This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Mindful Letting Go (4 of 5) Allowing Release

In exploring the topic of mindful letting go, we can appreciate that there are many different kinds of letting go. I am using "letting go" as an umbrella term for these many different types. Today, I want to introduce the idea of release. The way I use the word, there is a distinction between the act of letting go that we do, versus the release that happens independent of our doing.

If we feel tense in the shoulders—if we're tight and our shoulders are up by our ears—and someone comes along and says, "You might want to relax your shoulders," we feel it and say, "Oh yeah, I can do that," and then we relax our shoulders. It is pretty straightforward; we do it. But sometimes the shoulders are really up by the ears, and we just know it. As soon as we know it, or someone might say, "Look, your shoulders are tense," we say, "Oh," and then before we even have to do anything, something releases just in the knowing of it. Sometimes just the space of leaving things alone allows something to release. Partly, that is because when we are able to leave things alone and let them be, we are not fueling them. We are not feeding it; we are not actively involved in continuing it.

One of the principles of Buddhist practice and psychology—and I think it is well supported by modern understanding—is that we are constantly renewing our grip on things, our resistance to things, and our compulsivity. It is not constant in the sense that we grab on and then just don't let go. Rather, it is a constant in the mind of having to redo it, redo it, redo it.

Some of you have done this exercise with me where I ask people to make a tight fist with their hand. Those of you who haven't done this, you might do it now. Make your hand really, really tight into a tight fist. Squeeze it so it almost hurts. Keep it there, and really try hard to keep it there while I tell a story, but remember to keep it tight.

In India, there is a way in which, apparently in ancient times, they caught monkeys. They made a hole in a coconut and tied a rope to it. In the hole, they put a piece of sweet candy, and the hole was sized so that the monkey could put its hand in flat. (Now, are you holding your fist tight still? Be sure to keep it tight.) The monkey would put its hand in, and then it would grab the candy. When doing so, they bunch up their hand. Then, when they try to pull the hand out, it wouldn't go out of that slit. The monkeys are greedy; they don't want to let go of the sweet. Then the hunters would come along and just grab the monkey. So that is the story. And you can let go of your fists now.

The lesson in this little exercise is that chances are you had to keep reasserting your grip. Since the story was so gripping in itself, paying attention to the story versus your gripping was probably in a little conflict there. Something would begin releasing, and then you'd hopefully remember to tighten up again.

The natural movement of a tight fist is to relax. The calling, the longing of a tight fist is to release sooner or later, because it is a lot of work, tension, and effort to keep it in a fist like that. It is the same thing with any clinging within us. It is work; it is a lot of effort. The natural calling, the movement, the direction it wants to flow is to release and let go. So, if that is the natural tendency, unless we feed it, then when we just allow things to be, we are no longer feeding it. We are no longer reasserting it, and something has a chance to let go.

The lesson of that kind of letting go, which is release, is that we are not the agent doing the letting go. The system releases itself. It turns out that when we are the agent, when we are the doer, that itself represents a very subtle form of clinging, grasping, wanting, and interfering. We still want something. It is innocent enough to want that, and it is actually healthy at times. It is healthy to be the doer of letting go when it is easy to do so. But some people overemphasize their responsibility in letting go: "It's up to me, and I have to do it, and why can't I do it?"

As practice gets stiller and deeper, that movement of being the agent of change agitates the mind. In ordinary, everyday life, that is far from agitating because we're so agitated to begin with. But in deep meditation, it is too much to be the doer. So this idea is just holding experience, just being with it permissively and allowingly; that's all we do. In this example of me cupping my hands this way—I love this image—I am holding my feelings, my fear, my anger, my pain, whatever it might be. I just hold it this way. I am not doing anything or wanting anything; I am just allowing it to be.

Little by little, it begins to rest. It is kind of like having a tight fist, and someone comes along and just supports the fist, taking the weight of the hand, and then the fist can begin to relax. We come along and just hold it there. But at some point, even this wonderful way of just holding experience is too much. We are just there holding it, allowing it to be, and then we also let go of that. Or, it releases itself; even the holding of experience gets released.

So this idea of release is one that we don't do, but that the letting be of mindfulness allows. We don't always know what it is that we need to release or let go of. This allowing awareness, just being there with experience, helps the inner life find its way so it knows what to release.

We might have thought that the idea was to relax some deep physical tension, and it turns out that what was really useful, helpful, and had long-term implications was releasing our resistance, our judgments, and our negative view of ourselves and the tension in the body. We release all this reactivity and the thoughts we have about it. When we release that, the tension might remain in the body, but what is released, and where we feel free, is in the mind. Then we are more okay with the tension in the body.

Ultimately what we want, and what gets released in Buddhist practice as we go deeper and deeper, is releasing greed, hatred, and delusion, clinging, and grasping. We are not really letting go, in the depths of our hearts and minds, of things which are wholesome. We are not letting go of love, compassion, generosity, and wisdom. We are letting go of that which is problematic and a source of suffering. We are not asked to let go of the things of the world or the people of the world. You need to have wisdom to know what to do about what is in the world.

But the deep letting go is really a call. Like the call of the fist to relax, there is the call of the heart to release. To be released is to be released from what? Greed, hate, and delusion. We are released from all the different ways in which the heart is contracted, where the inner life is tight or clinging. Those are the things that are causing suffering. That is what gets released, and it is phenomenal how thorough that can be. It is so thorough that when the full release is there, there is a phenomenal absence of suffering and a phenomenal absence of clinging. There is an absence of coagulation, of bunching up, of pressure, of tightness. There is just a lot of release, a lot of peace, and happiness.

All the wholesome things, the good things, can still rightfully be there. Our wisdom, our love, our compassion, generosity, patience, equanimity, and dedication to serve can be there as well. It is a beautiful and profound thing to serve the world. Whether it is in the smallest possible ways with your family—no, that is not small, it is significant—your family, your neighbors, your friends, your neighborhood, or your community, you can do it without any of that coagulation of obligation or the heaviness of responsibility or duty. It is just an expression of release and an expression of freedom, and it is done freely.

Everything we do can be offered freely, with a happy, relaxed, and peaceful heart. May it be contagious. May we learn how to live in service of the world freely and happily, so that others realize the blessings of doing so. May our release be a blessing for all. Thank you.