This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Four Inspirational Blessings (3 of 5); Letting Be and Letting Go; Cultivating Relinqushment. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Letting Be and Letting Go; Dharmette: Four Inspirational Blessings (3 of 5) Cultivating Relinquishment - Kim Allen

The following talk was given by Kim Allen at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on April 10, 2024. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Letting Be and Letting Go

Good morning, or afternoon, or evening. Let's go ahead and get started together.

Let's begin with the meditation, finding a posture that is upright and also relaxed, allowing yourself to settle in. Finding some balance in the place where you're sitting and just allowing yourself to be supported by what you're sitting on. Sometimes we try to hold ourselves up in some way, but just softening and allowing yourself to be supported. Aligning the posture so that your spine feels straight and relaxed.

Closing the eyes gently if that's comfortable for you. Softening the eyes in the eye sockets. Softening down through the neck and shoulders, releasing the chest, the belly, the arms, the legs. Having a sense of willingness and also trust in being here in the present moment.

Bringing the mindfulness into the foreground, the awareness of the present moment, perhaps even with a sense of curiosity. How is this? Turning in particularly to the sensations of the body—sitting, or perhaps you're lying down or even standing.

Noticing this bodily form that has supported us throughout life. We can notice that there's a mixture of sensations in the body. Letting go of concepts like "back" or "knees" or "belly" or "head," now moving into the sensations themselves. Sensations like heat or coolness, various kinds of flowing feelings, hardness, tension, softness. Even some sensations that may not be easy to put words on as we're not maybe used to articulating them—that's fine. Just allowing your attention to move through the body and notice if there are any areas of obvious holding or habitual tightness that might be eased. Not as an engineering project, but simply out of gentle interest in being in the present moment in a soft way.

And if we find that there are some places that are not so easy to soften or release, then we let go of worrying about that. We also allow the mind to be with the body in a soft and gentle way.

Turning also to include the mental and emotional and spiritual factors that are present—things in the mind. Noticing if there are thoughts and feelings going on. That may be relatively quiet, or there may be a lot going on in the mind. It's all fine. Just noticing how much activity, what kind of moods and emotions are present.

Sensing again into whether there seems to be any tension or tightness, habitual pushing associated with how the mind is right now, and inviting some easing or releasing or softening also in the mind. And it's done without a sense of judgment that anything there is wrong or shouldn't be happening, but again just out of a gentle sense of being present in a soft, easy, mindful way. So we align with being here and seeing this.

Orienting the mind around letting go. Letting go of tensions in the body, letting go of tensions in the mind in favor of a simple awareness. Even if what we're aware of is pain or painful emotion, there's a way to let go of entanglement with that and just be with it. So, letting be.

It actually takes some active interest and engagement to let things be. If we're too passive about that, the mind can be hijacked or get so-so. So bringing our careful attention in a soft way, finding just that middle point where we can be with things without either pushing on them trying to do something, or falling away from them because we're not quite connected. Where is that perfect middle point?

And when we find that a distraction has captured the mind in some way, we simply let go of that. And so let go of any judgment that arises around that if it does catch. Catch and release. Catch and release. Each time fostering a simple relationship with the flow of experience.

There is letting be, there is letting go, and there is letting flow. Letting experience flow in and out, become more and less intense. Letting attention be sharp or broad. It's neither active nor passive, this way of simple presence.

As we sit in meditation with an intention of having this very simple relationship to experience, letting go of complexity and entanglement when they occur, we can sense that this is a beautiful way that we could also be in the world. It's not passivity because there's this engagement—knowing what's present, noticing when the mind is starting to get hooked so that we can let go. We can be in the world this way too. Generally flowing along, but staying connected and checking if we're getting pulled into wanting or aversion or irritation or judgment or ego. And having the intention, if we can, to relax that complication, allowing us to stay simply present. Which makes us more responsive and also more empathic with other people, more able to help if we're not complicated.

And so the letting go internally is also a generosity externally. It's a generous way of being with others, one that's not focused on ourself. We included—we're part of the whole—but we're not acting as a gravitational center of holding things toward us. Great generosity of presence without entanglement is quite beautiful. Maybe we can't maintain it all the time, but it can be an intention that guides our way of being in the world. And when we practice, as we have during this meditation session, we strengthen that ability in the world, bringing benefit to many others, not just ourself.

