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Guided Meditation: Letting Go Into Your Positive Qualities

Also our warm greetings. This morning, the meditation will be on letting go.

In one way or the other, letting go is part of Buddhist meditation. It is also just part of human life. Even in some meditation practices where they don't practice letting go per se—where there's a practice of just letting everything be, not letting go of anything—even that involves some letting go. The reason for that practice of letting all things be, just being with the way things are, is partly because we so seldom do that. We're often wanting to do things, get involved, fix, and get away. We're not letting things be. In order to let things be, we have to let go of all the ways that we are not letting ourselves be. One way or the other, letting go is part and parcel of what this practice is about.

One of the aspects of letting go which I want to emphasize for this meditation is that it's not only about letting go of something, like letting go of our thoughts. It's also about letting go into. We let go not only because we're trying to not do something, like get rid of something or stop something, but we let go because there's a good place to let go into. We are letting go of those things which interfere with settling deeply into some place of—what comes to mind this moment is safety, well-being, happiness, intimacy, groundedness, wisdom, and compassion. That is also letting go into, and that's the part I'd like to emphasize today.

So, take a meditation posture. If it works for you, take a posture that expresses some dignity, so that when you do let go, it's not a diminishment of who you are. If anything, it is maybe a filling out, filling up, embodying who you are in your full dignity and value. In Buddhism, there's a strong emphasis on the dignity and value of each person. To become an enlightened person is said to become a dignified or a noble person^[1]. That nobility is something we all have in a certain way, a dignity or value. Take a posture that somehow expresses that, and then gently close your eyes.

Take a few moments to let go into your body. Maybe with each breath, release the ways you're holding your body tight, holding it in a certain way up away from gravity, rather than sitting upright, relaxed with gravity. Imagine that the surface of your body—all the surfaces, the skin—is a place that you can soften, loosen, open, and make porous without resisting what's around you or within you. All the surfaces of where you are can be put to rest, so your attention can settle inward to fullness.

Settling down and letting go into your body breathing. Especially as you exhale, let go of your thoughts. As you let go of your thoughts, let go into the depths of your body breathing. Letting go of your thinking is not to diminish yourself, but to allow yourself to then settle in and experience a greater fullness. That can maybe be felt when there is some mental silence, a quieter place with less thinking.

Let go of judgments. Let go of apologies. Let go of criticism. Let go of not being good enough. Let go even of suffering. Let go into the body breathing, into whatever is good, or right, or satisfying, or safe within.

What can you let go of, so you can let go into peace?

Closing Reflections

As we come to the end of the sitting, you might consider how you can let go into something valuable within you. It could be letting go into your capacity for attention. Letting go into your capacity to listen more carefully to others, more fully. Letting go into a place where you have value and dignity, so that when you do listen and be with other people, they feel there's more goodness, more of you available to be present with them.

Let go into a greater capacity for friendliness and compassion^[2] and love. Letting go of the fear, reluctance, and hesitation to look upon people with kind eyes. Letting go into your kindness, into a place where you're strong. Letting go into being true here, so that when you meet other people, they can feel a certain strength of kindness, a strength of caring attention. They can feel, "Here is a caring person, a friendly person, a safe person." You are not safe because you are shy or withdrawn, but safe in the midst of a confidence to be in this world for the welfare and happiness of all beings, including oneself.

May it be that the more we let go, the more we let go into the strength of our positive qualities. A strength of being an example of someone who is upright and dignified, but not conceited or arrogant, who is here definitively to be of benefit for all beings everywhere.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be strong. May all beings be dignified. May all beings be free.