Excerpts from:
Having a Peaceful Heart in a Complex World
by Ven. Thubten Chodron©
Tai Pei Buddhist Centre, Singapore
27 Oct 2006
Q: Can you elaborate on the process of letting go?
Letting go just means we relax our mind. When we hold very strongly to something, there is a lot of attachment. There is a lot of clinging. Sometimes we are clinging to a person. Sometimes we cling to an object. Sometimes we cling to our reputation. Sometimes we’re very stubborn and we cling to our ideas and our opinions.
All these kinds of clinging can be very, very troublesome. We even cling to our negative emotions. We’re angry. We hold on to our anger. We make it into a grudge. We are jealous. We hold on to our jealousy. We don’t want to let go of it. We make ourselves more miserable. We hold on to our possessions. We don’t want to share. In that way we have so much more fear!
The process of letting go comes from realizing that this kind of clinging and grasping is the source of suffering. And that it’s our own mind that is creating our suffering through clinging to possessions, people, reputation, ideas, opinions, views.
It’s the stubborn mind that clings that creates so much suffering for us because it doesn’t want to accept reality. Reality is reality. What is, is. But the clinging mind, especially when we are clinging to our ideas, says: “I don’t want to accept reality. Reality is not good enough. I want it to be different. I’m not accepting what is!” The moment we reject what is, we create suffering for ourselves.
We usually think that the problem is due to the external situation because somebody did or didn’t do this or that, but actually the problem is that we’re clinging to our idea of how we want it to be.
When we see that clinging to our ideas cause suffering and we know we want to be happy, then we start letting go of some of those rigid views and ideas and opinions. We start opening our mind and seeing that there could be other ways to look at the situation. There could be other emotions that we could have in that situation. We start opening up and being much more flexible.
All we’re letting go of is rigid ideas and thoughts and feelings. They’re not even something material. What you’re letting go of is your suffering. You’re not letting go of your happiness.
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Q: How do I let go of the past because it’s been making me suffer for many years?
Well, the best way to let go of the past is just to realize that it’s over.
Yeah? Is the past happening right now? No. The past is not happening right now. Somebody may have done something mean to us in the past. They did it once. But then everyday, we sit and remember it. And we think about it. “They did this to me! They did this to me! They did this to me!” Who’s the person who is causing us suffering everyday? It’s us!
If we think about it, we think everyday about our problem. Who’s causing the suffering? That other person only did it once. Every time we remember it, every time we think about it, every time we relive it, we’re the one inflicting the suffering on ourselves. So the best way to let go of the past is to realize that it’s not happening now.
I remember when I was first learning meditation – and it still happens now – you can be sitting there meditating with a group of people, it’s quiet and peaceful, and then you remember: “So and so criticized me. Oh! They criticized me on Tuesday. They criticized me the previous Wednesday also. Come to think of it, they criticize me a lot. I wonder how many other times they have criticized me that I’m not even aware of. I don’t like this! They are breaking a rule of the universe because nobody is allowed to criticize me! I am really angry. I’ve got to get up from my meditation cushion and go write them a nasty email. Right now!”
And before you can get up from your meditation cushion, you hear [sound of bell], and you open your eyes, and that person you are so furious at isn’t even in the room. You spent the last half an hour full of anger and enmity towards them and they aren’t even here!
They haven’t even done anything to us in the last half an hour. Where did all that anger come from? Where did all that pain and suffering come from? It didn’t come from them because they’re not here. It all came from my negative mind that is sitting in the room ruminating about my problem and what happens to me and my rules of the universe! How nobody appreciates me enough and everybody is mean to me! It’s coming from our way of thinking.
The past is not happening. It’s gone! Finished! It’s never going to happen again. There’s no such thing as a rewind button to go back into the past and live the past over again. It’s over! Drop it!
So contemplating like that is one way to get rid of the past.
Another way that I’ve used to drop the past is through visualization. Let’s say I have this big image of this horrible thing that happened in the past. Then I imagine Chenrezig or Kuan Yin coming into that situation. You know how when you think of the past you have it all in technicolor? You have this very vivid memory. Well, I just bring Kuan Yin right into that very situation. Kuan Yin is radiating light and this light is the light of compassion. It permeates all the people in that painful, confused situation in the past. It purifies all of our negative karma. It purifies all of our pain. It makes us all very, very peaceful.
I find that doing the visualization of bringing Kuan Yin into my memory of the past is a very, very good way to let go of the past and to heal from it.
I did that one time. I was leading a retreat in Israel. During the Q&A session, somebody started talking about the Holocaust. In Israel, almost everybody had relatives who died in the Holocaust in Nazi Germany or in the countries that were occupied by Nazi Germany. And people have a lot of pain. So when somebody brought that up in the Q&A session, I led them in a whole meditation where we imagine Auschwitz and the other concentration camps, but we imagine them with Kuan Yin in them.
We visualize Kuan Yin radiating light, purifying those environments, purifying all the people who suffered in them, purifying the guards and the Nazi officers who caused this suffering. We did a whole meditation of Kuan Yin purifying the concentration camps along with the chanting of ‘om mani payme hung’. It was quite amazing. It was really amazing! After that meditation, nobody could speak. We were all really, really moved by it.
So that’s another very good way to kind of heal things from the past.
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Q: I’m afraid that if I choose to be kind or compassionate to others, I’ll expect them to do the same to me. If they don’t reciprocate, I’ll feel disappointed and upset.
So what are you going to do? Be mean to them and be disappointed when they don’t reciprocate? [laughter]
One important thing that we have to learn in Dharma practice and in life in general is that it’s the doing of the action that brings the joy, not the result of the action. So when we’re kind to somebody, the action of being kind is the thing itself that should bring joy to our mind. Because it feels good to be kind. When we feel joy because we act kindly, then we’re not going to worry about whether the other party is going to reciprocate, because the reward was in the doing of the action.
So at any time we do any action, if we make an offering or if we’re generous, we should feel joy in the action that we’re doing. Don’t expect reciprocation or reward afterwards but make your mind such that doing the action itself is what brings joy in your life. And in that way, you really transform your life because then every time you do something kind or generous or compassionate, you feel very, very happy. It also prevents us from having expectations of other people.
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Q: What can we do if we smile to somebody but he or she doesn’t smile back?
You keep smiling because remember, the joy is in your doing the action. The joy is not in somebody reciprocating. The joy is how good you feel smiling at somebody. Whether they smile back or not is completely up to them but you derive your happiness from smiling at them.
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