The Art of Letting Go

When you sit and meditate, even if you don’t gain any intuitive insights, make sure at least that you know this much: When the breath comes in, you know. When it goes out, you know. When it’s long, you know. When it’s short, you know. Whether it’s pleasant or unpleasant, you know. If you can know this much, you’re doing fine. As for the various perceptions and concepts (saññā) that come into the mind, brush them away—whether they’re good or bad, whether they deal with the past or the future. Don’t let them interfere with what you’re doing—and don’t go chasing after them to straighten them out. When a thought of this sort comes passing in, simply let it go passing on. Keep your awareness, unperturbed, in the present.

When we say that the mind goes here or there, it’s not really the mind that goes. Only concepts go. Concepts are like shadows of the mind. If the body is still, how will its shadow move? The movement of the body is what causes the shadow to move, and when the shadow moves, how will you catch hold of it? Shadows are hard to catch, hard to shake off, hard to set still. The awareness that forms the present: That’s the true mind. The awareness that goes chasing after concepts is just a shadow. Real awareness—’knowing’—stays in place. It doesn’t stand, walk, come, or go. As for the mind—the awareness that doesn’t act in any way coming or going, forward or back—it’s quiet and unperturbed. And when the mind is thus its normal, even, undistracted self—i.e., when it doesn’t have any shadows—we can rest peacefully. But if the mind is unstable and uncertain, it wavers: Concepts arise and go flashing out—and we go chasing after them, hoping to drag them back in. The chasing after them is where we go wrong. This is what we have to correct. Tell yourself: Nothing is wrong with your mind. Just watch out for the shadows. You can’t improve your shadow. Say your shadow is black. You can scrub it with soap till your dying day, and it’ll still be black—because there’s no substance to it. So it is with your concepts. You can’t straighten them out, because they’re just images, deceiving you.

The Buddha thus taught that whoever isn’t acquainted with the self, the body, the mind, and its shadows, is suffering from avijjā—darkness, deluded knowledge. Whoever thinks the mind is the self, the self is the mind, the mind is its concepts—whoever has things all mixed up like this—is lost like a person lost in the jungle. To be lost in the jungle brings countless hardships. There are wild beasts to worry about, problems in finding food to eat and a place to sleep. No matter which way you look, there’s no way out. But if we’re lost in the world, it’s many times worse than being lost in the jungle, because we can’t tell night from day. We have no chance to find any brightness because our minds are dark with avijjā.

The purpose of training the mind to be still is to simplify things. When things are simplified, we can see. The mind can settle down and rest. And when the mind has rested, it’ll gradually become bright, in and of itself, and give rise to knowledge. But if we let things get complicated—if we let the mind get mixed up with sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas—that’s darkness. Knowledge won’t have a chance to arise.

Mind-states mixed up with sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas are like a boat buffeted by storm winds from the back, the front, the left, and the right—all eight directions—that keep it from staying upright and simply cause it to sink. The lanterns used on the boat will have to go out because of the strength of the winds.

Thoughts and concepts are like waves running back and forth in the ocean. The heart is like a fish that swims up and down in the water. Just as it’s the nature of the fish to see the waves of the ocean as enjoyable, it’s the nature of people filled with thick ignorance to see tumultuous issues as enjoyable as well. But when we can calm down all the issues of the mind, we can bring it to its meditation object, firmly implanting the recollections—beginning with recollection of the Buddha and ending with recollection of the Saṅgha—in the heart.

When this is the case, we can throw out all the bad things in the heart, just as we throw out all the useless things in our boat and load the boat with useful things instead. Even though these things may add weight to the boat, our heart is light—because all the affairs of merit and skillfulness are light. When the heart is light in this way, our burdens lessen. The mind is free of its various thoughts and concepts, the hindrances don’t appear, and we can immediately enter into our meditation.

We have to use mindfulness and alertness to survey the effect that the in-and-out breath has on the body and on the mind. If the breath is weak, start with a long in-breath again. Don’t let your mindfulness lapse. Keep adjusting the breath until you feel that the body and mind are gaining a sense of comfort and ease. (To take a deep breath is to highlight your sense of feeling.) When you gain a sense of comfort and ease in this way, the mind grows still. When the mind is still, it gives rise to many kinds of good results: (1) results in the area of the body and (2) results in the area of the mind. Results in the area of the body are a sense of openness, lightness, and suppleness without any sense of constriction or trouble. You can sit without feeling tightness, pains, or disease.

