Tara on Tour

Tara is the female Buddha of compassion and wisdom. This is a webdiary of a journey inspired by Tara....

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Location: Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Letting Go

Today has been a teaching on letting go. There is something about Samye Ling that exposes you to yourself, that peels back the layers and sticks pins in the parts that you like to keep hidden. It's very uncomfortable and there are times when you feel like you could be going slightly crazy - this morning was one of those times. After a night of interruptions and a lot of wakefulness as a result, I got up grumpy and mildly resentful of my friend sleeping in the room above: so I decided to go for a morning run. Helpful, but because your energy moves more quickly as a result, the mind can also shift very quickly between different states - so by the time I was at Samye Ling, I was feeling really annoyed and claustrophobic: aware that the strong habit people have to cling to each other shuts life down and creates strange control dramas. I can do it, but others can do it too. Perhaps we all do it to greater or lesser degrees - often unconsciously and always with fear and insecurity at the root.

Whenever i feel "trapped" by someone else's need or expectation, i get anxious - and confused and guilty. Which sooner or later develops into resentment and anger and the need to get the hell out. The original fear is that, if I don't play the game that they are unconsciously imposing, I expose them to their anxiety and get a whole load of shit as a result of that.

I'm sure it works the other way around too. That I can impose control within a situation or relationship in an attempt to make it behave the way i want it to, to feel secure, to feel the ground beneath my feet and a sense of relaxed confidence and assurance.

Last night, in the middle of the night, I had a strong experience of absolutely not being who i think i am. The memories, thoughts, ideas of "me, Anna" were like wallpaper: a thin veneer that creates a whole impression and seems to be all there is, but in fact the truth behind the wallpaper is where i really need to look to know who i am. Looking behind the wallpaper, there was plaster and a brick wall....and then there was huge empty space. The vastness and emptiness of who i really am (and you really are) was a relief, a surprise and yet incredibly familiar. Everything that I think i am is just an attempt to squeeze shape into this space and hold onto that shape for dear life. Agony!! Pointless and futile.

Nevertheless, coming into relationship with that vast emptiness is a bit scary once you leave the safety of the four walls where that experience showed itself. You sort of realise there's no self to protect, but the self is still there - and makes its presence felt through various antics. Behaviour at this point could become psychotic!! simply because the self needs to make its presence felt in larger and more extreme, desperate ways.

The secret of course is to relax - and to breathe. And to keep letting go. Keep letting go of the feelings that crash in, of the impulses to act stuff out. Keep relaxing into the space of being no one, not who you thought you were. A bit of sadness, of grieving the loss of something familiar; a lot of unknown stretching ahead; give up the dreams, the stories; the attempts to be someone, have something, reach somewhere.

Someone rings that i don't know, whose obviously annoyed with me and leaves an aggressive, demanding message. I want to make sure I don't do what he says. Don't give in to his demands. I feel challenged by his attack.... and a bit scared. Then i try to put into practice what i've been studying this week: breathing in the negativity and allowing it to transform within the tender heart that lies behind the reactions. Abandon fear, abandon anger, abandon pride.... how can i make this person happy and at peace without becoming a doormat? It seemed that the right response involved a serious amount of fearless letting go - on many levels. So I tried it: it hurt, but only because of the attachment; and I was amazed at how quickly this stranger changed from aggressive tyrant to open, friendly young man. Almost instant. What a teaching. What a teacher! I felt shaken afterwards and tearful, but only because i'd experienced how strong i can hold on, and how much letting go is an answer that i resist... and how truly "nothing" i really am and need to be in order to be free.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Another thought-provoking posting - thanks Anna. It is perplexing (a) just why these techniques of letting go work so well (b) why we're so reluctant to use them. Am going through various problems at the moment, and while I know what I SHOULD do re mindfulness etc, it's the devil's own job to do them. It's almost as if I'm happy to stay miserable - a ludicrous paradox.

4:18 AM  

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