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Letting Go: What is Abandoned and What is Gained

For this Sunday morning talk, the foundation is the idea that Dharma practice points to simplicity. It is a very simple thing, and it can be deceptively simple. It can be surprisingly simple. What we are looking for is freedom from suffering, the alleviation of suffering. That is at the heart of the Dharma; it is what the whole religiosity of the Buddha is about.

Part of the reason why it is useful to emphasize this simplicity is that many people come to Buddhism with all kinds of expectations about what a religion is, searching for something outside of themselves. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, and it can be quite wonderful in itself to find a religious life or source that is outside of oneself. But the Dharma of the Buddha is, in a sense, found within ourselves in a very simple way.

The Simplicity of Letting Go

One characteristic of this simplicity is the practice of letting go. Rather than acquiring more ideas, more concepts, or building up ourselves and our conceit, there is a real emphasis on letting go. But people make letting go more complicated than it needs to be, and sometimes react to it negatively, thinking, "Oh, this means I have to let go of all my possessions, or let go of the people I love." In the teachings of the Buddha, letting go almost entirely has to do with letting go of particular mental states or mental activity within ourselves, not letting go of things of the world.

The primary letting go is letting go of our clinging, grasping, or craving. We let go of the contractions that come along with some of the desires and aversions we have. If we turn around and really look at ourselves deeply, we will feel that the clingings and cravings we have are a way of self-harm. We are hurting ourselves, causing pain and suffering to ourselves. In the Buddhist analysis, that is the suffering we have the most ability to do something about—the suffering we contribute to through our clinging and our grasping. So, that is what we are letting go of.

Now, when we let go, there are things that we abandon. In abandoning clinging, craving, and grasping, we abandon hatred, aversion, hostility, and a certain confusion or delusion. These are all internal things. This is not a search for something outside of ourselves—a search for God, or some kind of cosmic consciousness. It is not a connection to something beyond ourselves, which is a wonderful thing that can happen, our sense of interconnectedness to life, but that is not the heart of Buddhist spirituality. This might seem very simplistic, reductionistic, or maybe not enough for the fullness of life. That may be, but over and over again, the Buddha pointed to this simplicity of letting go of greed, hatred, and delusion. For the Buddha, that is the ultimate. To do that thoroughly and fully is the full message that he is giving.

For people who have other ideas of what they want their life to really be about, Buddhism contributes by offering this: whatever your values are, whatever way you want to live and understand this life—even if you believe in God, cosmic consciousness, or interconnectedness—please do not use those ideas as a justification for greed, hate, and delusion. Do not focus on those ideas so much that you lose touch with this deep inner potential to not have greed, hatred, and delusion. Let that be the foundation, and then you can do all kinds of other things in a much richer, more meaningful way. But for the Buddha, it was really just this inner life that we are freeing, and then the rest of life comes another way.

What is Gained: The Seven Factors of Awakening

So, there is something we abandon. But letting go is not just about what is abandoned; it is also about what is gained. This probably is not emphasized enough in teachings of letting go. Letting go can seem like we simply drop something and then, at best, our hands are open, we are open-hearted or open-minded, left without clinging. But it is better than that. By letting go of clinging, grasping, craving, hatred, aversion, regrets, agitation, sloth, torpor, and doubt, we gain something as a result.

It is kind of like a dam that was filled with water. When the gate is opened, the water begins to flow out and fills the river below. It just flows and flows, and it is a wonderful thing to have the water flowing and not bottled up by the dam. The same thing happens when we let go: something begins to flow. Something begins to move through us that has been held back by greed, hate, and delusion, by clinging and grasping. There is a gain in what happens in that flow when something has been released that was covering over, resisting, or blocking something inside.

There are a number of things that open up when we let go and cultivate awareness and presence. One of those things is the Seven Factors of Awakening^[1]. When we have a deep letting go, it frees up a certain kind of energy and momentum in our life that makes available to us much more mindfulness, a clear distinguishing of phenomena (which we sometimes call investigation in English), effort, joy, tranquility, samadhi^[2], and equanimity.

These are not strange, foreign ideas to human beings. It doesn't take much reflection to see that they accompany us to some degree in our life, in small ways here and there that we don't really appreciate. One of the examples the Buddha gave for how these Seven Factors of Awakening can arise is listening to a great teacher give a Dharma talk. It is very engaging and compelling to really be present and listen closely. What is being said is so important, so clear, and so profound that we are really there to find out what is being said. There is a fullness of attention—sati^[3], mindfulness—is really there. It isn't that we are self-consciously mindful, but our attention is really present to take in this experience with all our faculties: our hearts, our bodies, all our senses.

The ordinary, discursive, conversational mind quiets down, and we just take something in with clarity. There might still be some thinking involved, but the thinking is very simple and clear. There is more and more clarity in our perception, and we see things much more clearly. I remember taking botany classes at a university, and I was really absorbed in the details of the class. I would leave class and go out into the courtyard, and I'd see everything so clearly. Everything sparkled; it was clear and bright in a way it hadn't been when I went in. There is something about cleaning the filters of our eyes, developing a clear seeing that comes with really being present and not distracted by our thoughts.

Listening to a good talk, there is some kind of aliveness, energy, and alertness. We might even sit up a little bit straighter: "Oh, this is interesting, what's going on here?" Then there is also joy. Maybe you wouldn't call it joy at the time, but all the troubles fall away, all the preoccupations of life fall away. We are really right here, and it just feels so good and delightful to be with the experience.

Listening to a Dharma talk can also be very reassuring: "Oh, this makes sense. This puts things into place. This is the way forward." Something inside of us settles and gets peaceful and quiet (tranquility). Then there is a gathering together of all our faculties; we are really here in a concentrated way, focused on what is being said and what the meaning is (samadhi). It is so reassuring and clear that we understand there is no value in grasping on or pushing away, leaning forward or pulling back. There is value in just staying balanced and taking in the experience without our usual reactivity. There is the equanimity.

