THE ART OF LETTING GO 放下的艺术

August 17, 1956
When you sit and meditate, even if you don’t gain any intuitive insights, make sure at least that you know this much: When the breath comes in, you know. When it goes out, you know. When it’s long, you know. When it’s short, you know. Whether it’s comfortable or uncomfortable, you know. If you can know this much, you’re doing fine. As for the various thoughts and concepts (sañña) that come into the mind, brush them away—whether they’re good or bad, whether they deal with the past or the future. Don’t let them interfere with what you’re doing—and don’t go chasing after them to straighten them out. When a thought of this sort comes passing in, simply let it go passing on. Keep your awareness, unperturbed(不受干扰), in the present.

When we say that the mind goes here or there, it’s not really the mind that goes. Only concepts go. Concepts(概念) are like shadows of the mind. If the body is still, how will its shadow move? The movement of the body is what causes the shadow to move, and when the shadow moves, how will you catch hold of it? Shadows are hard to catch, hard to shake off, hard to set still. The awareness that forms the present: That’s the true mind. The awareness that goes chasing after concepts is just a shadow. Real awareness —’knowing’—stays in place. It doesn’t stand, walk, come, or go. As for the mind—the awareness that doesn’t act in any way coming or going, forward or back—it’s quiet and unperturbed. And when the mind is thus its normal, even, undistracted self(未受干扰的自我)—i.e., when it doesn’t have any shadows—we can rest peacefully. But if the mind is unstable, uncertain, and wavering(摇摆), concepts arise and go flashing out—and we go chasing after them, hoping to drag them back in. The chasing after them is where we go wrong. This is what we have to correct. Tell yourself: Nothing is wrong with your mind. Just watch out for the shadows.

You can’t improve your shadow. Say your shadow is black. You can scrub it with soap till your dying day, and it’ll still be black—because there’s no substance to it. So it is with your concepts. You can’t straighten them out, because they’re just images, deceiving you(欺骗你).

The Buddha thus taught that whoever isn’t acquainted(熟悉) with the self, the body, the mind, and its shadows, is suffering from avijja—darkness, deluded knowledge. Whoever thinks the mind is the self, the self is the mind, the mind is its concepts— whoever has things all mixed up like this—is deluded and lost, like a person lost in the jungle. To be lost in the jungle brings countless hardships. There are wild beasts(野生动物) to worry about, problems in finding food to eat and a place to sleep. No matter which way you look, there’s no way out. But if we’re lost in the world, it’s many times worse than being lost in the jungle, because we can’t tell night from day. We have no chance to find any brightness because our minds are dark with avijja.

The purpose of training the mind to be still is to simplify things. When things are simplified, the mind can settle down and rest. And when the mind has rested, it’ll gradually become bright, in and of itself, and give rise to knowledge. But if we let things get complicated—if we let the mind get mixed up with sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations, and ideas—that’s darkness. Knowledge won’t have a chance to arise.

When intuitive knowledge (直观的知识) does arise, it can—if you know how to use it—lead to liberating insight. But if you let yourself get carried away by knowledge of the past or future, you won’t get beyond the mundane level. In other words, if you dabble too much in knowledge of physical things, without gaining wisdom with regard to the workings of the mind, it can leave you spiritually immature.

Say, for example, that a vision arises and you get hooked: You gain knowledge of your past lives and get all excited. Things you never knew before, now you can know. Things you never saw before, now you see—and they can make you overly pleased or upset. Why? Because you take them all too seriously. You may see a vision of yourself prospering as a lord or master, a great emperor or king, wealthy and influential. If you let yourself feel pleased, that’s indulgence in pleasure. You’ve strayed from the Middle Path. Or you may see yourself as something you wouldn’t care to be: a pig or a dog, a bird or a rat, crippled or deformed. If you let yourself get upset, that’s indulgence in self-affliction(自我折磨)—and again, you’ve strayed from the path. Some people really let themselves get carried away: As soon as they start seeing things, they begin to think that they’re special, somehow better than other people. They let themselves become proud and conceited—and the right path has disappeared without their even knowing it. If you’re not careful, this is where mundane knowledge can lead you.

But if you keep one principle firmly in mind, you can stay right on the path: Whatever appears, good or bad, true or false, don’t let yourself feel pleased, don’t let yourself get upset. Keep the mind balanced and neutral, and discernment will arise. You’ll see that the vision or sign displays the truth of stress: it arises (is born), fades (ages), and disappears (dies).

