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The greatest lesson I was ever taught was on — LETTING GO.
Every now and again I come upon a story that startles me in its clarity. Here is one on letting go.
The Traveler and the Anchor
A young seeker, carrying a heavy rucksack filled with maps, holy books, and survival gear, arrived at the edge of a wide, rushing river. On the other side stood a small village where the people lived in harmony, caring for the sick and sharing their bread.
The seeker saw an old monk sitting by the water. “How do I get across?” the seeker asked. “I have studied every map, and I have prepared for every danger. I am ready to bring my knowledge to that village.”
The monk looked at the heavy pack. “To reach the Village of Peace, you must swim the River of Letting Go. But your pack is heavy with Certainty.”
“You are so full of answers that you have no room for the truth. If you do not drop that weight, it will drown you. It will sink you.”
The seeker tried to swim, but the weight of his books and his “image” as a Great Seeker pulled him under.
He gasped, terrified of the “Cloud of Unknowing” beneath the surface. Finally, sensing he would drown, he unbuckled the straps.
He let the maps and the gear go.
As he stopped struggling and sank, he didn’t fall into a bottomless pit. Instead, his feet struck something hard and unmovable.
The Bedrock.
Standing on that “Great Foundation,” the water no longer felt like an enemy. It was just water. Because he was no longer fighting to stay above it, he could walk through it.
When the seeker reached the other shore, he was empty-handed. He had no “cherished image” left. He was shivering and humble.
The monk, who had crossed easily, met him there.
“Now,” the monk said, “you have nothing to prove, which means you are finally free to be useful. You don’t have your feelings; you’ve let them pass through you. You don’t have your labels; you’ve left them in the river.”
The seeker looked at the village.
He felt a deep, contemplative stillness within, yet his legs felt a sudden, fierce strength to go and help the people rebuild a broken wall in the town square.
For me, letting go of my rucksack filled with certainty was hard. “Thy Kingdom Come ~ My Kingdom Go” was not in my wheelhouse of things I had mastered.
I spent my whole life battling uncertainty, my whole childhood steeped in faith about things of which I could be certain.
Uncertainty has been the enemy of my faith.
So you can imagine how unsettled I was when I hit bottom and found it to be place of great doubt and much uncertainty.
And then I came to discover doubt was a vital component of faith.
As the theologian Paul Tillich observed:
“Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith, it is an element of faith.”
At the bottom my doubt became a source of great light for me.
The bottom was a place where I discovered that when you let go of everything there’s nothing left to fear. It was where there existed the hope of starting my life over.
So on June 14, 1985 I started over.
Now fast forward 10 years to 1995.
The Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia:
Marsha and I were on our honeymoon, beginning our new life together.
The morning after we arrived I went out for a run in Beacon Hill Park.
I came upon a man clutching a bottle of rye whiskey passed out on the grass.
I stopped and took in the scene.
What I saw hit me like a ton of bricks.
I was looking at the very picture of myself from 10 years earlier.
All I could think to do at that moment was lift a prayer for that dear soul. I prayed he would wake up, find himself at bottom, let go of the kingdom to which he was clinging, and begin building the new kingdom on the sacred bedrock of the bottom.
Just a thought…
Pat
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