Letting Go

"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

Two weeks ago, during the Garrison retreat, Roshi told us a story of when she was a young girl in her 20's. She was going tubing with her friends on a powerful river. She could hear the water roaring before they arrived at the starting point. She and her friends walked out onto a narrow bridge over the whitewater. As she watched, her friends jumped one by one into the raging river but she couldn't move...she couldn't jump. She became more terrified as she realized they were floating away and she would be left alone. She closed her eyes and jumped with the tube around her waist. She came to the surface and began to be swept down the river. Panicked, she reached out and grabbed a willow branch with both hands. The tube slipped down her body and she was holding it with her feet. Now she was being pulled down the river by the tube around her feet as she held onto the branch with both hands. The water was blasting her in the face...filling her mouth and nose...she was drowning...she was drowning herself by hanging on. Realizing that she could no longer maintain her grip on the branch...she let go.
As she surfaced there was no more tension between being pulled and letting go. She was able to position the tube comfortably and go with the flow.
The next time you feel that you are drowning, being overwhelmed, feeling tension, being pulled in too many directions; ask yourself, "What am I holding on to? Why am I holding on? I can't change the strength of the river or the fact that I'm in it right now. Can I let go of something and just go with the flow for awhile?"
We cling to our identities, our likes, our dislikes, our habits of correcting others, judgements, how we want things to be (instead of how they are) and a million other little willow branches. Relieve some tension and enjoy the ride. Practice letting go.