Tara Brach - The Three Steps of Letting Go

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

The Three Steps of Letting Go - A wonderful inquiry is, "What is between me and openhearted presence?" This talk explores the profound healing and transformation that arises when we release the blocks to our natural and loving awareness.

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste and welcome friends. I recently heard a story about two monks who were told that if they hike to the top of a mountain by sunrise, they'd get to meet the Buddha. And of course they're both really eager and they moved at a fast pace. But halfway up the mountain, one of the monks fell down and he broke a leg. And so the other was forced to choose.

Does he leave his friend and keep going to the top and take care of him later? Or does he let go of getting to the top of the mountain and help him down, you know, aid, bring aid? So I won't leave you guessing. We know what he chooses. And the gift is this. It's the realization that our full and open-hearted presence here and out is the top of the mountain. It is what we're seeking.

That's where the Buddha resides right here and now, only in these precious moments. You know, I heard an anonymous saying that we all live two lives and the second one starts when we realize I only have one life. The second one starts when we realize I only have this life, these precious moments. And maybe this has happened to you that that realization that you're really not on your way somewhere else to the top of the mountain, that what you have is the aliveness and presence and loving that's right here now. That's it. This is it. I know it's easy to think of our lives and the spiritual path as going somewhere, trying to get somewhere different.

But it's actually, the path is really learning to let go of whatever's keeping us from the presence that's right here now. Let go of whatever's blocking us from open-hearted presence. to let go of any of the thoughts or the habits or the attitudes that are keeping us from inhabiting this precious life. So today's reflection is on the blessings of letting go, letting go of the blocks to loving and full presence, to the blocks between really being at home in our lives. And the inquiry I found that really serves this and that can guide us is, what is between me and presence?

What is between me and open-heartedness right in this moment? The gifts of letting go, one of the most beautiful descriptions is from the timeaster Ajan Cha who says, if you let go a little, you'll find a little piece. if you let go a lot, you'll find a lot of peace. And if you let go absolutely, you'll find absolute peace and tranquility. So when we're holding on, when we're wanting life different, when we're wanting something more, when we're wanting to be at the top of the mountain, we're not at home, we're not free, we're not right here. There's a story about a type of monkey trap that was once used in India. There would be a hollowed-out coconut and it would be

chained to a steak and the coconut would have some sweet rice inside it and the monkey could put its hand through and grab the rice but it wouldn't be able to get out of that hole unless it let go of the rice and the monkeys wouldn't want to let go of the rice and so it would be trapped it would be stuck. And it wouldn't be stuck by something physical. It was stuck by an idea, by the conditioning that you see the rice, you hold on tight. And it just describes really well. Our ego's mission is to control our experience. And it holds on because it wants to protect or get something, you know, and the more we have feelings of fear or wanting that tighter that controlling grip. So letting go, letting go of control, letting life be as it is means opening to change, opening

ultimately to our impermanence. There's a wonderful definition of death and it's Patrick Henry's second choice. I always love that. And the point being that letting go is the last choice of our egoic self. It's entirely organized around avoiding or resisting what's unpleasant and grasping onto what secures us or gives us pleasantness and not around letting be. And of course, the ego's role is totally necessary for survival. We know that.

We know that it's good to avoid driving with someone who's been. drinking and it's really good to make sure our refrigerator is stocked with tasty and nutritious foods. But here's where the suffering comes in. We hold on to the sweet rice way beyond what's needed for survival. Our egoic controlling is on overtime and it goes way beyond what serves us. And the upshot is that we're chronically trying to control and resist the reality of the moment. We're resisting full presence. Something in us, this vigilance, is perpetually trying to control things. And you might pause here and just scan and sense what's true for you if you look back on the hours of today.

If it helps to close your eyes, do so and just consider today and how to. how today's unfolded. And you might notice, well, how much was there some resting in presence, allowing life to be just as it is? You're just pausing and feeling the breath as it is or listening to the sound of the birds or listening to another person, taking them in, or tasting a piece of fruit. So how much really feeling the life of the moment? And you might also notice how much how much were you in that controlling trance, getting through the day on your way somewhere else, trying to manage things? How much was necessary of that? So, when we investigate, what we find is that there are actually a number of layers of the ways that we keep controlling

and we block presence. These are the domains of letting go and one of them is our body. You know, we know our bodies just hold on to tension. It's not. like it's helping, but we are continually tightening against some perceived upcoming danger. You know, when Tibetan teacher described it that we're a bundle of tense muscles protecting our existence. So we then look at our minds. And our minds are also tensing, pulling away from presence in habitual worry or planning, obsessing, blaming.

