Letting it go ...

In Traditional Chinese culture, the Late Summer season and the transition into Autumn is a time of moving away from the Yang; the extrovert, outside and active energy of Summer time. Autumn is a time for moving inwards, becoming slightly quieter, moving the focus to inside your body and mind, becoming more introspective, reflecting on your life.

The element associated with Autumn is Metal or Air, the internal organs are the Lungs and the Intestines, and the Lung is, in turn, associated with the emotional quality of 'letting go'. Early autumn is therefore a time of slowing down, perhaps thinking of ending projects started in the Spring and Summer months. A time of letting go of what no longer functions or assists us positively.

Letting Go. It seems to have become a modern mantra. But as meditators, it is our characteristic that we look beyond the surface of things – 'things' being various ways of being and various ideas we have. So I’ve been playing with this concept of “letting go”.

Every time this week past week if I felt my mind was starting to 'struggle', losing my cool, becoming impatient, irritated or frustrated, I decided to focus on “letting it go”. And as so often happens, once you concentrate on something, I started noticing how often people use this phrase around me. For example, when you buy a car, you start becoming more aware of cars with a similar make and model. The number of that type of car hasn't increased, but your awareness of it has. (It's called "frequency illusion")

It quickly became kind of obvious that when people use the term 'letting it go' it's usually because there is a problem and, more often than not, actually mean to say: 'don't let it bother you', or 'ignore it; it will go away'. And very often every thought that follows is not actually about letting it go but rather about willing it to leave, which is not the same thing.

It is not the same thing because our desire for it to leave includes an inner struggle, and at that time of struggle there is tension causing us anxiety or anger - or something similar. Willing it to leave is a desire not to have something. That’s just another way of holding on – attachment to not having it. Truly to let something go, you actually have to stop wanting it to go away, and have a non-attachment to the outcome. Be aware of it. Just let it be the way it is.

You don't have to like it, necessarily. And it's not that you must become a doormat or let life bulldoze you. If we can become aware of / contemplate our desires, listen to them but not follow them, we are actually no longer attaching to them; we are just allowing them to be the way they are. We don't have to be led by our desires. Every moment is a chance to let go and feel peaceful.

As Shunryu Suzuki explains it: "Most important practice in meditation....we have a problem with letting go because we have a 'preferential mind'.” We want something to be other than what it is.

This preferential mind holds on too tightly. To our ideas, our perceptions, our notions. It is the most important part of our meditation practice: the practice of impermanence, non-desire, cessation.

"Our lives are gradual paths of groundlessness. When we can accept that people and things are always shifting and changing, our hearts can open."

—Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, “The Hunger for Home”