Dharmette: Four Inspirational Blessings (3 of 5) Cultivating Relinquishment

So we continue with these four foundations that are both simple and strong enough to lead all the way to liberation. The Buddha offered these four foundations of practice to a monk who was so devoted to the Buddha's teachings that he had ordained with one of the Buddha's followers without even yet having met the Buddha, and he had been practicing very diligently on his own. They're valuable for us because they're simple to begin, and they lead very deep if we stick with them.

We've talked about "not neglecting wisdom" and about "preserving truth." These can be done right now in a straightforward way, and then they can also be done very deeply or thoroughly. So today we'll talk about the third one. It's usually translated as "cultivating relinquishment," but the word that's translated as relinquishment there is cāga¹, which actually covers a broad range of meaning. It does mean relinquishment or letting go or giving up. It also means generosity. So cāga is the movement of mind behind dāna², the literal act of giving. In order to give, we have to release our holding of something so that we can give it. So cāga is generosity; it goes with the act of giving.

It's interesting to me that there's this one word that spans a whole range from offering to pay for a friend's coffee—generosity—all the way to releasing deep patterns in the mind, such as our view of self. Those are both cāga. So the possibility here, I think, is quite amazing and beautiful. If we start with literal acts of generosity in the world and we pay careful attention to what is actually happening—that is, if we don't neglect wisdom and if we preserve truth—then we're putting the mind on a path toward full liberation. That letting go can keep happening more and more deeply.

The verb that goes with it is to "cultivate" this quality of cāga. That same verb can also mean to foster something or to make it grow. So how do we make it grow? One way is to notice what the act of letting go feels like before, during, and after we do it, and also to notice what gets in the way of letting go. Those are basic ways of practicing.

There's a sutta that says that before a beneficial act of giving the mind is glad, and during such an act the mind is confident, and after such an act the mind is uplifted. I love that. So you can notice for yourself when you're making a simple, clean, totally voluntary offering, like handing your partner a cup of tea in the kitchen or helping a child zip up their jacket—something really simple. How does the mind feel? Are there good feelings present, like gladness and confidence and being uplifted? This is something that we can notice in your life. You could even notice it today as you go on after this session.

When we notice wholesome feelings like that, we are automatically fostering this quality of cāga, of generosity. The heart understands intuitively that this is a good thing to do. And when we feel that kind of wholesome happiness, we automatically strengthen it and we make it more likely that we can summon such a feeling even when it's a little bit more difficult. Like when our irritating coworker asks if we can do some extra printing for them since we're already using the printer right now. Our first response is, "I know that person is often troubling for me. I don't necessarily want to do their printing for them." And then we remember, "No, actually, you know, I am using the printer right now. Sure, I'll print what you need printed."

Notice also that this teaching says that during the act of giving the mind feels confident. It's an interesting choice. This suggests that we give in a clear and conscious way, not kind of casually or with a distracted mind, giving with our right hand while looking in some other direction.

I remember sitting in a retreat long ago with a teacher who said that we might consider engaging with the dāna with the thought: "May this act of giving support the full liberation of the heart."

I remember thinking, "Wow." You know, it really hadn't occurred to me when I put dāna in the bowl, when I give at the end of a retreat, to have a thought like that. My first impression was it sounded a little bit grandiose: "May this act of giving support the full liberation of the heart." But as I considered it, I realized that giving with that kind of clarity and a powerful intention really would multiply the benefit of the gift. We might need to check if there's any conceit in that, but I found actually that having that thought made my mind really happy. It made it even happier when I was giving, and it didn't make it egotistical. So, "May this act of giving support the full liberation of the heart." Why not?

So if you're doing this kind of deliberate cultivation of cāga, you can have confidence that you're making it easier in the long run to also do the deeper kinds of letting go. Some of which we can't really do deliberately.

I sometimes work with people who take on the intention to release certain habits of mind, for example, complaining. I was once working with a group and that was their task, was to try to avoid complaining for three weeks. Just putting this intention into their minds allowed them to make some interesting discoveries. In particular, they saw how compulsive complaining can be. Even though we're intending not to complain, it has a certain momentum to it.

One person caught their mind in the act of complaining. But she said in her words, "I did not stop because it felt too good in the moment. But afterward, it did not feel good at all."

