Session 027: Letting Go, Really Letting Go

Letting Go, Really Letting Go

Dhamma Talk + Guided Meditation Session 027: July 8th, 2020, by Sophia Ojha Ensslin and Cristof Ensslin

Banner Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash

Introduction

In today’s newsletter of the Buddhist Society of Victoria (https://www.bsv.net.au/), Ajahn Brahm is quoted in the following way:

"By being silent we disappear and fade into the background, until hardly anyone knows we’re there, including ourselves. 

The more you disappear, the happier you are. 

The more you vanish, the more joy you experience. 

The less you exist, the more bliss you feel. 

This tells you what the Dhamma is all about. 

But the words count for nothing compared to the profundity of the experience."

That brings us straight to today’s topic of really letting go. It’s what meditation practice is all about. We want to learn to let go of our own attachments, for example to past events and future plans or dreams. Whenever we dwell in these, we are not in the present moment.

In order to experience the power of the now and harness all the opportunity of spiritual development there is in it, we need to practice present moment awareness.

Read on below or watch the talk and meditate with us by playing the videos to your right.

Dhamma Talk by Cristof

Meditation Guided by Sophia

Handout

This week we have prepared a 6-page handout for you. It is posted left/below as blog content. Plus, you can download it as PDF by clicking on the following button:

The Present Moment Is A Gift

I’ve heard Ajahn Brahm say that the present moment is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present. In meditation we can experience why.

We’ve learned together about the four stages and sixteen steps of breath awareness meditation. That was in sessions

009: What To Expect From Meditation on March 4, 2020 (https://www.reflectionpond.com/blog/session-009-what-to-expect-from-meditation)

010: What To Expect From Meditation (Part 2) on March 11, 2020 (https://www.reflectionpond.com/blog/session-010-what-to-expect-from-meditation-2)

012: What To Expect From Meditation (Part 3) on March 25, 2020 (https://www.reflectionpond.com/blog/session-012-what-to-expect-from-meditation-3)

and 013: What to Expect from Meditation (Part 4) on April 1, 2020 (https://www.reflectionpond.com/blog/session-013-what-to-expect-from-meditation-4)

Breath awareness (Anapanasati in Pali) is one the most powerful, easy-to-learn and popular meditation techniques. The Buddha taught it over and over again, to monks, nuns, as well as the lay community. It will progress us on the path to deep meditative states of prolonged absorption in the present moment.

As we move from the experience of quieting body and emotions (review part 1 and part 2 above, respectively) to quieting the mind (part 3 above), we are likely to encounter so-called Nimittas in meditation. Nimitta is a Pali word which literally translates to sign. Our mind appears to our consciousness as a visual sign. The quieter our mind gets, the more beautiful and bright and smooth the nimitta becomes.

Moving Beyond Nimittas Into Jhanas

The technique of quieting is the same for body, emotions, as well as mind: we let go. We let go of our attachment of how our body, emotions, and mind ought to be. We welcome how they really are instead. We also let go of our identification with them as we realize their impermanence, their transient nature, their unreliability in the end. 

Letting go is powerful. In the end, we let go of the illusion of control that we have been living by. It’s freeing, quite frankly.

Once the body, emotions, and mind are tranquil, and a nimitta is strong and bright in our awareness for a continuous period of time, we can let go of the nimitta as well and move into the jhanas, states of meditative absorption. However, at this point or before we even get there, we are likely to run into very fine and subtle obstacles. It’s our job as a meditator to know about them and working patiently on removing them from our mind when the time comes.

This brings us back to conclude the Upakkilesa Sutta which has taught us already so much about how to coexist harmoniously in any community. Please review Session 020: When Even The Buddha Walks Away under https://www.reflectionpond.com/blog/session-020-when-even-the-buddha-walks-away as well as Session 021: How to Live Together Peacefully under  https://www.reflectionpond.com/blog/session-021-how-to-live-together-peacefully. It’s timeless advice and very useful for the current times.

I had promised you to relay to you the meditation teaching that’s in the second half of this sutta, so here it is.

