Letting Go
If we hold on to thoughts, judgments, and opinions,
our minds will be cluttered and useless.
If we hold on to possessions,
our minds will contract in fear of loss.
If we hold on to the opinions of others,
our minds will be confused and exhausted.
The only path to a satisfying life
lies in letting go.
The Tao Te Ching, Chapter 9 – trans. William Martin
Holding on, Lao-Tzu seems to say, is the major obstacle to the simplicity we are seeking. When we cling to our possessions, ideas, or opinions we create a corresponding fear of losing them; the fear causes us to cling all the tighter and the increased clinging ratchets up the fear. It is a cycle of suffering that is very difficult to break. By the time we are adults, most of us have this noose of clinging/fear wrapped tight about our mind.
Consider what hanging on does to life. Houses, instead of being simple places of warmth and rest, become vast live-in storage sheds. Minds, instead of being free-flowing perceivers of marvelous Reality, become closets stuffed with fears, desires, and tangled nets of confusing thoughts. The stream of Life becomes a sludge-filled stagnant pond upon which we row around in circles.
Our favorite supermarket is in the town of Yreka, about thirty miles away. We make the trip about once a week, always driving on the old highway which meanders through beautiful ranch country instead of taking the interstate freeway. It is a lovely quiet drive during which we seldom see another vehicle. On my last trip my mind was cluttered with anxious thoughts and fearful scenarios regarding politics – useless thoughts stirred by a brief dip into media. I call the thoughts useless because they had nothing to do with any action I could take or not take to change anything. They were simply clutter. I completed the whole thirty miles without seeing or experiencing a single bit of reality. I pulled into our driveway and realized that my chock-full mind had no room whatsoever for the blessings of the drive.
In retrospect, the Taoist approach to that lost drive to Yreka would not have been to push away the political fears, but to simply let the view of Mount Shasta fill my senses. Then let it slip away and watch the fears return, only to empty back out as the golds, greens, and browns of the countryside flowed in. Soon the expansive reality of the actual here and now of my life would be flowing through unimpeded. My habitual clinging to and ruminating on my thoughts would be replaced by the greater pleasure of being alive in this place at this time.
The same process holds true with the things in my life. Every thing I own takes up a specific amount of physical and psychic space. The questions arise: How much space do I want to devote to storage? How much energy do I want to devote to providing this storage space? What am I missing in the meantime? How is my unconscious and habitual holding on to things creating a blockage that prevents my deeper satisfactions from flowing in?
Clinging impedes the flow of the Tao. The Yin and Yang of the Tao is a constant process which empties in order to fill; then empties once again, to again fill up. However, “trying” to let go is simply another form of clinging; it’s hanging on to the idea of letting go. In my own experience, letting go is not something done by force of will. It usually comes when I have the realization that my holding on is keeping me from something that is important to me; when I wake up to the realization that I can’t have both what I’m clinging to and what is beckoning me forward. It is the classic case of the cake we want to have, yet eat.
Life is meant to be eaten and digested fully, not sealed in a glassed-in case and kept safe for all to admire. Let’s learn to empty out. It is the only path to finding true full-fillment.
