Letting Go: An Act Of Compassion

So it is great to see you guys tonight.

And I'm truly wondering how people's week has been.

And I hope for those of you that have been observing Passover this week,

Or Easter today,

That you found a way to connect virtually with those that you love,

And to connect deeply with yourself.

To feel the joy of that celebration.

And more generally,

To everyone that's sheltering in place,

Which I think is all of us at this point,

With other family members,

I'm wishing you peace and loving kindness as you negotiate and navigate all of the new ways of being together 24-7.

Which I know at times actually can get quite complicated and aren't necessarily easy.

And those of you that are sheltering in place alone right now,

Perhaps missing the many types of connection that you are used to having in daily life,

I'm also wishing you peace and loving kindness.

This is challenging for us humans.

This is a very,

Very challenging time.

I certainly feel like there have been many emotions present this week for me,

And perhaps for you too.

Lots of internal ups and downs between the continuing increasing of the coronavirus infections across our country and new parts of the world,

And the many deaths,

And the growing economic insecurity in this country.

There's a lot happening about which fear and sadness,

Anxiety and grief can all be very natural byproducts.

And over this week,

I have noted many,

Many times catching myself in various negative mind states,

Various troubling thoughts,

Various emotional places,

That over the years of developing my mindfulness practice,

I've learned definitely lead to more suffering.

So tonight I want to talk about some of these places that my mind has visited,

And perhaps yours too.

These places that when I do catch myself,

First of all,

I get to sigh with a great deal of relief because that means awareness and mindfulness is present.

And that I have learned is a celebration in its own right.

There were many,

Many years of going through life on autopilot that I didn't recognize much of anything.

So this is a celebration.

And then I get to also practice something else,

And that's letting go.

And this is actually what I want to spend some time tonight talking about,

This act,

This engagement in letting go.

And in particular,

I want to emphasize the letting go of these stories that the brain creates,

Views about things,

Opinions about ourselves and others that complicate matters,

That create more suffering.

I've spent so much time this week noticing these places and letting go over and over and over that it did seem like a reasonable theme to bring to you tonight.

One of the things I have learned on this mindfulness journey that I didn't learn anywhere else is that I am rarely alone,

If ever,

In whatever's going on with me.

Because we all have this human brain,

We all live lives in relationship with other humans,

My experiences just aren't that unique.

And this has become something that I'm extremely grateful for,

To know that we all sit and journey and grow in the messiness of being human.

This is part of it.

And we also get to learn how to let go together.

So let's talk a little bit about this letting go.

I think actually letting go has become a big huge cliche in our culture,

Unfortunately.

And it's had a lot of conceptual drift.

People say frequently,

Just let it go.

And I've always found that puzzling,

Especially when before my mindfulness training,

I had no idea how to just let it go.

And also at times it seemed insensitive and rather harsh.

For example,

When someone says just let it go to someone else,

What they actually might be saying is,

I don't really want to hear about that anymore.

And I've also heard people say to themselves,

I just let it go.

And when I've been sitting in therapy sessions with people who happen to say this,

And I actually have the luxury of the time and space to explore it,

What I actually find a lot of times people mean is,

Oh,

I just pushed away from it.

Or another way to say this is just,

Oh,

I just let it go because I didn't like the way it felt.

But if I'm honest,

It's still there.

So none of this is really what I'm talking about when I say we can practice letting go.

The letting go that I'm referring to is an act of care and compassion.

It involves the recognition that something is here that's harming us or creating suffering and it can be attended to.

And as most of you know,

Mindfulness in the way that has been brought to our culture and is now practice has its roots in Buddhist psychology.

And I want to talk about this just for a minute.

The Buddha who I think of as a masterful physician or psychologist in the way that he taught,

Taught something called the Four Noble Truths that at its core has letting go in it.

Some of you may or may not be familiar with this.

But the first noble truth is the truth that there's suffering in this life.

Not that life is suffering,

But that life contains suffering,

Just like it contains joy.

And the second noble truth is that the cause of suffering is clinging and craving.

Craving to have more of what we think of as good and craving to get away from what we think of as bad.

And the third noble truth defines the treatment for this craving,

Which is causing the suffering,

As letting go.

And then the fourth noble truth reflects how the treatment is carried out or how letting go happens.

And that's through the practice of the Noble Eightfold Path.

And why I tell you this is just to say that letting go,

Or another word for it is renunciation,

Has been taught for over 2,

600 years as a very powerful antidote to human suffering.

And when we can actually learn to practice letting go,

Or another way to say it is just letting whatever is already here be here without trying to grasp more of it or push it away,

Our suffering tends to end.

So with mindfulness,

The power of the pause plus the non-judgmental awareness,

We begin to see what's really here in our own mind and our own heart.

And when what is here is painful,

We begin to be able to differentiate between the natural pains of living these human lives,

Which we'll never get away from,

And the suffering that we add to the pain through the development of our narratives,

These views we hold of right and wrong about everything,

The resistance that we put up as we try to get away from the pain,

And the ways that we make it worse through reactivity.

So when we can differentiate between pain and suffering,

We now have an understanding and awareness that we can put to very good use.

For the pains that show up in our lives,

The losses that are inevitable,

The grief,

The sadness,

The disappointments,

The fear,

With mindfulness,

We can actually learn instead of pushing away from them,

To turn toward these places and to be with them.

