Letting Go

Letting go of Attachment

By David Matthew Brown

Q: How can I let go of attachment?

A: We seem to throw around words, and from those words come ideas. But we never investigate the word. The word is an important tool. The word has caused much pain and love.  Depending on how the word is used in reference to experience, memoires, and ideas, beliefs, which are all connected to the past.  So we need to put aside our beliefs, prejudice, memories, and theories to dialogue about this phrase, “letting go of attachment.”

First the very idea of letting go needs to be examined. To let something in is to allow it.  To allow is to let.  So to let it go would be that you no longer need it in.  So we first must observe the motion; which brings emotion into the letting.  To let something into your life there first had to be an allowing of it.  So what did you allow in? This thing, which was allowed, is not allowed now, so the question is what did I let in?  So attachment has bonded with the idea that was let in. This idea became a self- image. Anything related to self is self- serving in nature.  It wants to be seen because in some way it feels like its not. So even if the image is of despair, the intellect doesn’t care. It feeds the image of despair because attention will be given. But it is because attention is not given that the image continues.  So it feels conflicted. As you observe this notion of attachment with the thought, which came into an idea, you will observe that a sensation happened at the origin of the letting in.  Once the letting in process happened a thought came in and formed an image of self.  Then without attentiveness a self is played out. Now as the self is brought into awareness, and observed with attention, a thought will come about letting go of this thing it doesn’t want anymore.  So the intellect will search for ways to destroy what it feels with new information isn’t working.

So in observing, “letting go”, we must observe what we let in. We must observe it, and as we observe it, with out judgment, then in the presence it will fall away.  What is falling away? Why am I having trouble letting it go? The fact is that it is here, the image wants it to be different.  So as you stick with the fact, and let go of the image of what you want, then the letting go of everything begins to happen. So by observing and being attentive to what is, you will see the conflict inherent in the letting go, of the imagined and the fact.  So we see again the conflict of the intellect.

Here I have let in lack.  Now not being attentive to the thought, it forms an image of lack in the intellect, and that image becomes a self. Now I don’t want to lack. Whether that lack is security in the forms of relationships, money, health, etc…so then the image comes of abundance. So the fact is right now I am experiencing lack, the feeling of sensations, images, and so forth, but also now is the imagined world of abundance. They a parallel themselves, but abundance is imagined.  Can you see what happens by not being attentive? So now we are in conflict with our selves. The conflict is between what I let in and what I want. But if we stick with what is happening then it makes it easier to see the false.  The false in this example would be the abundance. Because at this moment you only know lack, which if investigated would lead you to important questions, so here is lack, and “What is lack?   Lack of what? Lack of Security?  Lack of money?  Lack of relationship? Lack of love?” Can you see the trouble we place our self in?

Then if we are not attentive, and look at the conflict, we keep creating the conflict of the real and unreal.  So lets look at security. Each of us understands basic security. Food, clothes, shelter, and yet when we observe the intellect we see that in all cases it wants security, comfort, gratification, pleasure, and pain. It wants to be secure. So can I find this security in love? Well when we observe this pattern, I notice that love will last till the sex is gone then it becomes a fight and struggle of control. Two images that loved each other now hate each other.  So there was no love. So the love was based on images of security.  I was secure with you and now I am not.  So maybe the question isn’t about security you ask, maybe the question is, “How come I am so scared to be alone?”

That question seems reasonable, because you may have continued to hate the other when the relationship was over, but you stayed in the relationship.  So how come you are scared to be alone? Well when you sit with this the imagination soars into other questions. So sit with this question and see the images that come forward. If in fact I can’t be alone then my search is a quest for security in God, religion, love, tradition, politics, organizations, etc… which stem from my own will not wanting to be with the question.  So can there ever be security?

I have a job, it pays great, and with it I buy a house, and all of this is forming an image that I am letting in. So with my security I get married have kids, and follow the story of thousands of years. Then the marriage falls apart, or the job goes, kids hate me, well the image is now in a fight for what is happening and what is imagined.  The image that is formed always seems to be going for this ideal which can never be met.  So can there be security? Can I ever be secure? There is a part of you that knows that security is not possible, but you play out the game if you will of conflict. And as you play it out, you put meaning on what is being played out, and search for an explanation of what could have happened. All the while it was the cover up of not being with the insecurity, aloneness, or what have you. And by not being with it, you wanted a guarantee, comfort, pleasure, or pain.

Thought has created so much nonsense. But you can see how it plays out in the world.  How you affect the planet? Does this bore you? Does it scare you? Check in and be honest. This is not to make you form another belief or become sarcastic. It is to allow you to see the importance of attentiveness, observing, and being. Do see the importance of what is happening now? When you see it, you no longer have to understand the false sense of security.