If you get hooked on your intuitions, you’re asking for trouble. Knowledge that proves false can hurt you. Knowledge that proves true can really hurt you. If what you know is true, and you go telling other people, you’re bragging(吹牛). If it turns out to be false, it can backfire on you. This is why those who truly know say that knowledge is the essence of stress: It can hurt you. Knowledge is part of the flood of views and opinions (ditthi-ogha) over which we have to cross. If you hang onto knowledge, you’ve gone wrong. If you know, simply know, and let it go at that. You don’t have to be excited or pleased. You don’t have to go telling other people.

People who’ve studied abroad, when they come back to the rice fields, don’t tell what they’ve learned to the folks at home. They talk about ordinary things in an ordinary way. The reason they don’t talk about the things they’ve studied is because (1) no one would understand them; (2) it wouldn’t serve any purpose. Even with people who would understand them, they don’t display their learning. So it should be when you practice meditation. No matter how much you know, you have to act as if you know nothing—because this is the way people with good manners normally act. If you go bragging to other people, it’s bad enough. If they don’t believe you, it can get even worse.

So whatever you know, simply be aware of it and let it go. Don’t let there be the assumption that ‘I know.’ When you can do this, your mind can attain the transcendent, free from attachment.

Everything in the world has its truth. Even things that aren’t true are true—i.e., their truth is that they’re false. This is why we have to let go of both what’s true and what’s false. Once we know the truth and can let it go, we can be at our ease. We won’t be poor, because the truth—the Dhamma—will still be there with us. We won’t be left empty-handed. It’s like having a lot of money: Instead of lugging it around with us, we keep it piled up at home. We may not have anything in our pockets, but we’re still not poor.

The same is true with people who really know. Even when they let go of their knowledge, it’s still there. This is why the minds of the Noble Ones aren’t left adrift(漂流). They let things go, but not in a wasteful or irresponsible way. They let go like rich people: Even though they let go, they’ve still got piles of wealth.

As for people who let things go like paupers, they don’t know what’s worthwhile and what’s not. When they throw away the things that are worthwhile, they’re simply heading for disaster. For instance, they may see that there’s no truth to anything—no truth to the khandhas, no truth to the body, no truth to stress, its cause, its disbanding, or the path to its disbanding, no truth to Liberation. They don’t use their brains at all. They’re too lazy to do anything, so they let go of everything, throw it all away. This is called letting go like a pauper(穷光蛋). Like a lot of modern-day sages: When they come back after they die, they’re going to be poor all over again.

As for the Buddha, he let go only of the true and false things that appeared in his body and mind—but he didn’t abandon his body and mind, which is why he ended up rich, with plenty of wealth to hand down to his descendants. This is why his descendants never have to worry about being poor.

So we should look to the Buddha as our model. If we see that the khandhas are worthless—inconstant, stressful, not-self, and all that—and simply let go of them by neglecting them, we’re sure to end up poor. Like a stupid person who feels so repulsed by a festering sore(溃烂疮) on his body that he won’t touch it and so lets it go without taking care of it: There’s no way the sore is going to heal. As for intelligent people, they know how to wash their sores, put medicine and bandages on them, so that eventually they’re sure to recover.

In the same way, when people see only the drawbacks to the khandhas, without seeing their good side, and so let them go without putting them to any worthwhile or skillful use, nothing good will come of it. But if we’re intelligent enough to see that the khandhas have their good side as well as their bad, and then put them to good use by meditating to gain discernment into physical and mental phenomena, we’re going to be rich. Once we have the truth—the Dhamma—as our wealth, we won’t suffer if we have money, and won’t suffer if we don’t, for our minds will be transcendent. The various forms of rust—greed, anger, and delusion—that have been obscuring our senses will all fall away. Our eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body will be entirely clean, clear, and bright, for as the Buddha said, the Dhamma—discernment—is like a lamp. Our mind, far distant from all forms of trouble and suffering, will stay in the current flowing on to Liberation.

Source:
Keeping the Breath in Mind & Lessons in Samadhi
by Ajaan Lee Dhammadharo (Phra Suddhidhammaransi Gambhiramedhacariya)
Translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu