Letting Go is Not Giving Up

At my meditation group last night, we discussed “letting go” in the context of painful memories, anger, disappointment, frustration, and injury.  I found myself intrigued by what seem to be two different meanings – a conventional cultural one and the Buddhist one.

I’m sure most of us have had the experience of being told by well-meaning friends and family that we should just “let go” of our feelings about some injury or heartbreak we have suffered.  In fact, we’ve probably said the same thing to ourselves (or to other people) once we feel that the suffering has gone on long enough.  Letting go seems from this perspective to have a meaning of getting beyond the feelings, forgetting them, or giving them up.   This seems to be a very difficult thing to do, at least in the short term.

In contrast, I take a Buddhist perspective on letting go to mean something much simpler and more possible in the short term.  By bringing mindfulness to the situation at hand, we may be able to recognize that there is nothing to be done at this moment about our anger, frustration, etc.  Therefore, we can let go of the need to ruminate at that moment.  This approach recognizes that the painful feelings are honest – it validates the fact that we still feel them – but it also recognizes that the situation does not require action from us.  If the situation does require action at that moment, we would hopefully recognize it and take the needed action.  In my experience, however, most of the time I’m feeling some angst, it’s me telling myself a story from the past or about the future.  The feeling may be honest, but worrying about it at that moment isn’t helping me – it’s usually hindering my ability to be fully functional in my life.  Therefore, letting go is very useful.  I know the feelings may come back, but hopefully at a time when I can use them skillfully.

This approach is summed up nicely thus: “Letting go is not a one-time decision. It’s something we may need to do repeatedly. But the more we practice, the easier it becomes to come back to the present moment.” [Editor's note: I have finally tracked down the author of this quote - Lori Deschene, founder of TinyBuddha.com, from her e-book on Letting Go of Difficult Emotions]

Many teachers emphasize that this is one major goal of basic breath meditation – to teach us to recognize when we are not present and to let go of whatever thought or feeling took us away.  Practicing this little letting go on the cushion can help us to do it with larger feelings when we’re off the cushion.

I would be interested to hear whether people have found this to be true in their experience.

Sources: Quote, photo, photo. This was originally posted on the Interdependence Project blog.