Letting Go is More Than Giving Away Possessions

Letting go is more than giving away possessions. It is also relinquishing opinions and preferences.

For the best example of letting go, we need only reflect on Prince Siddhartha's renouncements.

Leaving behind his pleasure-filled life, his attachments to personal views, and eventually even his concept of self, he lived as a penniless, wandering seeker — a seeker who later attained ultimate liberation.

We need to, like the Buddha, stop clinging to personal desires and egoistic opinions. Our attachments constrain us and trap us in the cycle of rebirth. And they have done so since time without beginning.

Accept that it is just a matter of time when once again we leave all that we have behind. And so, the wisdom in choosing to let go now rather than having everything torn from us later is blindingly apparent.

No longer a trapped sentient being, we will be content with, and appreciative of, all that we encounter. And we will do so as a liberated being.

Amituofo.

— Our Daily Practice, Venerable Wuling