spiritual nuggets that can lead us to a life filled with love and hope. It is a book about healing our fear of intimacy and our fear of love and happiness.
Hugh makes it absolutely clear that life does not have to be as complicated as we usually make it. He brings freshness and candor to ancient insights and leaves the reader free to ponder, disagree with, and especially to reexamine old beliefs, habits, and thoughts. When we finally realize that letting go of what has no value is not a sacrifice but the road to our personal freedom and happiness, we will embrace the practices that allow us to accomplish this. The “Releases” in this book are a way to freedom from the judgments, thoughts, and attitudes that poison our minds and lives. They will help readers become more conscious of their feelings and thoughts as a preparation to freeing their minds and becoming whole.
Letting go is an ongoing process that must be mastered, and while the writing in this book is clear, concise, and easy to read, it does require readers to participate in their liberation. The value of these Releases is priceless because they open the door to freedom from the bondage of negative, fearful thinking and set hearts and minds free to soar with the wings of peace, unity, and happiness.
The last chapter of this book is a powerful, poetic description of the benefits of letting go, surrendering to love, and finally taking that leap of faith to trust God as our guide through the pathways of life. The result is a joy and peace that defies both imagination and comparison.
This is a great, must-read book.
The River and the Lion
After the great rains, the lion was faced with crossing the river that had encircled him. Swimming was not in his nature, but it was either cross or die. The lion roared and charged the river, almost drowning before he retreated. Many more times he attacked the water, and each time he failed to cross. Exhausted, the lion lay down, and in his quietness he heard the river say, “Never fight what isn't here.”
Cautiously, the lion looked up and asked, “What isn't here?”
“Your enemy isn't here,” answered the river. “Just as you are a lion, I am merely a river.”
Now the lion sat very still and studied the ways of the river. After a while, he walked to where a certain current brushed against the shore, and stepping in, floated to the other side.
One
Letting Go: The Basics
Within the human heart, we all feel the call to be simple, to be present, to be real. Yet throughout the day, the world urges us to be at war with ourselves and each other: “Be resentful about the past.” “Be anxious about the future.” “Be hungry for what you don't see.” “Be dissatisfied with what you do see.” “Be guilty.” “Be important.” “Be bored.” “Be right.” Little else in nature exhibits this need to be more than it is. The simplicity of rain, the clarity of a star, the effortlessness of a bird, the single-mindedness of an ant—all are just what they are.
Underwear on the floor can break up a marriage. Yet the eyes of puppies light up when they see boxers or briefs. To them, dirty socks are not reasons for fights but reasons for play. Obviously, most little animals are hooked on something quite divine. Something within them releases enormous freedom. I suggest that something is simplicity and purity, and that we can experience the possibilities of this natural state as well. A mind that learns to let go gradually returns to its inherent wholeness, happiness, and simplicity.
For example, the people who are in our lives today, are in our lives today—what could be simpler than this? Yet so often we react to those we encounter with a mind churning in conflict: we don't want them here; we can think of other people we would rather have here; we're not even sure we want to be here; when will this be over; why does this always happen to us; and on and on. When we become preoccupied with what we want or don't want from someone, or what we do or don't approve of, we fail to see that person's goodness, malice, gentleness, sadness, or anything else that is present. This habitual reaction to other people and to everything else in life needlessly complicates our lives and blocks simple enjoyment and peace.
Big Truck
When Gayle's and my son, John, was two years old, we lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico. One day he and I were standing on a street corner, waiting for the light to change, when a semi slowly began rounding the corner just as the walk light came on. Suddenly I was caught up in the delay this truck was causing by passing in front of us. Then I heard John say, “Big truck.” I looked down and his eyes were wide with amazement. I looked at this enormous semi passing so close we could have reached it in one step. And I said, “Big truck.” Because now I really saw it. It seemed like the mother ship in a Star Wars movie.
Maybe I'd been thinking that the truck shouldn't have been there or that what I had to do was more important than what the truck driver had to do. Whatever it was, that thought was all it took to keep me from enjoying just standing beside my son and holding his hand. Just one unnecessary thought. Little children have very few, if any, unnecessary thoughts, and that's why they are usually focused, present, and happy.
A mother bird sees a snake climbing her tree and thinks “snake.” Immediately she starts dive-bombing it. I have seen what a bird can do to a snake that doesn't climb down fast enough. However, it's clear what would happen to her babies if that same mother bird saw the snake and thought, “I do more good in the world than that snake.” Or, “I don't like that snake; it's slimy looking.” Or, “A snake in the grass has no business being in a tree.” Or, “I'm going to give that snake a piece of my mind.”
Not only do we give people a piece of our mind, we give them a piece of our happiness, wholeness, focus, and sometimes, a piece of our health.
A still mind sees what is here. A busy mind sees what is not here. The one who is present is nothing more or less than the one who is present. Therefore, look at the person who is here. We can cover that person with whatever thoughts we wish, but that won't get us a different individual.
Our lives are filled with useless battles because our minds are filled with useless thoughts. We never finish thinking about anything. We carry around unhappy scenes from the past as if they were still happening, and we chew on the memory of whatever we just did. This glut of thoughts profoundly affects the world we perceive and the life we live. A man who sees his mother in every woman he meets can't see the women he meets. This one unnecessary thought lands him in solitary confinement and assures he will die alone. A mother who can't accept her son-in-law into her heart because he has “a lot of metal” (say, double earrings, a nose stud, and something rumored to be somewhere else) merely attacks her own capacity to love and be happy. She doesn't change the son-in-law and she doesn't eradicate her daughter's love for him. Yet this one unnecessary thought means her daughter will not have the mother she needs.
These last two are somewhat poisonous examples of what happens when we don't let go. Yet throughout each day, failure to let go can eat up every small chance we have to be happy. Just trying to write this page has been a typical example.
Weenies
About an hour ago, our son Jordan asked me if I could fix him “weenies the way Mother fixes them.” I stopped writing and headed into the kitchen where John, who is now twenty, asked me if I could look at a business proposal he had out-lined for his managerial accounting class. Gayle, being a banker's daughter, ordinarily would handle this one too, but she's at Trader Joe's buying organic yogurt.
“As soon as I fix Jordan's weenies,” I said.
“Oh,” John said, “would you fix me some too?”
“Yes,” I said, through only gently clenched teeth.
Seasoned with my ambivalence over having been asked to stop writing about kindness and peace and actually practice them, the free-range weenies soon were simmering away in free-range chicken broth—oxymorons cooking in an oxymoron watched over by a large