Can anyone relate to that? You catch your mind in the act of doing something that you know isn't good for it, but it feels so good we just see it through. "Yeah, I'm going to finish that complaint." [Laughter]

So it's humbling to see the momentum behind our habits, especially our unskillful ones. We can't necessarily willfully release those, but we can learn about them by noticing how they feel. So she did a really good practice there because she noticed that it felt good in the moment to be complaining—it has this hook on it that feels good—but then she also noticed that afterward it didn't feel good. There was actually some unwholesomeness there. So when we see this truth of how painful our habits actually are, even in the moment—even if we can't let go at that moment—the heart will want to let go.

If we can also investigate, for example, what gets in the way of letting go, then what we're doing is we're learning about holding on, which helps us learn about letting go. It's interesting to notice in our mind that we hold on to things long after they have served their purpose. Do you have any material things that you're holding on to and you don't really need anymore? Say in your closet or your garage? Also attitudes, philosophies, principles, biases, self-images, habits of behavior. We start noticing: what is it that we hold on to? What are we carrying around? We can admit that some of these things are a little outdated. And why is that? Why is that happening? Maybe out of habit, maybe out of laziness, maybe reasons we don't even know. It's not so important to know precisely why we have these accumulations, let's say, but it's helpful to simply feel the tension and the stress of holding on to them.

And then, again, the heart will try to find its way out. So letting go can begin to happen when we really open to the truth. That's what we talked about last time, this being willing to see what's true. The heart will want to find its way out of any suffering that's unnecessary.

We can marvel at watching this process happen. There's a beautiful interplay between seeing what is true and letting go. So when we see clearly that grasping—whether by greed or by aversion—is painful, then the heart is motivated to learn how to let go of that grasping. And when we do let go, the mind settles and clarifies such that it can see deeper layers of truth. So there's this nice interplay between truth and letting go. Letting go of anything that's not needed or is causing stress makes us feel lighter and clearer and able to respond in different ways to situations.

You can see this in your own life. Suddenly you'll be able to say and do and think things that wouldn't have occurred before. As an example, one Dharma practitioner I was talking with told a story about being on a team with someone who was naturally talented and very easily excelled at the tasks that the team was doing. She initially felt some envy because she perceived herself not to be as talented as this very naturally talented person. But being a Dharma practitioner, she also noticed that envy is a painful state. Painful for her, without the other person even knowing that she was feeling it.

She didn't try to work directly with the envy except to feel the contraction that it brought to her heart. And she also tried to keep her mind on what she genuinely admired in this other person. So she held both of those. She wasn't suppressing her envy, but she also wasn't letting it get the better of her.

And there came a day, to her surprise, when the other person did an excellent job on something and she felt mudita, which is appreciative joy—the third of the Brahma-viharas³, the third of the heart qualities. She felt appreciative joy for the success of this person, and it was pure and clean. She just felt mudita. Where did that come from? She had not deliberately done mudita practice, which some people try to do when they feel envious as they quickly try to counteract it. She wasn't doing that. But she realized that the combination of opening to the truth of her envy and having the wisdom to just stay with that allowed something to shift in her heart. There was a letting go into a deeper relationship with this person, not so tinged with her own self-concern about being "less than" in some way.

So sometimes if we just stay with the practice, slowly creating the conditions that allow us to let go, then we'll find that we do let go and move on. This is also part of cultivating relinquishment. We don't always have to feel like we're directly working on "letting go." Maybe we just create the conditions in our heart and eventually the letting go will happen.

So a good exercise in the realm of conscious letting go is to take a look from time to time at what you own, what you hold on to, what you cling to. And maybe explore what life would be like without that. For example, refraining from complaining for three weeks. These are things that we can do consciously or deliberately. We'll find that many of the things that we think we need are actually just habits that we don't need at all.

And then in the realm of the deeper kind of letting go that we really sort of can't do consciously, then we try to tune into the tension that is always there when we're engaged in greed or aversion or delusion. We try to admit to the truth that this grasping is actually painful, and then give your heart a chance to learn how to let go of them.

When you watch how this process works again and again, you gain confidence that the path is really about non-clinging. There really is this foundation of relinquishment that the Buddha talked about to this practitioner, no matter how contradictory that sounds in the abstract. There is a foundation of relinquishment that we can have and live from. When you see that, it makes sense.

And then through that we also get to taste the peace of release when we do let go. There's a releasing feeling. And that peace is the topic for tomorrow.

So thank you and may you have a wonderful day of generosity and letting go. Take care.