we look at our behavior and our behavior pulls us away from presence. It's so often compulsive or addictive getting hooked on work, on screens, on substances, getting hooked on judging or defending, you know, trying to make things different. And our hearts are continually pulling away from presence, tightening, defending against feeling the vulnerability of being alive. So there's these different domains of where we actually are blocking, we're pulling away from presence. And coming back home, letting go isn't actually a doing. And this is what's interesting and I just want to really tune in here. We don't do letting go. It's actually an undoing, a seizing or a letting go of the contracting, a releasing of the way we're tensing.

our releasing of the ways were closed off. Let me just invite a short exercise that I think demonstrates it really well, if you will, to make a fist and start squeezing. Okay? Keep squeezing. Okay, so this is what the body and mind is doing when it's trying to protect or control or hold on. Keep squeezing and just notice as you do the discomfort. Notice that it's tiring and also that you're not noticing your breathing, are the sounds around you or just the larger world. And now slowly discontinue the squeezing, but slowly just start letting go, letting go of the doing of squeezing. And as you do, just letting be the actual experience of the moment. And notice what happens. Notice how there's a natural kind of balancing or awakening of energy

in the hand, some flow, some ease, some space, and that your attention can naturally widen. And that begins to point to the gifts of letting go, of undoing the squeezing. And we'll explore more of the gifts. But let's first look at what letting go actually means in our lives in today's world, right here. And as mentioned, if we look honestly at our lives, we'll start to see a lot of levels of contracting away from presence. What I'd like to do is focus on core contraction, one that really pulls us away from presence in a deep way. And it's the idea or the belief that life should be different. I should be different, you should be different. I should not have to feel bad. I should feel more secure. I should not make mistakes. I should do more to help. You

should not behave in ways that make me feel bad. We see it so much in parents towards the children, you should be a certain way. And of course, when they're older, you should do the work that I want you to be doing or you should partner with someone I approve of. I heard a story about a man who fell in love and he found his life partner and he told his mom, you know, that he found her and he was going to bring home three women to the house so she could guess his beloved. And he did so. And immediately his mother pointed to one of the women. And he's so touched. She said, you're right. You're right. How did you know? And her response, I hated her the minute I saw her. So we're very hooked on it. It should be different than how it is. And

When we have that going, that life in this moment should be different, you should be different, I should be different, it's an evaluation of badness, it's an aversion towards what's right here, towards reality. And here's the thing. No matter how right we think we are that something should be different, it's an argument with the reality of the moment. It's an opposing. We're at war with how it is. It's aversive. We're contracted against the badness of now. Wanting something that feels unhealthy to change

is different from thinking that it should change, that there's something basically wrong. The change we might long for in ourselves and others in our world, it doesn't come from opposition, from hate. from should, it arises out of presence and caring. It arises when we've let go of the contraction, the judgment, the negation that removes us from presence. Okay, now in daily life, the actual motivation for letting go is an abstract. It's not like we say to ourselves, okay, I should let go of judging myself, I should let go of judging others so I can live in more presence.

that's mental, that's not going to land. So I've shared that decades ago, I decided I wanted to let go of chronic, averse of judging. You know, you should be different. And it wasn't from this noble, spiritual ideal. It was because I was directly experiencing how judgment was creating separation from others, how it was tightening my heart. It felt bad. You know, it was creating separation from people I felt very close to on some level. But in some other way, I was holding onto you, you should be different. You'll find in your own life that suffering, this feeling of, this doesn't feel good, is often what

nudges us to let go. It's like we realize it's more painful to hold on, whether it's to judging or to over-consuming or to being chronically busy, it's more painful to hold on than to go through the process of letting go. And in that way, suffering is really awareness's way of letting us know there's a blockage. Suffering lets us know there's a blockage. It's an expression of love. That invitation to let go is an expression of love because letting go is free. Okay, so there I was wanting to let go of judging and I want to just share with you the process. And it was a very conscious, intentional one that I decided that whenever I became aware of you should be different, you know, mentally putting someone else down some, that I'd pause and I'd let go of the

thoughts that were there and I'd open into my body. I'd feel what was under them. And often it was fear or anxiety or irritation or powerlessness, whatever it was, I'd be with that and I'd hold it with compassion. And what I found, and this is with each round to some degree, is that just those few moments of letting go and letting be what was under the judging, expanded or enlarged me. I was in a larger heart space, not so constricted. There was no longer that squeezing fist and it felt better and it deeply impacted how I related to others. The updated report is that aversive judging still arises quite frequently.

