Mindfulness of Breathing (6 of 7) Letting Go; August 29, 7:30 a.m.: Mindfulness of Breathing (6 of 7) Letting Go

This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Dharmette: Mindfulness of Breathing (6 of 7) Letting Go. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on August 31, 2020. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Mindfulness of Breathing (6 of 7) Letting Go

August 29, 7:30 a.m.: Mindfulness of Breathing (6 of 7) Letting Go

So, in that meditation, I was connecting breathing with the idea of letting go. Letting go stands at the heart of the liberation teachings of Buddhism. It's easy to misunderstand this idea of letting go. We get a little different flavor from it when we realize that there are many different words the Buddha uses for letting go, but a good number of those words are closely related or sometimes used to also mean giving or generosity.

We do a little bit of that in English as well with the idea of "giving up." "Giving up" is often used colloquially to mean a kind of surrender, not having any hope, or surrendering to something. But I believe it originally meant offering something up to the altar. There's something sacred about this handing off, and it's something we do with empowerment, with strength, with purpose. It's not a diminishment of ourselves or a loss.

And so, this idea of giving and generosity implies that this letting go is actually something very wholesome and good. We get some sense of that when we realize that when we let go fully, we're more fresh and available to receive—to be attentive, to see clearly without bias and prejudice. When the filter of our wants and not wants, our resentments, our attractions, and our repulsions is gone, we're really there to see and experience what's there.

Using the metaphor and analogy of breathing for that: we're relaxing and letting go as we exhale, and then we're available to inhale. Because breathing is so intimately connected to all the other aspects of how we live our lives, we adjust how much energy we need to do things by how much we breathe. We engage our breath in certain ways in order to best support us in times of danger and fear, and times of joy and activity. There's a constant modulation and movement of the breathing. We also do that when we have emotional reactions and desires about things which have nothing to do with the present moment. The breath is constantly coming and engaging in different kinds of ways.

To learn, especially in meditation, to have an easeful, relaxed breath, we can then see how in that easeful breath, as the breath gets held, we're probably attached to something. We're probably holding on to something, resisting something, or concerned about something. The more easeful and relaxed the breathing is, the more we can notice when things shift. Sometimes in meditation, the breathing gets very, very quiet and still, and then lo and behold, you'll have some kind of thought about a person that you have some trouble with. You can feel how the breathing has changed. It's getting more active; you breathe more fully because of the shift in your concerns. The breathing is an indication of what's shifted in our minds and hearts.

To connect breathing with letting go of what we're holding on to can be quite profound. It also reminds us that letting go is not an end in itself. We're letting go to be available to see things as they arise. Things are constantly beginning and ending, arising and disappearing much more than usually meets the eye—or meets the thoughts. Because we're thinking about things, judging them, having ideas about them, or conceptualizing about them, we tend to add to the present moment experience more continuity than there actually is in the river of time, the actual direct moment of experience.

The more we can relax and soften the conceptual mind, the meaning-making mind, the more we're living in the present moment. The more we see how fully things are constantly changing and moving, the more we are able to be fresh for the next moment. This is a phenomenal gift to ourselves and the world around us. We can see that in small things. You might see a friend after some time, and rather than meeting the friend fresh, you meet them with ideas of who the friend is and how you're supposed to be from how you were in the past. I've made mistakes with friends where I see them and blurt out something to them without being available to see what's new now, what's coming. I remember once it turned out my friend's best friend had just died in the last 24 hours, and I didn't take the time to be there, fresh and open to find out where the person was at, because I was continuing the momentum of our past conversations and way of being together.

So, this idea of being available and fresh: the Zen teacher Suzuki Roshi^[1] defined mindfulness in his own Zen way as a readiness of mind—to be ready for whatever comes and arises. Suzuki Roshi also said that we're not really "letting go" of things; he talked about allowing things to go. Things don't want to stay unless we hold on to them and cling. It's a very generous thing to just allow things to go. You can see that with certain emotions and certain thoughts: they linger because we're involved with them. We're holding on to them, we're picking them up, we're debating them, engaging them, planning them, fantasizing about them. But if we can just let go of the ways in which we're actively involved—holding on, reacting to them, or even pushing them away—then a lot of these things in the mind don't have a lot of continuity power by themselves. We allow them to go when they're ready to go.

Many of you probably know this—I keep forgetting the exact length of time—but emotion researchers in the last 20 years have said that if you leave an emotion alone, it doesn't last more than a minute or two. In order for emotions to last longer, there has to be some kind of fueling or involvement with it. It's a bit of a challenging, even disturbing, idea that these difficult emotions we sometimes have are being perpetuated by our own involvement. But it does point to the idea that at least some emotions continue because of our involvement. We need to learn to let go of that involvement to respect the emotion, to allow it to have its own life. If it's not being fed, the emotion will either fade away or morph and change into something else.

It's very respectful to keep allowing this inner life to arise and unfold. There's a lot of wisdom in our inner life that is limited when we're holding on to things, getting involved, and blocking the new arising or appearing of things. So, this idea of letting go is not a diminishment of who we are. I would say it's an enhancement. It actually allows for inner strength, vitality, wisdom, intelligence, and compassion—the best in us—to start coming and appearing. What's worse in us tends to be a problem when we hold on to it, cling to it, and reinforce it. But this idea of just letting go and being available before something arises is a beautiful thing.

Your breathing is your companion and friend in this regard. You can find in the breathing how you're sometimes held. The breathing shifts and changes; maybe it becomes more chest breathing than belly breathing, becomes faster, or is held in check in all kinds of subtle ways. Come back to the capacity for an easeful breath. In that easeful breath, or close to it, let go. Develop a healthy habit that you can use if you need to: on the exhale, really be there for the exhale to help you let go of what you're holding on to. Help yourself relax, settle, and de-stress. Breathing is such a wonderful and powerful friend. It's well worth learning the skill and well worth taking the time. It's not always easy, but it's a great thing.

So, letting go. We have one more day tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. where we'll do another day on breathing. Some of you are meditating a lot today, and some of you are living your life. What you might do today is experiment where it seems appropriate with just letting go of any ways in which you're holding. Suzuki Roshi also said we're not letting go of things; we're letting go of the holding onto things, the clinging to things.

The analogy or metaphor I like to use for that is: if I'm clinging to this bell striker—gripping it tight for dear life—and then I realize how much it hurts to grip and how limited that life is, I could let go of it by just dropping it. If I just let it fall on the podium here, it would make a big, not-so-nice sound. But there's another way of letting something go: we can release it, we can let go, but still hold it in an open hand. It doesn't require something to disappear to let it go. In that open hand, holding it this way, there is an availability and allowance for things to do what they do. If the striker is actually a butterfly, it'll fly away. Or if it's a good thing to have, maybe it'll stay there. In that open hand, something new and useful will come. It's available this way.

So, experiment, play around with it, and stretch yourself in this world of letting go. Take some chances today to let go and see what it's like. Anybody you meet, communicate with, or email with—what happens if you can really let go before you actually start that engagement with them? Can you then be available to see them in a fresh way, in a new way? I suggest this experiment today with letting go so that you may be ready for what will follow tomorrow morning. Thank you very much, and may this be a happy day for you—happy in letting go. Thank you.