Letting Go of our Garbage

There is a man in Alachua, Florida named Mickey Singer. I found him through one of his books called "The Surrender Experiment", and I really resonated with him. I was so drawn to his experiences that I decided to visit him at his "Temple of the Universe" a few months ago. I enjoyed hearing him speak, and then spoke to him briefly in private. He's a fascinating guy. Since the pandemic started, he has been posting his talks on his website. I listened to one of his recent talks, and it inspired me to write the following. To be fair, most of what follows came from Mickey. I am paraphrasing some of what he said and summarizing the main ideas that spoke to me. Hopefully they'll be useful to someone else too.

Temple of the Universe in Alachua, Florida 

Every single thing that happens to us is for our benefit if we are willing to let go and enjoy the ride. It's only when we 1) cling to what we want or 2) resist what we don't want that our lives become a living hell.

By letting go, we allow ourselves to live in the moment. Each action we take becomes an end unto itself. We cease to work for money - we work for the sake of the work we're doing. We cease to interact with loved ones for what we can get out of the relationship - we interact with them for the sake of the interaction. We cease to look for ends and results other than the experience we are having at the moment.

And this can be fulfilling when we recognize that every experience we have makes us a better person. If it's a pleasant experience, we enjoy the pleasantness. If it's an unpleasant experience, we open to it and grow from the challenge it presents.

No more struggle. Life becomes peaceful. The world becomes friendly. There are no more enemies. Every one and every thing that touches our lives works for our good (Romans 8:28) because we use every experience to become a greater being. Everything in the world becomes God to us, lifting us up and helping us reach our full potential.

So it really comes down to letting go and living in the moment. But how do we let go? We have to learn to relax in the midst of trouble. And meditation is a great tool for helping us do that. It can train us to become more conscious and aware of everything that's going on regardless of circumstance.

With this combination of focus and relaxation, a kind of intense state of rest, we can begin to see clearly as garbage we have stored in our psyches begins to come up. As it arises, we can become conscious enough to look at it without getting mixed up in it. We watch it do its thing, and by not investing it with our energy, we begin to let it go.

The practice of focusing our attention on something other than our minds gives us the ability to distance ourselves from the mental chatter when our emotions start to go crazy because something happens that triggers the garbage we have stored inside. Meditation is training for the real spiritual/psychological work that happens when life gets hard. It give us the tools to let go. It enables us to become comfortable being uncomfortable. We recognize when we're not ok - and we're ok with that.

It might take many experiences with a single piece of garbage, whatever it is, before we're able to release it. It could be a traumatic experience in our past or a fear of something that might happen in the future. But whatever it is, if we keep at it, it will eventually disappear. And piece by piece, we will gradually remove the sewage in our psyches, and having cleansed our souls, we'll begin to live more deeply and authentically. Our entire lives can become free, and we simply live life instead of doing battle with it.

Beginner's Mind

We have a tendency to become accustomed to our reality so that what is familiar to us becomes trite and boring. What we are familiar with is easier to ignore than something new and exotic. New surroundings grab our attention and draw us in. It's one of the things I enjoy about travel.

But every thing has beauty, regardless of whether we have seen it before. Our acclimatization to our reality does not have to lead to a devaluation. When we become used to something, we think we know it. And we see it through the lens of the mental model we have constructed. But actually, we cease to see it for what it is and only perceive the model of it that we have created in our minds.

We think we understand it, but we only know it at a snapshot in time and probably only at a surface level. We close ourselves off to the depth and dynamic nature of the thing, and it loses some of its magic.

We do this with relationships too. We think we know someone so we stop paying attention to who they really are. Instead, when we interact with them, we're really interacting with the reflection of them that we hold in our minds. I have often wondered why it is harder to treat the people who are close to us with the patience and kindness that we often show to strangers. I think this is part of the answer. Familiarity leads us to devalue the thing and abstract it away from reality. This phenomenon has led to aphorisms like "familiarity breeds contempt" (we devalue the familiar) and "absence makes the heart grow fonder" (spending time apart can make things less familiar, and the reunion feels more fresh).

There is a concept in Buddhism called Beginner's Mind. The idea is to let go of preconceptions and bring to every moment the simple curiosity of a child. Everything is new. Everything has something to teach us. We accept our inability to truly know anything, so we drop all preconceptions, and we enter into each moment afresh, letting it fill us and teach us. When we do that, we begin to see through the facades and illusions we have created (our static mental models), and we begin to touch the depth of reality in every moment.

Not all mental models are bad. Some are quite useful. They can help us make sense of things and make decisions based on limited information. The problem comes when we take those models too seriously. If we mistake them for reality, we're living an illusory life. We can use them as tools while always being willing to question them. And we can drop them whenever possible so we can see reality fresh.

Some mental models are less useful. My pride, fueled by fear and a feeling of insignificance, generates mental models of my world with me at the center. These models are a powerful mix of truth and lies that keep me from experiencing the fullness of reality. Pride is a tightening and a closing off. Humility is a release and an opening to what is. To be humble, I've learned I just need to stay open. When I do, I can drop the ego-generated mental models and, like a child, view my world with eyes of wonder. I think maybe this is what Jesus meant when he said, "Except ye ... become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matt 18:3). Maybe we just need to stay open, living every moment like a child with eyes wide open.

Falling Awake

Waking up spiritually is a falling awake. It's not about effort. It's more about easing into it. Like you're falling asleep - except you're waking up. Waking to life as it is, without wishing it to be other than it is.

We're all so lost in our own stories. Stories about how life should be. Waking up is a radical kind of acceptance, a submission to life just as it is, and a dropping of all the stories and the story-making.

Acceptance and surrender are at the root of freedom from suffering. But acceptance of what is doesn't mean we can't act to make things better. It just means we start with a clear view of what is, and we accept whatever comes, whether we succeed in our efforts or not. We let go of the results.

True happiness and freedom come from choosing what we have, loving our life, regardless of our circumstances. Being happy with what we have instead of wanting what we don't have.