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Mindful Letting Go (3 of 5) Letting Go as Generosity

And then we continue with the third talk on letting go—wise letting go, mindful letting go.

There are wonderful double meanings in the ancient Pali^[1] language around words for letting go. Many words exist for letting go, but three prominent ones also have the meaning of generosity, of giving. What's the connection between letting go and giving? It is that to give something, we have to let it go. We have to hand it over; we have to no longer hold onto it or hold tight.

This idea of connecting letting go with generosity also exists in the English language. There is an expression in modern English, "giving up," which usually means a kind of surrender, an unwelcome surrender—"Well, I just have to give up hope." But originally, the phrase "giving up" meant to offer something up onto the altar. It was a sacred act to give something up, to hand something over. That apparently is a French meaning of surrender as well. "Surrender" comes from French, meaning to give from below, to hand up, to offer up.

Then we have this fascinating word, "sacrifice," which can also feel like we have to give up something wonderful and really suffer a little bit, or be deprived of something for some greater good. But the Latin meaning of the word means "to make sacred." I think that "making sacred" meant making an offering to the altar, to the gods, or something similar.

In Pali, one of the primary uses of the word for letting go is clearly as a synonym for generosity, for giving, for dāna^[2], for charity. Depending on the context, you have to know whether to read it as a kind of letting go or as a kind of generosity. We could get both meanings if we translated it not as letting go, but as "giving away," where the emphasis is on generosity.

The word paṭinissagga^[3] is also associated with delight. In the ancient Pali language, the word for letting go has a lot of positive associations that might be missing for English speakers. Some people hear the words "letting go" and it just seems like bad news. But in meditation itself, we're not really letting go of things. That's for wisdom to know: if things in the world need to be put down, abandoned, or not done anymore. In meditation, the primary thing we let go of is ideas, thoughts, and stories, so that we can offer our attention to the present moment.

Is there a way of not being upset, discouraged, or aversive to our distracted mind? Can we see the act of letting go of these distractions as something akin to generosity, related to the good feelings that come from generosity when it's done really well? Simply allowing them to go is generously letting them depart. After all, do you know where your thinking goes when you let go of your thoughts? It's a very generous thing to grant the mind the possibility of not churning and ruminating. It's a good, healthy thing for the mind to not have to keep doing that, carrying the weight and tension of it. As an act of care and concern, taking care of the mind, we can generously offer to let go, saying, "I'm going to offer to let go of this so you don't have to struggle with this anymore."

I don't know if it works for some of you to hear this idea or association, but one of the really important parts of anytime we do a meditative or dharmic letting go is to look for something in the wake of it. In doing that, look for the joy, look for the delight. That might be too strong in certain situations, but look for the lightening, look for the ease that comes. Look for something that lightens up or creates a little bit more space. There's a feeling of rightness or goodness that comes with healthy, wise letting go.

I learned this many years ago when I thought I was letting go. I've been in Buddhism—which has a lot of letting go—so I thought I could do it. I would let go of things, and then they'd come back and bite me. Somehow I would let go, but then sometime later, I'd get angry or snap at someone. What I learned was that if I let go and it was just a neutral experience, then I hadn't really successfully let go. To really let go, there has to be a positive feeling to it.

Even in situations where it might not be appropriate to feel joyful, there is still a feeling of rightness, of appropriate goodness, or a lightening. We can either think about letting go as an act of generosity, or we can attend to acts of letting go, looking for how we can do so in a way that feels good and right—both in the act itself and in the aftereffect of it.

In the act itself, you want to be careful there's no aversion, no sense of obligation or heavy duty, or feeling that "I'm bad and I have to not do this anymore." Or feeling shame about how we are, feeling we have to get rid of something because it's not a good thing to be that way, and so we have to hide it or let go of it quickly so hopefully no one will see that we have these thoughts or inclinations. While it's understandable people would have those movements, they don't tend to bring that sense of uplift we're looking for in the act of letting go.

So, how do we let go? We let go without aversion, without insistence, and even without expectation to be successful. Do it with an open hand, an open heart, an open mind. Do it calmly, not in a hurry, and simply offer something up.

After you let go, take a moment to appreciate the goodness, the rightness, or the feelings of uplift that come with that letting go. Don't just let go and then quickly rush off to the next moment of whatever you're going to think, feel, or do. Take a little bit—maybe just a moment, it doesn't have to be long—to feel the relief, the openness, the goodness, the wonderful absence of tension or preoccupation. Registering the goodness or the uplifting way it feels reinforces the benefits of letting go. It supports coming home to a good way of being, so that letting go is not just letting go; it's also letting go into, or allowing something to grow and develop that is appropriate, helpful, and healthy.

The same thing is true for relaxing the body in meditation. Often, at the beginning of meditation, it's good to relax. It doesn't really work to rush the relaxation; it doesn't work to tensely or greedily relax. Instead, relax in a generous, supportive, and relaxed way. There is a generous act to relaxing, where we're generously taking care of our body, our mind, and our inner life by relaxing the body and feeling that generosity.

What we have here is the idea that it's possible to be generous to oneself, just as much as it is possible to be generous to someone else. Letting go, releasing, and giving up is a positive thing.

What the Buddha said is that when there's letting go and it's wholesome, it brings along wholesome states. It benefits a wholesome development of our being and our character. That's the letting go that he promotes. If the letting go is unwholesome, if it diminishes us in some way, or if unwholesome qualities come up, that is not what he recommends.

So letting go can be wholesome. Perhaps we can get a feeling for that with the experience of generosity. May all your letting go be a delightful, enjoyable, uplifting experience of generosity for yourself and for others who benefit from your generosity. Thank you.