Practice Is Enlightenment

The theme of this month's sesshin was "Practice," and the dharma talks focused on this topic. However, one comment struck me rather profoundly - my friend Arthur, who was leading the sesshin, was talking about letting go of attachments. However, he pointed out the grasping mind can't really "let go" of anything, all it can do is stop grasping. "Letting go," in the active sense, is not something the mind is capable of doing.

The mind can push away, but that is not the same as letting go. To let go of something is to recognize the impermanence of that thing, to let it change according to its natural order, without trying to keep it as it was.

Example: I am trying to "let go" of my attachment to L. My grasping mind wants to keep our relationship the way it was, or at least the way it fantasizes that it was, ignoring significant evidence suggesting that the "good times" weren't really all that good. But anyway, letting go isn't an effort my mind can make. It can push her away, for example by focusing on the negative and allowing the fondness to morph to anger. But that isn't letting go, it's just substituting one attachment, fondness, for another, anger.

To truly let go is to not grasp my desire and not to grasp a substitute for my desire. It is simply to see and realize things the way they really are. This true and direct realization is the practice. And to practice true understanding of the way things really are is not to grasp what I like and reject what I don't like, but to just see. Including my desire. Including L.'s distance. Including all of the myriad emotions and issues that come up.

I struggle not to use the word "acceptance," because that implies that I have to do something about the situation. It's not for me to accept or reject. All I need to do is see. That is realization. That is enlightenment. That is practice.