Letting Go

Letting go is one thing that is very difficult to put into practice. There are many things in our daily life, both material and immaterial, which we attach to. Attachment spoils our life in the sense that we get anxious about losing things that we hold on to. The feeling of losing brings about disappointment and unsatisfactoriness. To ‘let go’ is the proper way to heal disappointment and unsatisfactoriness which springs from attachment, but doing it is not as easy as saying it.

However, it is not beyond human ability. The Buddha was the first one who dedicated his life to learning and practising ‘letting go’ or ‘detachment’. Fist of all, he renounced his family, his princely title, his possessions, his kingdom and so on and then he searched for the method to rid himself of attachment. After learning and practising very hard, he discovered the ultimate wisdom, which we call ‘enlightenment’, through which he was able to eradicate attachment. He was free from attachment which is one of the strongest roots of suffering. He not only freed himself, but also taught people who also wanted this how to eradicate the root of suffering. Even though he passed away, his life has been studied and used as an example in practice and passed on from generation to generation up to the present time. His way of life is called ‘Buddhism’ or ‘the Buddhist way of life’.

There are many teachings about letting go. Here is one of them which is in the form of a story:

There was once a young meditation student who learned and practiced to let go. But that was not that easy, he tried very hard. He studied under a well-known meditation teacher. One day in spring his teacher gave him two pails to carry water in, for watering the plants. He did not notice that one of the pails was leaking. However, he could feel it as he carried water. Along the way back to the temple, he was thinking about the reasons why his teacher might have given him a leaking pail. When he arrived and finished watering the plants, he asked his teacher about this. The teacher said, “The good pail is for carrying water and the leaking one is for letting go”. He did not understand, so his teacher added, “Things that are good or positive, they must be carried with you. Things that are bad or negative, let them go”. The student seemed to understand after he had listened to his teacher.

Does it sound understandable? Some may understand and some may not. But don’t worry! Letting go is not that easy as I said. Take time to learn to let go and practise it as you can! The way to do it is to learn to know and to practice it in order to make it happen.