The Buddha declared, “If it were not possible to free the heart from entanglement, I would not teach you to do so. Aim for nothing less.”
What inspiring and heart-warming words, especially after we’ve lived through this last year of monumental challenges. How often did you find yourself struggling with the new realities of the pandemic, longing for how life used to be? Perhaps wrestling with loneliness, anxiety, or depression. Maybe wondering why your practice felt dry or distant.
Such is our humanness, and we need to bring self-compassion to times of struggle. Yet the Buddha reminds us that we can free the heart. We can let go. This happens in the smallest moments of a day: noticing tension in the body, interrupting a troubling mind state, or breathing through a challenging emotion.
We bring awareness to our present moment experience. With intention, we deepen our breath and release wherever we’re entangled—whether physical, mental, or emotional. Simple as it may seem, repeating the words “let go, let go,” like a mantra, will help to soften our locked-up, grasping states.
Ajahn Buddhadasa, a revered teacher from Thailand, encouraged his students to look for nirvana (freedom) in everyday moments, with the simplest of practices. “Nirvana is the coolness of letting go, the inherent delight of experience when there is no grasping or resistance to life. It is always available.”
One teacher described letting go as a powerful “inward maneuver.” It’s a subtle inward shift. But what about those darkened moments when we’re colonized by some intense emotion like fear or anger, or our repetitive thoughts seem to have a
strangle hold? Come to the breath, let it deepen, and let go with each outbreath until you break through the entanglement.
Letting go is a central theme in spiritual practice. Sooner or later we have to learn to let go and allow the changing mystery of life to move through us without our fearing it, without grasping and holding.
Jack Kornfield
May we open to the wondrous mystery of our lives and allow the heart to be free.