Never Letting Go

Recently in a conversation with a friend I mentioned something that was bugging me and nagging at me even though I can’t do anything about it. My friend said “well, you just have to let it go”. Which is an appropriate and well-meaning thing to say to someone who is clearly wasting time and energy getting annoyed about something they have no control over. I understood that and yet I balked. I wish I could just let things go at will. I wish I could simply sit and meditate, and one by one, conjure up the several thoughts that have been lingering and tugging at me, and unclench my mind like opening a fist, and then let the cloud of my thoughts turn to a misty, fluffy  haze in the place where the rock had been.

If only.

The thing is that ‘letting go’ is NOT an ACTION. It is not something you DO but something you undo. And the more you try to undo it, the more you are actually doing it, which is counter-productive. It makes me feel as though I am locked in a cycle of effort and grasping and frustration, which lead to desperation, which leads to further grasping and effort and frustration and so forth. Unclenching the palm of the mind is not for the ones who are looking for an easy way out. I am not looking for an easy way out. I am simply asking for ANY way out. Sometimes it feels like that. 

I posed this question to a well-known teacher, and her answer has been like a salve to me. It gave me comfort and faith and kept me aloft in moments where the frustration builds up. She said that you cannot let go. So don’t try so hard. What you can do is PRACTICE. Practice in earnest and for a long time (*Yoga Sutra 1.14), and then the thing will fall off on its own. Like a crust or an old skin that you shed. It will let go of YOU. Her answer was so very comforting because up until that point I felt like there was something I am not doing right. I secretly felt I was failing at letting go and that made me a not-so-good yogi. After all if I can’t let go then I am missing half of the practice of yoga. It’s in the sutras:  practice and detachment (*Yoga sutra 1.12: abhyasa-vairagyabhyam-tan-nirodhah: the mental turnings are restrained by practice and nonattachment). I knew how to work on the practice part. But the detachment wasn’t always obvious. These days I think this sutra is really just about the practice. Because that first condition brings about the other. If we practice for the sake of practice only, not to gain or lose or get or let go, we become detached from the fruit of our actions. Then our actions are skillful and meaningful. Then that habit, thought, or grasping falls off on its own. The more we practice our poses, our breath, our seated meditation, the shorter the length of time it takes to have something let go of us. 

Ok gotta go practice now so that I don’t yell at the next person to tell me to let go ;)