posession and surrender
"Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free."
- Thich Nhat Hanh
It is a common phenomenon of the human mind to control, to possess, to own. This need not be proven because it is a fact; wars over territory, the slaughter of countless humans for resources, land, and ideology. We practice this in our households as well, maintaining our loved ones as possessions to counteract our inner perceptions of loneliness and insecurity, keeping both parties in psychological bondage. As attachment to form metastasizes within the mind, so does the fear of its eventual dissolution. A mind in such captivity has no room prepared for spaciousness and therefore love to enter. The internal war over diaphanous things, people, and concepts constitutes an incredible expenditure of mental energy. The first change is to observe the mind completely, not as a separate watcher, but as it actually is. This requires careful attention to the conditioning that you have accumulated over the course of your life, material and immaterial. From this simple act, you will notice your knuckles that were once white from clenching begin to relax and return to their natural position.
Next begins the process of surrender, of letting go. This is particularly hard for us Americans because we have been heavily conditioned to accumulate, that more is better. I must clarify my point here- I am not advertising literally giving all of your possessions away and ending your relationships- but potentially fostering an attitude of surrender towards the inevitable impermanence that we encounter on Earth. Do not take my words as your authority, but discover the Truth for yourselves. Surrender often carries the connotation of passive relinquishment- it is not the same thing as “giving up” that we say here. You do not really stand to “lose” anything. It seems to be a fearful thing from the narrow viewpoint of the ego, but it is the path to total and complete liberation. One can free themselves from the worship of external objects and internal ideology, which is really just the worship of ourselves. When this happens, something deep within flowers, and Truth can be met within each moment.
Art by Larry Keenan