The difference is it doesn't have much of a foothold because I'm pretty quick to see it and not believe it, come back to my body, come back to my heart. Okay, so there are three steps that I just named and letting go and I want to keep repeating them so that you can explore this for yourself. The first is that, you know, this is once we've recognized, oh, there's something between me and presence, that we stop the activity of the squeezing. In other words, the thought that's going on or the busy racing around or the movement to get another bowl of ice cream.

The first step is to let go of the squeezing activity and then the second is to open into what's actually right here underneath, to say yes to what's actually here, the reality underneath the grasping, the avoiding, letting the feelings that are there be and the third step, remembering love, holding it with compassion. Okay, so let go of the thoughts, open into the body. and hold with kindness. So our meditation practice actually trains us in each of these steps. The first, most basic instructions many of us get, recognize thinking and when you are caught in a thought, let go and open back into full presence, into the breath, for instance.

And when we get the knack, when we start realizing, oh, okay, I'm often a judging thought or a worry thought or obsessive fantasy, we start being able to see it and say, okay, come back, come back to what's right here. This is the most basic part of training of letting go because if we can't step out of the thoughts and into the body, we won't be able to. unclench the fist because the thoughts actually fuel the clenching. You might remember the neuroscientist Jill Bolte-Taylor, she described how emotions last for about 1.5 minutes. But if thoughts are there, if you're lost in thoughts, then the emotions become a mood. So we have to be able to step out

of the thoughts, let go of the thoughts. Ajin Samato, who's an American monk lives in Great Britain, describes the importance of letting go this way. He says the practice of letting go is very effective for minds obsessed by compulsive thinking. You simplify your meditation practice down to just two words, letting go, rather than try to develop this practice and then that, achieve this and go into that and understand this and read the and study the Abidama and then learn Pali in Sanskrit, and then Maja Makaya and the Prajna-Para-Mita, get ordinations in Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vadriana, write books and become a world's renowned authority on Buddhism, instead of becoming the world's expert on Buddhism and being invited to great international

Buddhist conferences, just let go, let go, let go. I did nothing, but I did nothing. But this for about two years, every time I tried to understand or figure things out, I'd say, let go, let go until the desire would fade out. So I'm making it very simple for you to save you from getting caught in incredible amounts of suffering. There's nothing more sorrowful than having to attend international Buddhist conferences. Letting go frees us up in many ways. As one shaman put it, you talk to yourself.

much. You're not unique in that. Every one of us does. We maintain our world with our inner dialogue. A person of knowledge is aware that the world will change completely as soon as they stop talking to themselves. Okay, so that's the first step of letting go is letting go of thoughts. Let go, let go. The second step, opening into what's actually happening, opening into the felt sense in the body, saying yes to what's going on right here. And again, this is a basic part of our mindfulness training to whatever is arising in the senses. We feel it, we open to it without resistance, trying to let it be as it is, not pushing away, not pushing away and not possessed, just letting be.

And this is the real power and freedom of mindfulness that we develop this capacity to recognize what's happening and allow it, let it be. And there's a lot of transformation in that step because in the moment of directly allowing what you're feeling underneath the mental activity, the wave of anxiety or of sadness, there's this opening. And rather than being attached to the wave or trying to control the wave or being possessed by the wave in a moment of mindfulness, you become the ocean relating to the wave.

So that's step two. Step one is let go of the thought. Step two, open to the waves, to the feelings inside the body. And then step three, our meditation helps us to contact the love that allows for really a full letting go. And it may be that we practice, you know, relating to what's going on, having our own spiritual hearts send a message of kindness inwardly. Art might be that we call in some larger sense of loving presence, perhaps the heart space that is represented by a friend or a deity.

Art may be that we practice just surrendering what's going on into some larger sense of loving presence. But any remembrance of love of kindness will allow the letting go to be more complete. So these are the steps that really can free us from the deepest places of suffering. I want to share a story. I hear countless stories about family schisms because it's just a deep suffering in a lot of families and sometimes it's never healed many times. We had one in my parents' generation, so much pain in it. The one I'd like to share with you was, this is a client I worked with some years ago, and he had had decades of divide with his sister. And they grew up in a really difficult household. The parents, a lot of hostility between the parents when they were

teens, their parents divorced, the father left. So these two were very close. They were real allies. She married his best friend, his best friend and he went into business and they ended up splitting the business and the friend took some of the clients in a way that this man felt broke in agreement. And his sister stood up for her husband, this friend and he felt betrayed and abandoned. And over the next couple of years there were some very accusatory harsh letters that went in both directions. Then about five years later, she sent some letters asking to talk to see if they could reconnect, reconcile, but he refused his stance as she shouldn't have, I could never trust her. Ten years later, sister now divorced, reached out again. This now by now was emails and he just

