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after the ecstacy the laundry
October 2009 
The practice of letting go
Posted on Aug 3rd, 2009
by 
sass
sass
I've been reading Jack Kornfield's fabulous After the Ecstacy, the Laundry in which he makes wonderful use of the spiritual life experiences of many spiritual teachers and practitioners from across traditions. He writes of different gateways to experiences of enlightenment and of cycles of return to the detritus of Mara, of falling from grace, of the dark nights of the soul. Particularly resonant for me at the moment were the words of Theravdin monastry abbot Ajahn Sumedho:
"For minds obsessed by compulsive thinking and grasping, you simplify your meditation practices to just two words - "let go" ... The grasping mind wants to read the suttas, to study the Abhidamma, and to learn Pali and Sanskrit, then the Madhyamika and the Prajna Paramita, get ordinations in the Hinayana, Mahayana, Vajrayana, write books and become a renowned authority on Buddhism."
and Kornfield writes,
"Though it sounds simple, letting go is also an advanced practice. It is demanded in the greatest trials of our lives and in our final moments. It is here that the heart learns the secret: that to let go is also to embrace what is true." (Kornfield, p 137).
I count "letting go" as a primary meditation practice; derived from the Open Dharma teachings of deep rest. In some ways, the simplicity of it is simply exquisitely beautiful... to just allow yourself to rest, to be with your breath, to sink into yourself, to just be, to let go... And yet, at the same time, there is also, as Kornfield and Sumedho suggest, a continually emerging complexity to it. For the challenge of letting go of dropping the struggle of many manifestations of the minds "compulsive thinking and grasping" is, for me at least, enormous, astounding, and continuous. Letting go - one hand ecstacy: one hand laundry.
Access: PublicTagged with: jack kornfield, after the ecstacy the laundry, ajahn sumedho, open dharma, letting go, open practice
