,

More refined and beautiful level of happiness to a coarser one,

Which is a form of suffering from holding on to this,

The central indulgence or the fantasies about that.

Very important in not letting go of our main meditation object.

So if you do anapana sati,

Breath meditation,

Obviously the task is not to now let go completely of the breath,

Of the contemplate,

Loving kindness.

We don't let go of our little mantra,

May all beings be happy and well,

Whatever we're using,

One has to keep going with that one.

That is not the anchor for our meditation.

But there's usually enough other stuff going on in the mind,

Enough distraction.

This is where we do that investigation.

So another reason why it is helpful if we have a certain level of samadhi,

Of samatha,

To start off with our insight,

Because then you can actually see that these distractions,

Even if they are on the side of being pleasant in a non-spiritual way,

In a more like central way,

Memories,

Fantasies,

Images.

But if we already had a certain level of wholesome happiness from samatha,

From calmness,

Then we can actually notice that the mind is actually talking.

And although these fantasies may be entertaining and giving us some pleasant feelings,

Hopefully we can notice that it's inferior,

Unless we find happiness in the spiritual happiness from samatha,

Which we already had,

We are talking.

If that's not the case,

Then we have to actively investigate and analyze and do the Ardhinavasanya to recognize the inevitable dangers which are always connected with central indulgence.

The first one is Iholina doesn't really provide lasting satisfaction,

But just is further stirring up kindling and increasing the fire of craving and desire.

And if we spend an hour happily planning some dream holiday or meditation or whatever fantasies we may be having,

It may feel quite nice,

But then the meditation is over and this may be something that you can't do anyhow,

And the disappointment comes.

And you can contemplate that the desire increases,

Next time you sit down you want to go back into the same fantasy and have to build it up even stronger to get the kick.

And then of course,

Curiously,

All the central indulgences have always a strong Ardhinava,

A strong door back,

A hangover,

The hangover from the party,

Obesity from the food indulgence,

Curies and wood canals from the ice cream and so on,

You can go through all of that,

Whatever it is,

It's quite fascinating all the central indulgences and they have these inherent drawbacks.

So the same approach,

To notice that clinging to that,

Indulging in that,

Ultimately leads to suffering and disappointment.

In this case,

Maybe not so much directly in the present moment experienced,

But by reflection and analysis,

That is also still effective before abandoning.

And then having a very sharp mindfulness,

Very sharp mindfulness to notice the moment I can see what causes this suffering,

The clinging,

And how one then lets go and based on that seeing and how the suffering diminishes.

That is such a crucial insight that is so important to notice that.

It may appear not so mind-blowing,

Sometimes it may be quite small ones,

If you have a big breakthrough and we have a big letting go and there's a huge feeling of relief and taking away of pain,

But often a meditation can be on quite a refined level and it's not very powerful in terms of intensity.

It's so important to notice it mindfully,

Because each time we notice that,

That it will strengthen the soul process,

Grasping,

Acquiring pain and suffering,

Seeing that,

Leading to letting go,

Letting go,

Suffering,

Dropping away,

Vanishing,

And understanding,

Observing that process again and again,

So that we get more and more into this mood of letting go,

Into this mood of investigating the cause of suffering,

The clinging,

Grasping,

Seeing and letting go,

And making that in a kind of deferred mode of the mind.