Discovering Joy | BEing Happiness

02 Letting Go and Arriving into Happiness

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How do I know it's okay to Let Go?

Objective: To simply enjoy the Aimlessness of the Moment.

How Do We Get There?

• • Discourse on the Full Awareness of Breathing

Steps 1. and 2.   In - Out

Steps 3. and 4.    Whole Body - Calm

Steps 5 and 6.  Discovering Joyful - BEing Happiness

• • Mindfulness, Concentration and Insight

  • Be Kind. Be Gentle. Be Loving.

  • Letting Go with Trust

Sangha Sharing

What joy, insights, wonderment, questions and moments would you like to share?

Dharma Talk

Letting Go

"There's no need to rush.  We aren't going anywhere.  We are just letting go so our eyes can open." is how I have started each episode.  "We are just letting go" and when we do so, we arrive into the Aimlessness of the Moment.  Remember, Aimlessness is about BEing.  There is nothing to do.  There is nothing to accomplish.  There is nothing to become because you already ARE.  

At the end of some meditations when you want to stay there forever, when you feel complete and full.  Every need has already been met.  Reflect upon those moments.  What did you need to do to continue with that awareness while you sat?  ....Nothing.  Where you grasping onto anything in your awareness?  ....Nope.  You just sat there and had completely let go of everything.  Letting Go frees your awareness.  Because you let go, you could be everything you are.  

The Buddha has Prepared Us with the Discourse

Letting Go at first can be scary and intimidating.  

In Breath - I enjoy the soothing quality of my breathing

Out Breath - I share my breath with the 'scary and intimdating' so it can soothed.

We place so much importance on 'knowing'.  "Knowledge is Power."  "Get a good education."  "Having knowledge can open doors in society."  

Clearly, "knowing" is important but the obstacles arise when we pretent to know or believe we already understand.  When that happens, our experiences can only go as for as our 'understanding'.  If there is more to be experienced, we'll fall short of the arriving.

Mindfulness, Concentration and Insight

This is how we expand our definitions, with insight.  Insight is amazing and so personalized to you.  When it sheds light across our awareness, we know it.  There is no mistaking it for another thought.  It is very clear, concise and makes perfect sense to use.  It can do this because it knows our awareness very imitimately.  It understands how to present an idea, a concept to use in a way that we are most open to recieving it.  It can share insights into areas that have a tremendous amount of suffering in a way that is most gently and poinent.  If anyone in the world would present this insight to our suffering, we would not be open to it; however, insight can and we trust and listen to it.  Insight is like our very own teacher that presents little lessons in a way that is best for our learning style, our personality, our strengths and our weakness.  

The most anyone of us can do is to take one step.  No one takes two steps at once.  Just one step.  Insight gives exactly what we need for that one step before us. 

Letting Go Takes Trust

Trust is the foundation for every relationships and trust is only earned from repeated behavioral patterns.  So let's look into the relationship we have with the Buddha's discourse.

Steps 1 and 2: In | Out

We first listened to our breathing.  Thay instructed us not to condition our breathing but to simply listen to it.  He asked us not to control our breathing but to Let Go and just listen to it.  As we did this, letting go lead to listening to our breathing become more gentle and peaceful.  We didn't do anything but listen.  We let go and arrived at peace.  As we continued to listen, we began to enjoy our breathing.  Feeling how smooth and gentle it was to feel the air moving through us.  Appreciation grew as, our breathing is always here.  It is always available to calm us.  As we calmed, insight could be heard and became more aware of the life we are and the life around us.  Letting go of our breath opened our awareness to a beautful relationship that had already existed within this body.

Steps 3 and 4: Aware of Body | Calm Body

Again, we were invited to Let Go as Brother Phap Linh invited us to 'just let our body be as it is.'  (paraphrasing)  We sat and began to simply listen to our body's.  We found tension and stress.  We invited our body's to Calm and Ease.  We shared the gentlness of our breathing with our bodies and our body's accepted the invitation and Eased.  Just like Letting Go of our breathing opened our awareness to this beautiful relationship, so has letting go of our body's expanded this relationship with our body.  

So we have practised many times letting go and found a beauty that existed within us.  Continuing to let go will produce more of the same.  But don't take my word for it, or Thay's or the Buddha's, just sit, let go and discover for yourself this beautiful relationship.

Thay Invites us to Let Go of Happiness

In this video, Thay invites us to let go of our definition of happiness.  

 a Thich Nhat Hanh talk

Happiness Comes from Every Direction | Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh, 4 mins

Collective observations and reflections

We share and listen.

Let's Water Seeds By Recognizing Life's Beauty

Please don't forget.  A meditation is meant to be experienced.  Letting go of what we think ought to be is the first step.  Then we step forward with the discovery nature of a child.  Rich experiences naturally follow.

Bells at 7 mins, 14 mins

I listen for the soothing quality of my in breath | I enjoy my out breath

Soothing | Enjoy

I feel my tummy extend and my shoulders rise | I warmly greet my whole body

Shoulders rise  |  Warmly greet

I become aware of life in my breathing body  |  I am grateful

Aware of Life  |  Grateful

Present Moment  |  Peaceful Moment

Peaceful Moment | I rest in Contentment

Peacefully  |  Content

Happiness Blooms  |  Smile

I am Home

Collective observations and reflections

We share and listen.

Invitation

As we are traveling through the discourse, we are letting go more and more of our thoughts, ideas, beliefs, rules and knowledge so that insight can speak a broad truth and teach us our to suffer less.  You are invited you as you go about your day, stop for a breath or two, grouding yourself into your body and ask, 'From where does my happiness come?'