“If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace.”
- Ajahn Chah (1918-1992), Thai Buddhist monk
It seems we’re often willing to let go of some things, but insist on holding on to others. This is either because we believe we know what’s best for us, or because we’re afraid of not getting something we believe we want, or because we’re afraid of losing something we believe we have. Each of these beliefs is based on our limited vision of “what is” as well as a belief that there is something out there that will fulfill our desire for happiness. Hindsight often teaches us that what we thought was good for us turned out to be a detour through pain, what we thought we wanted turned out to be a lesson in “be careful for what you wish for,” and what we thought we ‘owned’ was only temporary, like nearly everything in life.
To “let go completely” is to acknowledge our limited vision of what is, to trust in something bigger than ourselves and therefore have no investment in our little, pre-defined outcomes… to let all things be as they present themselves without exercising the impulse to make them something we want instead. Doing so, we experience an ever deepening peace regardless of what seems to happen around us – what happens around us no longer dictates our experience of peace.
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Read more about Ajahn Chah.
Posted by Patrick 
