letting go

Daily Creator L. P. sends us this suggestion and several quotes about letting go:

May I suggest that for the first two week in December, we just try to experience each moment fully. Let us allow nature to come to us. The sounds, the smells, the warmth or coolness of the day or night. Let us be present to experience. Let us open our senses as if opening our hand to receive. Forget "achievement" for two weeks. Experience each necessary task, such as washing the dishes, as if it is an honor and a gift.....feel the warm sudsy water with pleasure....listen to the forks clanging and clicking as if it is music. Just experience.......slow down. Let us empty so that we may fill again.

Here are some quotes about letting go:

Let's try an experiment. Pick up a coin. Imagine that it represents the object at which you are grasping. Hold it tightly clutched in your fist and extend your arm, with the palm of your hand facing the ground. Now if you let go or relax your grip, you will lose what you are clinging onto. That's why you hold on. But there's another possibility: You can let go and yet keep hold of it. With your arm still outstretched, turn your hand so that it faces the sky. Release your hand and the coin still rests on your open palm. You let go. And the coin is still yours, even with all this space around it. So there is a way in which we can accept impermanence and still relish life, at one and the same time, without grasping.

-Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dyingfrom Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

Muddy Water
There is a famous saying: "If the mind is not contrived, it is spontaneously blissful, just as water, when not agitated, is by nature transparent and clear." I often compare the mind in meditation to a jar of muddy water: The more we leave the water without interfering or stirring it, the more the particles of dirt will sink to the bottom, letting the natural clarity of the water shine through. The very nature of the mind is such that if you only leave it in its unaltered and natural state, it will find its true nature, which is bliss and clarity. So take care not to impose anything on the mind, or to tax it. When you meditate there should be no effort to control, and no attempt to be peaceful. Don't be overly solemn or feel that you are taking part in some special ritual; let go even of the idea that you are meditating. Let your body remain as it is, and your breath as you find it. Think of yourself as the sky, holding the whole universe.

--Sogyal Rinpoche, in The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

The more you practice letting go, the more you begin to understand the journey of your soul or your spirit as it detaches from the material nature of existence. There is a river, and as soon as you unmoor the boat and you start to enter that river, you end up on a journey.

-- Bruce Rubin

TODAY'S CREATIVITY CHALLENGE:

Is there something on your mind? Something bothering you? Something not quite right with a piece you're trying to finish? Something in your life that you're constantly trying to fix? A scene in your play that just won't come together? Notes you're having a hard time trying to incorporate? You've run out of energy or enthusiasm for your current project?

Let it go. Just for today. I promise it will be there tomorrow when you return. But just for today, let it entirely go.

Meditate and imagine that you put that problem in a big, pink bubble and you send it off into the atmosphere where someone or something else can fix it for you.

Give yourself the day completely off. No worries allowed. No holding on. No control. Let go.