With letting go, the gate of the dam is opened. The water is the Seven Factors of Awakening. What is remarkable is that these can be seen almost as qualities or aspects of awareness itself. As we become more aware in an unobstructed way, our awareness gets filled with these Seven Factors of Awakening.

The Five Hindrances and the Brahmaviharas

The opposite of this, according to the Buddha, is the Five Hindrances^[4]: sensual desire, aversion, lethargy and resistance, agitation and regret, and doubt. These have the opposite effect. They hinder, they obstruct, they cover things over. It is like closing the gates of the dam, and then the water builds up pressure behind it. Because the focus of the mind with the hindrances is to be preoccupied with something in a contracted, narrow, and tight way, there is no room for the Seven Factors of Awakening to flow out into clear awareness.

The Buddha talked about letting go of the Five Hindrances. It isn't just letting go of them that is important; it's also how they create space, or open the gate for the Seven Factors of Awakening to begin flowing into our presence. So, we are gaining something as well. Letting go of greed, hate, and delusion is not just about what we abandon, it is also what we gain.

In other teachings, the Buddha points to the four divine abodes, the four brahmavihāras^[5]. This is what starts flowing when the gate is opened in the dam. There is mettā, karuṇā, muditā, and upekkhā—Pali words usually translated into English as loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. These are beautiful qualities of heart, and they are limited by our preoccupations. There is no room for love, care, and compassion if we are caught up in things like desire, aversion, doubt, and regrets.

To abandon and release those doesn't mean we have to artificially evoke this loving-kindness or compassion. There is something about the heart having breathing room that tends to give birth to these beautiful qualities. If there is space for them, they flow. Part of practice is to abandon and let go so that some of the best parts of our human life can flow and have a chance to be present.

A Teaching from Ānanda

The simplicity of all this is that these core aspects of the Buddha's teachings are not exactly a religious teaching in a "my religion versus your religion" way. It is practical psychology or practical spiritual practice that is available to anybody, regardless of what religion they are.

There is a remarkable teaching from the ancient discourses that points to this. It is from the Connected Discourses of the Buddha^[6], the Book of Threes, Discourse 72. A man comes to Ānanda^[7], one of the Buddha's chief disciples, and asks him these questions:

"Whose Dhamma is well expounded?" (Dhamma is a word synonymous with religion or religious doctrine in the ancient world). "Who in the world is practicing the right way, the good way?" "Who in the world are the fortunate ones?"

Ānanda goes on and says, "What do you think? Is the Dhamma of those who teach the abandoning of greed, hatred, and delusion well expounded or not? How do you take it?"

The person asking says, "Well, the Dhamma of those who teach the abandoning of greed, hate, and delusion is well expounded. That's a good teaching."

Ānanda continues: "What do you think? Are those practicing for the abandoning of greed, hatred, and delusion practicing the good way in the world or not?"

The man says, "Those practicing for the abandoning of greed, hate, and delusion are practicing the good way."

Then Ānanda asks, "And are those who are abandoning greed, hate, and delusion, and who have really cut them out and obliterated them to the end, are they the fortunate ones?"

The man says, "Yes, those are the fortunate ones."

What the householder says next is very nice. He says, "It is astounding! It is amazing, Ānanda, that you have not extolled your own Dhamma nor denigrated the Dhamma of others, but just taught the Dhamma in its own sphere."

Ānanda is not championing the Buddha's Dharma or dismissing the importance of other people's Dharma—which is often what you get if someone says, "What's the best religious teaching in the world?" Some people might say, "Mine is, of course." But rather than saying something like that, Ānanda just offers this principled idea about abandoning greed, hate, and delusion. Rather than making any claim about how wonderful his own path is, he asks the person asking the question, "Is this well expounded? Is this the good way? Are these the fortunate people?" And the man admits that is the answer he was looking for.

Abandoning Conceit

This is the simplicity of this inner look. We are not looking outside for what is ultimate in a religious way. We are not looking for metaphysical claims of truth, or deep understandings of the cosmos, the world, or the beginning and end of time. There are many questions Buddhism doesn't answer. Rather, at the heart of it is the simplicity of looking within oneself and freeing oneself of forces which limit us and block the flow. Letting those go allows something beautiful to flow that is already there—though it's not like a thing that exists independent of us. It exists with opening up, with freedom, with abandoning, with awareness set free.

So letting go involves both what is abandoned, but also what is gained. More often than not, the Buddha talks about abandoning greed, hatred, and delusion, and then gaining freedom. In some places, he adds a fourth thing that is abandoned, and this is helpful to keep in mind. The fourth thing to be abandoned is conceit.

We abandon greed, hatred, delusion, and conceit. When we really let go of conceit as well, then having abandoned greed, hate, and delusion won't give rise to it. "Look how special I am. I have the most wonderful teachings. I have the most wonderful practice. I have the most wonderful attainment. I'm the most fortunate one." The idea of making an "I" out of it and building up the self is also abandoned. This is also a delightful thing that opens the gates for what is wonderful in us to flow out. Conceit is one of those things that closes the gate and blocks the flow.

Keep it simple. Appreciate the value of what we can let go of within—that which blocks us and limits us—and appreciate what is gained as we let go. Really feel into that and experience those gains. In doing so, you may recognize the Seven Factors of Awakening in yourself. Maybe you will recognize them in a very small, initial way, but slowly develop them, recognize them more and more, give space for them, and let them really be a support for this life of freedom. A life that is free of clinging.

Thank you very much. May this week be one in which you discover greater value in letting go and recognizing the Seven Factors of Awakening in your life.