How To Sustain The Vision Of Light

We are now learning about the innermost “corruptions” of our subconscious mind. The Buddha teaches them to those three monks that we’ve learned the recipe for harmonious living from (review Session 021 above).

In a lot of ways these obstacles are “gate keepers of the jhanas” and resemble the five hindrances of meditation (desire, aversion, sleepiness, restlessness, and doubt) that we have already learned about many a times, for example in the one but the last session (https://www.reflectionpond.com/blog/session-025-how-to-deal-with-restlessness-during-meditation). The difference is, that we’re now talking about obstacles that lie deeply hidden in our subconscious. They’re not on the surface and can only be addressed after having reached a fairly deep state in our meditation experience.

Here they are, in the order of sequence that they are mentioned in the Upakkilesa Sutta. The Buddha spoke to the monks, as translated by Bhikkhu Sujato (https://suttacentral.net/mn128/en/sujato):

Before my awakening—when I was still unawakened but intent on awakening—I too perceived both light and vision of forms. But before long my light and vision of forms vanished. It occurred to me: ‘What’s the cause, what’s the reason why my light and vision of forms vanish?’ It occurred to me: ‘Doubt arose in me, and because of that my immersion fell away. When immersion falls away, the light and vision of forms vanish. I’ll make sure that doubt will not arise in me again.’

In the same textual form, he now goes on to mention all other reasons for losing the nimitta. One after another. Summarized, they are as follows:

1. Doubt

2. Loss of focus

3. Dullness and drowsiness

4. Fear

5. Excitement

6. Discomfort

7. Excessive energy

8. Overly lax energy

9. Longing

10. Diverse perceptions

11. Excessive concentration on the nimitta.

We can clearly see their counterparts in the five hindrances. Only one of the five doesn’t show up anymore: aversion. A good reminder that we can only reach deep meditative states with a lot of love in our heart - unconditional love for ourselves and all beings.

How to deal with these corruptions of the subconscious, in order to sustain the vision of the nimitta? The Buddha makes it sound fairly easy:

When I understood that doubt, loss of focus, dullness and drowsiness, terror, excitement, discomfort, excessive energy, overly lax energy, longing, perception of diversity, and excessive concentration on forms are corruptions of the mind, I gave them up.

Giving up means letting go. Letting go takes practice. Practice takes persistence. Persistence takes patience. But it all starts with the decision to give them up.

Letting Go Is The Key To Peace

Letting go is the key method to cultivate inner peace. At the very least, we can practice that in meditation. Last week, Sophia guided us on a visual journey to let go of our burdens. That was so freeing, wasn’t it? 

To review last week’s session, click here: https://www.reflectionpond.com/blog/session-026-closing-unfinished-business.

Letting go of burdens is the obvious first step. Who wants burdens? We can easily let them go and already lighten our load. The results include reaching more peaceful states in meditation and living a happier life outside of meditation. 

We can let go of more: first and foremost our cravings, our illusion of control. Then, bit by bit, we can let go of the other obstacles on the inner path to peace and serenity. Today, we learned about some of them. 

Let’s look out for them diligently, in meditation as well as in our everyday life. They usually show up uninvited. When they appear in our awareness, we can acknowledge their presence, know them for what they are, and thank them for guiding us to a deeper level of peace. We can now let them go, free of aversion.

Let’s practice now by meditating together, so we don’t just hear and understand these words, but actually experience the inner peace they talk about.

May you all be peaceful. May you all be joyful. May you all be well. May you all be happy.

Resources Around the Upakkilesa Sutta

Online: Ajahn Brahm’s Sutta Class “MN 128 Upakkilesa Sutta (Imperfections)”: https://youtu.be/myY8aPvbdXI 

Online: Bhikkhu Sujato’s English translation: https://suttacentral.net/mn128/en/sujato 

Online: Bhikkhu Bodhi’s English translation: http://www.yellowrobe.com/component/content/article/120-majjhima-nikaya/302-upakkilesa-sutta-imperfections.html 

Online: Mettiko Bhikkhu’s German translation: https://suttacentral.net/mn128/de/mettiko 

Print: Majjhima Nikāya, translated by Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi, Wisdom Publications, 1995