How Can I Completely Let Go? | Meditation Q&A

Ven. Pomnyun Sunim's Answer to “How can I completely let go?” A question is chosen from the weekly Sunday meditation with Ven. Pomnyun Sunim.

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Note: This includes an English Interpretation.

Transcript

When I drop or let go of compulsion, Negative emotions or memories, I feel free and lighter. Many times, However, I become triggered and find myself holding on to the thing I thought I had set down. Is it that I'm still grasping and I'm not really letting go properly and completely? Other than observing and watching, Is there anything else I can do to really see that the result of the trigger, Or maybe even the trigger itself, Is empty? Say there's a piece of gold here. And let's say we look at this piece of gold, And we say, I'm not obsessed with gold. I have to throw it away. I have to throw it away. I have to throw it away. I have to throw it away. I have to throw it away. I have to throw it away. I have to throw it away. And let's say we look at this piece of gold and say, This is just a piece of rock. I don't need it. I'm not attached to gold. So I take this piece of gold and go to the hill and bury it into the ground. And tell myself that I'm not going to even remember the place where I buried this gold. So I keep telling myself to forget the location, But I can't. I still remember it. Why is that? Because although we might have determined ourselves consciously that this is worthless, I'm not attached to gold, Subconsciously it tells us that this is valuable, That we should keep track of it. So let's take a situation. Intellectually, We might understand that our differences were just that, Differences, Right? That no one was right or wrong. However, Subconsciously, We still hold on to the position that we were right and somebody else was wrong. And that's why we keep telling ourselves, I'm not going to even remember the place where I buried this gold. I'm not going to even remember the place where I buried this gold. So let's say that we were right and somebody else was wrong. And that's why we can't really let go at that deeper level. So let's say we took that same piece of gold and somehow we scratched the surface of the gold with a piece of knife and realized that it's not real gold. It's not real gold. It's not real gold. It's not real gold. It's not real gold. It's not real gold. It's not real gold. And if you realize that, Then you don't have to make an effort to throw away. You don't have to make an effort to forget about its existence. You know it's worthless, So you forget about it naturally. You know it's worthless, So you forget about it naturally. And if you realize that, Then you don't have to make an effort to throw away. You don't have to make an effort to forget about its existence. You know it's worthless, So you forget about it naturally. And if you realize that, Then you don't have to make an effort to throw away. You know it's worthless, So you forget about it naturally. Because once you realize that it's just gold plated and not real gold, Then even subconsciously you make a judgment that it's worthless. It's not worth the effort. So if you really get into the inside of the truth of the rock itself, So if you really get into the inside of the truth of the rock itself, Then you don't have to make an effort to forget about it or to let go. The letting go happens naturally for you. So from a philosophical perspective, Realizing that this is worthless, Seeing it's the truth of the situation or the matter, It's called emptiness. So in fundamental Buddhism, We call this the selflessness, No self. So realizing that there is no real substance to what you held was previously concrete or real to you, Then the letting go happens naturally as a consequence of that insight into the truth. So when you're obsessed over something or attached to something, That you need practice in the beginning of letting go. However, If you gain an insight into the essential truth that there's nothing to let go of, Then letting go happens naturally as a consequence. So if you're obsessed with something, Then you need practice in the beginning of letting go. However, If you gain an insight into the essential truth that there's a piece of food there that you really like, And people tell you, Doctors tell you that it's not good for you. So you say, You intellectually understand it's not good for you, You shouldn't eat it. But you're suppressing your desire and curiosity to eat that piece of food. So that little piece of food, That's not good for you. So if you're obsessed with that piece of food, Then you need practice in the beginning of letting go. However, If you gain an insight into the essential truth that there's a piece of food there that you really like, And people tell you, Doctors tell you that it's not good for you, You shouldn't eat it. But you're suppressing your desire and curiosity to eat that piece of food. So that little piece of attachment still remains. But if somebody tells you there's a piece of poison there, That you'll die if you eat it, Then somebody else might actually make it as appetizing as possible, Especially if you see somebody else eat that same piece of food and die right there because of poisoning, Then obviously you won't feel any desire to eat that food anymore. So there's a difference between knowing something intellectually, Consciously, And then really internalizing, Experiencing something at a deeper level. So if you borrow from recent psychology lexicon, Thoughts happen at the intellectual level, At the consciousness. But a deeper kind of what we call the mind happens as a subconsciousness. It's the subconsciousness that really needs to change for real change to happen. So meditation is a way for you to delve deeply into the subconscious and be able to reach down and adjust and edit what's down there.

Reviews

Very helpful. Understanding the worthlessness of any particular memory trigger can help us let go naturally vs suppression, which may indicate a conscious understanding of the worthlessness but, the unconscious still believes it has worth, and so it rises to the surface of our thoughts again.

Thank you 😊