A Strategic Letting Go
The Four Noble Truths
Birth is suffering. Growing old is suffering. Sickness is suffering. Death is suffering. Not getting what we want is suffering. Being separated from what we love is suffering. Having to associate with what we dislike is suffering. In brief, the five clinging-aggregates, the five khandas are suffering.
What are the khandas?
The body (our physical form); feelings (these are the mental tone of pleasant or painful that accompany a sensation or thought); perception and memory; choices (aka the will); and consciousness of the six senses (sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touch, thoughts and ideas).
This is the first noble truth. The truth of suffering that the Buddha says is to be understood.
Clinging is suffering
Clinging to things that change is unpleasant and a source of agitation. A source of stress. A cause of grief and woe. At times great sorrow and emotional pain. Especially when those we love die or change in ways we don’t like. Clinging to the self is also suffering. The khandas are always changing. They too are a process of conditioning. The self is not static, it is a flow within a flow.
And one day we will all die. This can’t be escaped. Clinging to the body is suffering. We can’t stop it from changing, it is outside our control. Even if we crack the ageing process and live a long life, we will still die, because this solar system and the universe are also in a state of entropy. Death cannot be escaped, even if one lives to the end of an aeon, that aeon will eventually come to an end. Conditioned things cannot last.
This is why nothing in the cosmos is fit to be clung to.
But letting go is difficult. It is hard to stop clinging. Why?
This is where the second noble truth comes in. The truth of the cause of suffering. This the Buddha says is to be abandoned.
What is the cause of suffering? Craving. Yearning.
It is because we yearn for something that we cling to it. We can’t let go of something if we still yearn for it. It is impossible to let go if craving is present. Craving is the direct cause of clinging.
To stop clinging one must abandon craving.
When craving goes cool, there is no more clinging. The mind naturally lets go then and is released. The agitation stops and there is cessation — peace.
That release is the third noble truth. The truth of the end of suffering, which the Buddha says is to be realised. This is the meaning of nibbana or nirvana. It means to become cool. To have cooled the fire of craving. When craving stops, the mind naturally lets go. That is the solution to the problem of suffering.
But how does one put out the fire of craving?
By losing interest in it. Becoming disenchanted with it, dispassionate towards it. We look at the drawbacks of what we desire — at the transient nature of conditioned things. We see how dissatisfying they ultimately are, and how they are empty of self and ownerless. This helps to counteract the allure. When we lose interest in something we no longer yearn for it and then we naturally let go.
This process is accomplished through wisdom. A wisdom that comes from experience and discernment. Through training. This is where the fourth noble truth comes in. The truth of the way that leads to the end of suffering, which the Buddha says is to be developed.
What is the way out of suffering? The noble eightfold path. Right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right samadhi (collectedness, stillness, unification of mind).
The noble eightfold path is the training that brings about the right knowledge and liberation.
But in the beginning, one must use craving skillfully. If there is no desire to put an end to suffering, then one will not make any effort and suffering will continue. So craving is part of the path.
The noble eightfold path turns the five khandas into a skilful means to end suffering. It uses the body, feelings, perceptions, choices, and consciousness to gradually put out craving.
Ananda (the Buddha’s attendant) said something wise in a sutta, a sutta I can’t remember the name of. He uses a metaphor for the desire to realise awakening, as being like when someone visits a park. It is the desire to go to the park that causes the person to walk there, without that desire they wouldn’t bother to make the journey. But once they get to the park the desire naturally falls away because they have arrived.
This is known as right desire (chanda). But one must use it skillfully. For example, to reach deep states of stillness desire is needed at first, if there is no desire one will not make any effort to practise meditation. But there comes a point when that desire can get in the way, and to go deeper into the mind one must relinquish the will, the doing, the effort, which can feel scary at first, the ego recoils from it, it becomes afraid, it wants to be in control; but to reach deeper states of stillness and lucidity the self must vanish.
So it’s a balancing act. One learns to tune desire and effort to reach the doorstep of awakening and then lets go of that desire. One uses it like a tool and then puts it down when it has done its job.
So, in the beginning, one clings to the noble eightfold path, like a raft that gets you across a flood. It is only when one has developed the path and it has become like second nature, that one can safely let go of it.
The Buddhist path is a strategic clinging and letting go. If you try to let go of everything in the beginning you will fail.
One must be patient and persevere. The path is a gradual letting go. A gradual abandonment of craving. The Buddha describes the training as being like a continental shelf that gradually descends into the ocean, there comes a point where it reaches a sudden drop-off point. That sudden drop off into the deep is awakening. Once that happens, there is no turning back. The process of liberation is irreversible at that point. But to reach that point one must use desire skillfully and then know when to let go of it.