As for the mind, it feels undisturbed: wide open and empty, free from external thoughts and concepts. Be careful to look after these results well, maintain them for a long time. Other results will then appear in their wake: i.e., knowledge. On the physical level, this refers to the visions that may arise (uggaha nimitta). Whatever vision appears as an image in the heart is a secondary level of result. When the foundation provided by the body is comfortable, the foundation provided by the mind is bound to be comfortable, and results—called cognitive skills—will appear in the mind. For example, things we’ve never read about or studied can appear to us. Another sort of result is when the mind is nice and quiet, if we want to know about a particular matter, we simply move the mind just a little bit and we can immediately know what we wanted to know—like a needle on a record: As soon as it hits the record, sounds will arise to tell us clearly what’s on the record.

This kind of knowledge can develop into liberating insight (vipassanā-ñāṇa). But if the knowledge concerns lowly matters—dealing with perceptions of the past and future—and we follow it for a long distance, it turns into worldly knowledge. That is to say, we dabble so much in matters of the body that we lower the level of the mind, which doesn’t have a chance to mature in the level of mental phenomena.

Say, for example, that a vision arises and you get hooked: You gain knowledge of your past lives and get all excited. Things you never knew before, now you can know. Things you never saw before, now you see—and they can make you overly pleased or upset. Why? Because you take them all too seriously. You may see a vision of yourself prospering as a lord or master, a great emperor or king, wealthy and influential. If you let yourself feel pleased, that’s indulgence in pleasure. You’ve strayed from the Middle Path. Or you may see yourself as something you wouldn’t care to be: a pig or a dog, a bird or a rat, crippled or deformed. If you let yourself get upset, that’s indulgence in self-affliction—and again, you’ve strayed from the path. Some people really let themselves get carried away: As soon as they start seeing things, they begin to think that they’re special, somehow better than other people. They let themselves become proud and conceited—and the true path has disappeared without their even knowing it. If you’re not careful, this is where mundane knowledge can lead you.

But if you keep one principle firmly in mind, you can stay on the right path: Whatever appears, good or bad, true or false, don’t let yourself feel pleased, don’t let yourself get upset. Keep the mind balanced and neutral, and discernment will arise. You’ll see that the vision or sign displays the truth of stress: it arises (is born), fades (ages), and disappears (dies).

When you know in this way, you can stay neutral and equanimous. The mind will let go of the vision and discard it from the heart. The vision will disappear—but it isn’t annihilated. The vision still has its truth. It’s like fire in the world: The red light of the flame exists, but we don’t touch it or try to grab it. All visions disband, but they aren’t annihilated. Wherever we go, they’re still there, but we simply don’t latch onto them. If they arise, that’s their business. If they disband, that’s their business, but our awareness stays at normalcy.

This is the path. When the path is established in this way, the cause of suffering disbands, but our ability to know and see the Dhamma is still there. For example, if we want to know what heaven and hell are like, or if they exist, a vision will immediately appear. Sometimes we know the affairs of other people: This person is like this, that person is like that, what they’re like after they die and what the place they’re reborn is like. Sometimes when we know these things we get carried away, entranced in other peoples’ business, entranced by our own knowledge. Sometimes we see the face of an enemy who oppressed us in the past, and this gets us upset. When this happens, the mind falls into self-torment.

The right way is that we don’t have to show any happiness or sadness in the things that we like or don’t like. We have to remind ourselves that it’s normal that all of us have both good things and bad things in our past. The affairs of birth keeping circling around like this. Nothing’s for sure. Nothing’s true. The good things aren’t truly good. The bad things aren’t truly bad—and they keep on being unreliable. This is the way it is with us; this is the way it is with other people.

When you see the truth in this way, the mind gives rise to disenchantment because it sees clearly that every thing of every sort simply arises and changes, and when it changes it disbands. The mind can let go and stay neutral, and the path arises. The mind stays steady and still, with no worries, no attachments. It will then be released from the visions about you and about others, released from its knowledge. It won’t latch onto knowledge about you—such as knowledge of previous lives—or onto knowledge about others, such as knowledge of the death and rebirth of other beings.

When we’re no longer involved in our own affairs—true or false, good or bad, and about whether we know or not—the mind will gain release from the mundane level and develop the knowledge of the ending of mental fermentations.

Some people reach the stage of gaining knowledge and latch onto it, which can lead to delusion. As for those perfections are strong, they’ll know how to hold back from their knowledge, and the mind will enter the lowest of the noble attainments, or stream-entry.

