Letting go is a big theme in Buddhism. It has also been a big theme in my own life. Change and the need to let go are issues we don’t mind hearing about in the context of other people’s lives, but one we don’t really like taking place in our own. But the fact is, sooner or later we all have to accept change, whether we want it or not.
Change, cycles of life and death, creation, expansion and decline are as natural as the seasons. Change can also be a liberating thing, and without it, life would be stale. Change is not always negative. It means we can grow and learn and expand. It means unpleasant situations can transform into more positive situations, but it can also mean we suffer. We can all appreciate the beauty and tempests of nature. We enjoy the blossoming flowers in spring and the new life that emerges from the earth, bringing renewal. We can also enjoy the graceful surrender of autumn as leaves fall and dark comes earlier. Life would be very dull if nothing ever changed. But being born, things must also die. Meeting, they must part and reaching their highest arch, they must also decline. This is a natural law. Somehow because we live separate from nature and mostly in our heads, we have lost sight of this natural law. We hide from old age, try to create permanent security and try to insulate ourselves from anything nasty that could disturb our comfort too much.
In some ways it’s understandable that we don’t wish to suffer unnecessarily, but in some ways we are just keeping some inevitable and important truths of life at bay. In cutting ourselves off from the unpredictability of life, we have also cut ourselves off from the vividness and mystery of what it means to be human. If we live in an artificial world in which we are socially isolated and only choose to allow in things we like, we are also living in a narrow way. If our comfort zone is never challenged, we are not seeing the greater picture of life. We become numb, apathetic and small hearted. It becomes easy to just pursue narcissistic entertainment, pleasure and distraction while corporations and millionaires take over the world, destroy the environment and make the poor poorer, all the while distracting them to participate in a system of meaningless consumption that is unsustainable and in many ways unnecessary and toxic.
In truth, living in this way, we are more interested in playing on phones mined by children than we are in feeling that as the wealthiest nations in the world we have an individual and communal responsibility to help those children get an education. Does face book or online gaming/shopping/gossip mags allow the overwhelming injustice of the world to touch us? Are we not just burying our head in the sand while the world is dying? Is it not the height of stupidity?!
Fortunately, life has a way of waking us up, even if we try to hide, life will challenge us, and shake us, and force us to open and be present to the rawness and aliveness and chaos of human existence. How do we practice when life is squeezing us? What do we do when all we love is torn away from us?
Well, there are a few options. There is what we usually do–hold on and obsess. When a relationship has been ended by the other party and we are left with all the questions and pain and emotional baggage of “WHY?!” it can be very hard to let go. When one we love dies, or we lose a baby, or a job, or fail an exam or our parents’ divorce, it can make us feel we are adrift, alone or don’t even want to live anymore.
But in times of great challenge, it’s important to ask yourself. “What can I do to suffer less?” It is so tempting to jump into that ocean of pain, fear, regret, anger and self loathing. But does it help? Or does it just prolong the healing that needs to take place? In these times it’s good to try to be a bit sensible and restrained. I’m not talking about repressing feelings. So many things in life will get under our skin, grab hold of our heart and give it a great big yank… But what’s the best way of coping? Being calm and not escalating the emotions by creating a big obsessive storyline around the event might help. Story lines are the stories we repeat to ourselves that help us avoid the unbearable pain of actually just facing our broken heart. But story lines eventually become concrete. The stories and thoughts and opinions we hold onto can stop us from moving on and can make us bitter, paranoid and leave our painful issues unresolved. We may even start projecting our unresolved emotional issues onto new situations in our life and it can stop us from seeing opportunities or really enjoying our lives.
