Letting Go: Dharma Talk with Noah Levine

Dec 30 2019 Letting go is always the right thing to do.
If your desire is to not suffer, the solution is always let go.

“Let go”

It's so easy to say, “let go”, such a simple idea. But the reality is that we're in these bodies, this mind, this human experience, and it’s not easy to let go. Actually, clinging is our nature. It is natural to cling, to crave; that's normal. Letting go, non-attached acceptance of reality as it is, is so ******* radical that if you get good at it, they call you enlightened. If you get really good at it, you're this amazing being, like, “WOW. She’s non-attached. It's amazing.” Because attachment, and the suffering that attachment causes, is the air we breathe, is normal. Of course, when I say, “let go” let's unpack it because it means a lot of different things in different contexts.

Part of it is letting go of the past.
The past is gone. It only lives as a mental impression and in your mind. Right? It's just memory, but it's so alive… memory is powerful. You remember something from the past and it affects the present because of what we call, “conditioning”. Experiences that we've had, pleasant or unpleasant or neutral from the past have such a powerful effect over us in the present – but it's gone – all that remains is a story about it. Is a memory of it. So, part of letting go, is letting go of the past, letting go of the painful past that we resent, that we hate, that we fear. How much of your suffering comes from S*** that has already happened, that you're holding on to? A good amount of if right?

Let go of the future.

We don't know. We have no idea what's really going to happen. It's all just an idea about what's next. It's all of our plans, all of our hopes, our dreams, our aspiration's, our intentions. From a Buddhist perspective, it's good to have some plans, goals, direction, like, “I want to go towards freedom. My plan is to suffer less and less and be more kind and more compassionate and more generous”. Yes. Have all of these intentions, these plans, but remember, “I'm just right here. Now. How am I responding now? What's going on here? Now?” So how much of our suffering comes from worrying about the future, what's next.

So, there’s letting go of the past, letting the future, and there’s also letting go of the present being any different than it is.

These are skills that we build in our mindfulness practice.

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ABOUT: Against The Stream is a 501(c)3 non-profit American Buddhist lineage founded by Noah Levine, author of Dharma Punx, Against the Stream, Heart of the Revolution and Refuge Recovery.

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