
Letting go is more than
giving away possessions.
It is also relinquishing our
opinions and preferences.
For our best example of letting go, we need only reflect on Prince Siddhartha’s renouncement. 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 attained ultimate liberation. We need to, like the Buddha, stop clinging to personal desires and egoistic opinions. Our attachments constrain us and have trapped us in the cycle of rebirth since time without beginning. By accepting that it is just a matter of time until we must once again leave everything behind, the wisdom in choosing to let go now rather than having everything torn from us later will become blindingly apparent. No longer a trapped sentient being, we will be content with, and appreciative of, all we encounter. And we will do so as a liberated being.
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