Letting go...

Let go... It is the hardest thing, but also the easiest thing in the world.

Once you've let go, you're free. Free from worries, free from attachments, free from fear and clinging, free from longing and sexual desires... True freedom comes from relaxing- relaxing your mind, relaxing your clenched fists, relaxing your tight and sore muscles that you feel like is holding up the weight of the world... That is freedom: when you are free of all things and are content with nothing.

Let go of the many things we have accumulated in out lives... Let go of the bits and pieces of papers we have kept in storage as momentoes...

 Let go of the many clothes we have that cause us trouble when we are undecided what to wear... Let go of wanting to be someone, wanting to achieve something, and being made to feel like a failure if you don't live up to the 'norm' of what society wants from you, demands from you...

Let go of relationships, of families, of concerns about what will happen to people you care and love about most... You can still love, still nurture love and care and compassion, but when you let go, you do it from a distance, you do it all with the knowledge that your happiness does not depend on another person or any external object out there, but depends on yourself and what you have within.

Can I really let go? That is the question I asked myself at this time last year when I left the monastery. And now I find myself asking again: can I really let things, let everything just go?

I've been told before I can give it a try. What have you got to lose, but there is a lot to gain. Again today, this guy who gave me a ride home told me, even just from talking to me for a little while, that he can see potential in me. There is a certain kindness, compassion ad wisdom in me, he said, that is rare for someone my age. All my experiences of life and death, illness, traumas and love have shaped me, made me realise, that life is only so much, nothing more...

This all came from A handsome, all-rounded and sensitive guy in his forties, father of two lovely, smart children and husband of a beautiful, loving wife. why not try? What is there to lose but your fears and desires? What is there to gain but real happines, real peace that will carry youand others around you to a deeper level and connection with this world?

 Try before I get too deep in life to disentangle myself, he said. Do it now before you make commitments and have more worries and fetters around your life... Sure, finish off what you started, the studies and the qualifications for the bar... But, as he told me, I can do more as a robed monk to help people than I could ever as a lawyer or whatever professional I may become...



It sounded tempting, as it had sounded tempting when I first entered a monastery and met the monk who became my guide and father-figure. And it takes time for digesting these thoughts and the implications. Time not to think or brood it over, but time to let the heart feel and know what it really wants.

But can I do it...? Can I retreat fully into a life of meditation and solitude, of abstinence and living with the bare necessities of the robes I have on my body and the bowl I have to eat out of?

 It takes the courage and audacity of a special character, it takes determination and will power to commit to something and oxide by strict disciplines of the practice.