LETTING GO, LETTING IT BE

In the second Noble Truth we have the arising of desire and the attachment to it. We can divide desire into three types: kāma-tanhā, bhāva-tanhā and vibhāva-tanhā. Desire is this energy that’s always looking for something or other. If there is attachment to desire, then one is never content.

There is always this restlessness, trying to get something or do something or aiming at something or other. We might be picking up this or doing that or just saying anything. Desire, when it’s not understood and seen for what it is, just pulls us around.

Kāma-tanhā is the desire for sense pleasures. We distract
ourselves with the sense world. This can be done in so many ways, can’t it? With just eating, drinking, smoking, taking drugs, sexual activities, watching television or other types of entertainment and on and on. The possibilities for distracting ourselves are endless. In the form of a bhikkhu, the life of celibacy very much restricts our ability for kāma-tanhā. But
sometimes it definitely gathers around, let’s say, food. We can feel tremendous desires for sweets or for listening to music; a chance to distract ourselves with sound, sight, smell, taste or touch.

Kāma-tanhā is still quite coarse and obvious, but bhāva-tanhā and vibhāva-tanhā can be quite subtle. Bhāva-tanhā is the desire to become and vibhāva-tanhā is the desire to get rid of. In this life, which can be very altruistic and based on high-minded ideas, we can still have a strong desire to become an arahant or an enlightened person. It seems like a good desire in fact, doesn’t it? We try to become something better, or even to become the best.

Or we try to get rid of the terrible things. The desire to get rid of greed, anger and delusion; of jealousy, weakness and fear. They seem righteous kinds of desires. It must be good to get rid of the bad, the obstacles, the hindrances. Our minds can support and defend bhāva-tanhā and vibhāva-tanhā on these levels of becoming and getting rid of.

But we should remember that tanhā is always connected to avijjā (ignorance) - avijjā and tanhā, they go hand in hand. So, as long as there is avijjā, there’s going to be tanhā, and the desire to become and to get rid of.

This is where we really need to understand what desire is, and not just have an idea that we shouldn’t have any desires. Because then we form the desire not to have any desires, or the desire to get rid of the desire to get rid of desires - and it gets complicated. It’s not necessary to get rid of, but to understand.

So the second Noble Truth is the insight of letting go. Desires should be let go of. And to let go of something we have to know what we’re holding on to. It has nothing to do with annihilation. Letting go isn’t a kind of throwing away, since there’s no aversion accompanying it. We’re letting it be. It’s not a matter of getting rid of desire, but of letting it cease. We contemplate this word “letting go”, until we eventually realize that desire has been let go of. Then we know letting go...

Our practice and mental cultivation in this life is to observe the way things are: suffering and the arising of suffering. We should understand and acknowledge what suffering is, not just react to it.

In the second Noble Truth the insight is to let go of desire. The third Noble Truth is the realization of cessation. Cessation doesn’t mean annihilation. It’s not the end of everything, a kind of total destruction, but when we let go of desire it ceases. It’s natural for whatever arises to cease.

That’s just Dhamma, the way of things. All conditions are impermanent, so whatever comes into being, falls away. The focus of the third Noble Truth is to realize the cessation of things. This is quite subtle and if we don’t set our minds on practising for that realization, then we miss it all the time. Who notices how things end or cease?

~ Luang Por Sumedho (Excerpt from "Everything around us is Dhamma", talk at Wat Pah Nanachat, 1989)