didn't even respond to her periodic emails. Fifteen years, he's 60 now. 15 years later, this is when we started working together, 60 years old. His sister had gotten cancer and she, after the diagnosis, after he heard about it, he had a dream that she died and he went into really deep grief. And she didn't die. She actually went into remission. It was a very treatable cancer, but something was shaken in him. So he wanted to try connecting, but still had some part of him blocked, hooked. He was holding on. She should have backed me. She shouldn't have said those things. She betrayed my trust. And that's when we were working together. So we practiced these steps that I've been sharing with you of, okay, let go of those thoughts, come into the body,

what's there? And, you know, the thoughts were, it should have been different. She should be different. And he came into his body and what was theirs, you know, deep hurt, feeling that she didn't care enough about him to stick by him. And that went into a deep kind of lifelong hurt that had to do with his parents and a lot of grieving. And the practices allow, let be, say yes to that. So he did that. And then the third step call on love, you know, invited him to really inhabit his his own most awake heart to really call on compassion and to offer what was needed inwardly. And what he offered was, I'm here, I'm not leaving. Hand on heart, I'm here, I'm not leaving over and over again.

So for several months, we practiced us together, he practiced alone. And after one of the last rounds, he got to a very deep place of holding himself attention. I invited him to imagine her and to ask his most wise heart, what has this been like for her? What happened? What did she go through? And he knew right away she was caught in cross-currents. She had a fear of loss. I asked what message she would want to give him. And the message again came through very quickly. She loves me. She was never taking away her love. He emailed that evening and two days later flew to Maine to meet with her and they were ready. They'd each done that inner work of letting go that allowed them even within a few minutes

because he wrote to me about it, the kind of tears and hugs to let them know that they were back in each other's hearts and lives. I started sharing that anonymous saying we have two lives and the second begins, when we realize we only have one. And sometimes there are jarring things that happen that let us realize that, you know, the diagnosis for instance. But that's the truth even when we're not jarred into it, that this life is temporary, it's impermanent, and when we really understand that it's passes in a flash, when we look back at our past and realize it's a flash, that we only have this life, we only have these moments, letting go becomes more of a natural

response. We're no longer trying to get to the top of the mountain, having things be the way we think they should be. We're more dedicated to these precious moments. So let's practice for a bit, just a little bit of letting go in your own life. And if you need to shift positions or make yourself more comfortable, please do so. And you might scan your life. I imagine you've already been doing so. And just sense where there's a habitually tensing fist. In other words, asking that question, in my life, what's a place that a recurring kind

of reactivity that gets between me and presence, where it might benefit to do some letting go, where are you holding on to I should be different or you should be different? And let yourself settle on somewhere. It doesn't have to be the perfect place, but just somewhere where you know you're caught in that sense of you should be different or I should be different. And imagine being at the end of life still holding that and what that would be like just to help you feel the wisdom, the longing to let go. And again, bring yourself back to this situation,

whatever recurrent experience you have that has you feel like I should be different or you should be different. You should be more, better, not be like such and such. Just sense this is what's between you and presence. And recognize the thought, in some way the thought that it should be different. that assumption, that expectation in your mind. You might even whisper, okay, judging. And let go of that thought.

Let it go and open into the body, open to the life that's under it. Feel what's here. It might help to put your hand on your heart. Just feel what's here. Breathe with it. Is it pain? Is it fear? Hurt?

Powerlessness. pain of feeling unloved or unsafe, just breathe with it. So you've moved from holding on to a thought to opening to the living reality of what's underneath the vulnerability and deepen that presence with compassion. You might sense your own wise heart, that larger heart space, the field of your compassion, your spiritual heart holding your human heart. Maybe there's a message, I'm here, I care, I'm not leaving, trust your goodness. And maybe to remember love you're calling on something larger, perhaps there's a loving

person in your life that helps you to hold vulnerability. Or maybe there's a deity or a pet. But just sense that being helping you to rest in that larger heart space and hold what's here. You might even imagine and sense that you can surrender, surrender the vulnerability, the hurting place into that larger loving field. Just let it go into loving presence. This isn't getting rid of. It's letting it be included in a larger truth. Just imagine handing it over, bowing, surrendering it into the field of love. and then rest in that loving presence.