We can learn to just let these places be,

Remembering that not only is every single solitary thing in this life impermanent,

But that also being human is both painful and joyful and we live much better when we can be with both of these conditions,

The painful ones and the joyful ones.

And with mindfulness,

We see the suffering for what it is,

That extra added layer of aversion to the pain that comes in many forms.

It comes in thought,

It comes into more feeling states,

It comes in the form of actions.

And this is what we learn to let go of.

We don't have to fight pain.

We don't have to try and control life so that we don't experience pain.

We can come to understand and even appreciate that the pain that is part of being human also connects us with every other single human on this earth.

It reminds us of our common humanity and it can even break open our heart to experience wider compassion for ourselves and others when we pause and remember.

As practitioners of mindfulness sitting in formal meditation practice,

The ideal conditions are created for us to begin to understand and practice letting go.

And what do I mean by ideal conditions?

First of all,

We are choosing to quiet the environment around us,

To seclude ourselves momentarily from the busyness of life.

And second,

We're bringing the body to stillness as we let go of constant motion and movement,

Distraction.

The body and mind can connect,

Can hear each other,

Can exchange information.

And awareness is there to receive it all.

These elements of stillness and silence make the ideal conditions to begin to really see how suffering arises in the mind and the possibility of letting go exists.

As I mentioned earlier,

An alternative phrase to letting go is letting it be.

And isn't this actually what we're doing in meditation?

Whether the primary object of awareness is the breath or the body or the entire present moment itself.

We sit in stillness,

We quiet the environment best we can and turn awareness toward the breath.

And yet the mind is still active.

Thought is still arising.

And we notice this.

And instead of getting all caught up in the content,

The memories of what we wish were different,

The stories that fill in the blanks of all the experiences we actually don't have full understanding of in our day-to-day life,

The worries about the future,

The planning that gives us the illusion of controlling the next moment.

All of this arises during one meditation,

Or at least it does in my mind.

And as it's noticed,

We let it be.

With this action of no action,

The thought continues just to travel on its way,

Soon enough replaced by another thought that we have a new opportunity to let go also.

This process of noticing without getting caught up,

Without reactivity,

Bringing the mind back to the nature of the breath is the practice of letting go.

We don't have to fight the thought,

Simply notice it and return awareness to the breath.

We don't get caught up,

We're not hating it and pushing it away,

We're not getting seduced by the enjoyable,

Exciting fantasies that the mind can produce,

We're not getting caught up in either of these states.

We're just trusting that we're okay,

Just as we are in that moment,

And that these thoughts can continue on their way without further involvement.

Letting go,

Coming back to the breath,

Coming back to the body,

Allowing this life in this moment just to be as it is,

No interference.

I love these words by the poet Jane Hirschfield,

She said,

To know the world and not obstruct it.

I love that.

To know the world and not obstruct it.

We don't do this very well as humans.

We feel like we have to have our hands in everything.

The mind is always plotting and scheming of how to make our next move,

Of what can be controlled,

Of what can be pushed,

What can be strived for.

And in this is the delusion that there's nothing to be learned or gained or appreciated or loved in just letting go.

Seeing life as it is,

Seeing our spouse as just she or he is in this moment,

Just hearing the words of someone without adding additional details or our own judgment,

Just being with what's seen,

Heard,

Smelled,

Tasted,

And felt without grasping for more or pushing away out of aversion.

Letting go,

Letting it be,

Such a gift.

And in the practice of letting go,

The whole world opens up before our eyes.

And before I end,

I thought I'd share with you just some of the thoughts,

Narratives,

Experiences that I've worked with this week in letting go.

Many of them I can't remember.

There were lots of them.

But here's a few.

I took a bike ride and I let go of the need to go faster.

I had a delicious meal and I let go of the need for seconds.

I had the worry of whether I would continue to be able to pay the office mortgage.

I applied for a payroll protection loan and I let go of trying to predict the future.

I had the fear that my mom might not be okay in her assisted living.

I called her to check in and let go of the fear.

I had a disagreement with my spouse.

I spoke to my needs with kindness and let go of the resentment.

I really could go on and on from the mundane and insignificant to the bigger life matters.

Each of these that I listed are just moments in time.

Fear may arise hundreds of times a day.

And each time that we can mindfully know it,

Observe it compassionately,

We see if there's something in it that is needed to act upon and we let it be.

Sometimes mindfulness is strong and we catch the aversion,

Wanting it to be different.

And other times we find ourselves very angst ridden,

Ill at ease for quite a while until we wake up again and again and again.

When we can remember what is so easily forgotten to drop our resistance and to just let it be.

And our ability to let it be,

To let go of the fear in any moment is directly related to our time and practice in formal meditation and to practicing this loving awareness throughout our day.

It takes work.

It does.

It doesn't happen just.

.

.

What happens is autopilot.

So we work at this.

So I'd like to end with actually offering a contemplation to you all.

And so I just invite you to again just sit back and if it's useful to you to close your eyes so that you can access your own experience.

Just finding your breath.

Feeling that beautiful breath right there.

And just to let your mind float back over the last few days,

The last week.

Just see if there are places that you remember having gotten stuck in a loop of suffering.

Maybe if you weren't pushing away from something or wishing it were different that there would be more ease if you could be with it.

And if some places are coming up that you've been stuck,

Been grappling with,

Know that there's been some aversion which adds the layer of suffering.

You might want to offer yourself a little bit of compassion if you can.

This is what it means to be human,

To get stuck sometimes.

And with awareness is the first step out of it.