Friday, September 27, 2013

Letting go…of the discomfort of letting go

It’s been a few weeks since I embarked on the “letting go journey”. And the more I try to let go, the more I’m aware of everything I’m holding on to. And to my dismay, there seems to be plenty of that.

I feel like I’ve opened a can of worms. A really really big can of worms with a never-ending bottom. I’m scared to peek in. There’s no knowing what else I will find. I may have scratched only the surface and wonder if I even want to scratch any further.
In my mind, I thought I was perhaps heading towards the elusive path of Zen. But the path seems nowhere in sight. Many forests, rivers, ravines and mountains must be crossed before I can even see the path. And I may never even get see it. Just knowing I tried may have to be enough.

Yes, letting go is not easy. It is a fairly uncomfortable and prickly process. No I’m not giving up – for after all, I don’t let go that easily, remember? But it does remind me of the teachings of meditation gurus who discuss the discomfort involved in meditation.
Goenka (Vipassana meditation) refers to meditation as a surgery. It is the opening up of emotions, memories and patterns within ourselves that we didn’t know existed. Facing them with equanimity is his wise advice. Pema Chodron talks about the whirring mind that we notice in meditation and the difficulty in calming it down.

So it seems like opening ourselves, sensing and seeing our emotions and patterns can be a painful process. And that is probably what I am encountering.
True, each time I have meditated I have felt this discomfort that they talk about. It is supposed to get easier with time and practice and the mind slowly learns to calm down. I have yet to experience that. But I’m in the hope that the “windows” of relief that they talk about will become doors and eventually open spaces of awareness.

And perhaps, the same will happen with letting go. The discomfort and difficulty involved in letting go will get easier. Staying put in the face of all this discomfort is perhaps all I need to do. And that’s all you will need to do - if you’ve joined this journey with me.

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