Sense who you are without any notion of should be different. Since your beingness, the vastness of heart and presence, when there's no sense of should be different. Sense how you experience another person without the notion should be different. Perhaps there's compassion towards where you sense there's pain. and perhaps you can sense some creative possibilities of relating or engaging differently from this wisdom of your heart. The poet Dana Falls writes,

Let go of the ways you thought life would unfold, the holding of plans or dreams or expectations. Let it all go. Let it all go and flow with the grace that washes through your days. Let go and the waves cross. crest will carry you to unknown shores beyond your wildest dreams or destinations. Let it all go and find the place of rest and peace and certain transformation. Friends, let go and find the heart space that's your true home.

Okay, opening your eyes. If they're closed, coming back. So you might think of the practice of letting go on two to different levels. And the first is what we've just been exploring a kind of more in-depth process where you're focusing on a particular place of deep holding, one that has real charge, one that you may return to many rounds, coming back to again and again, taking those three steps. I want to close by saying there's also an ongoing daily way of letting go of whatever you notice is blocking presence. Again, asking that question.

just pausing when you sense you're off in some way and just asking, what's between me and open-hearted presence? Just that inquiry, it's so powerful, it'll reveal the thoughts or the tightness or squeezing in your body that might have been blocking you. I'd like to share two examples just from the last two days for me of asking that question. And the first yesterday evening, I went kayaking on the Potomac with Jonathan. It's one of our favorite activities doing a kind of sunset kayak. And the weather was perfect. And we arrived at our favorite spot where we like to hang out where there are boulders and currents

and the sun's reflected in the currents and it was a cooling breeze. And I noticed, hmm, I'm not all here. So I asked that question, you know, what's between me and presence? And it was clear that what was going on was I had acid indigestion and I had discomfort in my gut, my heart area. And along with it was this idea that this shouldn't be happening. I shouldn't be feeling this. I wanted to be on the mountaintop where all was perfect and now is not okay. I need to be somewhere else, more comfortable. And because that idea became conscious, the sense of something should be different, I just whispered, let go, let go.

And then came into my body to just feel the discomfort with a kind of a tender presence. And then to feel the breeze because there was kind of that unclenching. And here are the birds and the currents. And it was perfectly imperfect, you know. It was still uncomfortable, but I wasn't at odds. because I didn't have some assumption it should be different. I was resting in more wholeness and presence and peace. And of course, just so you know, when I got home, I took some anti-acid meds and, you know,

because letting go doesn't mean we don't still act to improve our circumstances. We're just dropping the opposition, the aversion to what's here. Okay, one more example. and that's this morning's meditation. I asked again that question during, I felt a kind of a tightness. I said, what's between me and presence? And there was an anxiety, a kind of clenching in my chest. And I'm leaving town next week, traveling across the country, teaching, going to be away

for a while. And I found more recently that when I'm about to leave and travel, I start getting anxious. And so I had to let go of the idea, not the anxiety, but that the anxiety shouldn't be there. It was just there. So I let go of, let go of this thing of I should be feeling differently and just to feel and be with the clench, the anxious feelings. And I was with it for a while. And because I was formally meditating, I was feeling a growing presence.

And I just sense of surrendering it into love. It's kind of like bowing and offering it into a larger field that has room and still here, it could still feel a bit of it there, but I was just resting in a larger place. So what I want to leave you with is that this is a life practice. And the good news is that each round that you ask that question that in some way you wake up and let go of the thoughts should be different and just open into the reality itself. Open with kindness, with tenderness. You discover the openness and tenderness and tenderness and vastness of your own presence. Again, Dana Falls puts it beautifully. She says,

in the choice to let go of your known way of being, the whole world is revealed to your new eyes. Okay friends, let's close with a very, very brief kind of practice of letting go. You might close your eyes if that feels comfortable or let your gaze be soft. Take a few full breaths to collect you. Gently scan your body and sense, is there any holding on or clenching that's just habitual? You might check your shoulders. That's a an area for most of us. And let there be a soft awareness around it. Let it naturally dissolve or let go some. Scan your mind, notice if there's any thoughts that are keeping repeating, keep possessing you, that you keep getting lost in. Let go, let go. Just let me now into the changing

flow. Notice what happens when you let life be just as it is. Invite a tender presence. Being with this changing flow of life just as it is, see how deep and loving that yes can be to reality, that surrendering of anything that's blocking, that letting go into the life that's here, the love that's here, the awareness that's here. And perhaps you can sense in the background, a stillness, a silence, that formless loving awareness, that's your true home, resting in that, allowing yourself to take some full breaths so that as you open your eyes and sense the space you're in and sense this body and this aliveness, you can carry that experience of inner freedom with you. Thank you, dear friends, for your attention and your presence.

Blessings.