Some people gain cognition on the mental level. Knowledge arises concerning the affairs of the mind. This kind of sign is a form of knowledge that arises from stillness without our having thought of the matter. It can simply arise on its own. As soon as we think of something, it will immediately arise, just as we hear sounds when we turn on a radio. Sometimes we know this, sometimes that, sometimes we don’t know, sometimes it arises on its own.

This can turn into the corruptions of insight, which is why we shouldn’t latch onto the true things we know, we shouldn’t latch onto the false things we know. If you latch onto your views, they can hurt you. Latching onto false things can hurt you; latching onto true things can hurt. In fact, the true things are what really hurt you. If what you know is true and you go telling other people, you’re bragging. If it turns out to be false, it can backfire on you. This is why those who truly know say that knowledge is the essence of stress: It can hurt you. Knowledge is part of the flood of views and opinions (diṭṭhi-ogha) over which we have to cross. If you hang onto knowledge, you’ve gone wrong. If you know, simply know and let it go at that. You don’t have to be excited or pleased. You don’t have to go telling other people.

People who’ve studied abroad, when they come back to the rice fields, don’t tell what they’ve learned to the folks at home. They talk about ordinary things in an ordinary way. They don’t talk about the things they’ve studied because (1) no one would understand them; (2) it wouldn’t serve any purpose. Even with people who would understand them, they don’t display their learning. So it should be when you practice meditation. No matter how much you know, you have to act as if you know nothing—because this is the way people with good manners normally act. If you go bragging to other people, it’s bad enough. If they don’t believe you, it can get even worse.

So whatever you know, simply be aware of it and let it go. Don’t let there be the assumption that ‘I know.’ When you can do this, your mind can attain the transcendent, free from attachment.

Everything in the world has its truth. Even things that aren’t true are true—i.e., their truth is that they’re false. This is why we have to let go of both what’s true and what’s false. Once we know the truth and can let it go, we can be at our ease. We won’t be poor, because the truth—the Dhamma—will still be there with us. We won’t be left empty-handed. It’s like having a lot of money: Instead of lugging it around with us, we keep it piled up at home. We may not have anything in our pockets, but we’re still not poor.

The same is true with people who really know. Even when they let go of their knowledge, it’s still there. This is why the minds of the Noble Ones aren’t left adrift. They let things go, but not in a wasteful or irresponsible way. They let go like rich people: Even though they let go, they’ve still got piles of wealth.

As for people who let things go like paupers, they don’t know what’s worthwhile and what’s not, and so they let it all go, throw it all away. And when they do this, they’re simply heading for disaster. For instance, they may see that there’s no truth to anything—no truth to the khandhas, no truth to the body, no truth to stress, its cause, its disbanding, or the path to its disbanding, no truth to unbinding (nibbāna). They don’t use their brains at all. They’re too lazy to do anything, so they let go of everything, throw it all away. This is called letting go like a pauper. Like a lot of modern-day sages: When they come back after they die, they’re going to be poor all over again.

As for the Buddha, he let go only of the true and false things that appeared in his body and mind—but he didn’t abandon his body and mind, which is why he ended up rich, with plenty of wealth to hand down to his descendants. This is why his descendants never have to worry about being poor.

So we should look to the Buddha as our model. If we see that the khandhas are worthless—inconstant, stressful, not-self, and all that—and simply let go of them by neglecting them, we’re sure to end up poor. Like a stupid person who feels so repulsed by a festering sore on his body that he won’t touch it and so lets it go without taking care of it: There’s no way the sore is going to heal. As for intelligent people, they know how to wash their sores, put medicine and bandages on them, so that eventually they’re sure to recover.

In the same way, when people see only the drawbacks to the khandhas, without seeing their good side, and so let them go without putting them to any worthwhile or skillful use, nothing good will come of it. But if we’re intelligent enough to see that the khandhas have their good side as well as their bad, and then put them to good use by meditating to gain discernment into physical and mental phenomena, we’re going to be rich. Once we have the truth—the Dhamma—as our wealth, we won’t suffer if we have money, and won’t suffer if we don’t, because our minds will be transcendent.

As for the various forms of rust that have befouled and obscured our senses—the rust of greed, the rust of anger, and the rust of delusion—these all fall away. Our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind will all be clean and bright. This is why the Buddha said, “Dhammo padīpo: The Dhamma is a bright light.” This is the light of discernment. Our heart will be far beyond all forms of harm and suffering, and will flow in the current leading to nibbāna at all times.