4 Dec
2013
Posted in: Practice, Talks
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What We Let Go Of

I love what Winnie Nazarko said in the Dharma Seed talk we listened to on Monday night. The talk was all about “letting go,” which we hear a lot about. What I love is her clarity.

“What we let go of…..is suffering.”

So it’s not that we need to let go of what we want. It’s that we need to let go of the suffering caused by wanting what we want.

It’s fine to want something. But if that something is not possible…like, for example, you want the information you’ve been given about the Burmese visa application process to be accurate, reliable, and readily available…then continuing to want it, when it’s clear that that’s simply not the way it is…just adds suffering to what is already a difficult situation.

So….keep doing what you can to comply with the visa application requirements, keep checking to see if the first application has been approved, have a back-up plan in case it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen before the plane takes off….and let go of the continual thought that it shouldn’t be like that.

Whether it should or shouldn’t is beside the point.

It is what it is.

There’s a lot less suffering when you deal with it like that.

 

 

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