My own teacher Ajahn Sumedho, he’s an American who became a novice monk in Nong Khai in 1966. 

In 1966 he became a samanera. He was a grown up samanera not a little samanera. He was 32 years old.

And so, he went in to a retreat monetary in Nong Khai taking one book with him of the buddhist teachings. In this book it summarised the four Nobel truths, the eightfold path and the essence of the buddhist teachings. He saw exactly this, that this “letting go”, this key piece, this is the essential item of all this practice. 

And so, he asked himself, well how do you let go? What does it mean to let go? He said that it was a puzzle to him. He kept working with it, thinking about it, practicing with it and trying to understand it. He couldn’t quite get a feeling. Because as you say, sometimes he’d be too relaxed, like “let go”..is that like an idea? I can write the word “let go” on a piece of paper but there’s still attachment. Or I can think I have to wipe everything out, just stop feeling, stop thinking and to get rid of everything. To get rid of my thoughts, get rid of my feelings, get rid of any kind of experience or perception. Well that doesn’t work either, that’s trying too hard.

So he said he picked up an object sitting near him on the floor of the Kuti - a match box and said “okey, now..” cause he was getting frustrated. He said, “Sumedho! You’re thinking too much! You’re trying too hard to figure it out”. “Okay, now clinging, grasping, what is that?” So he picked it up, “okay, I’m grasping” and he took hold of it in his hand, like grasping is a verb that refers to a physical actions. So he took hold of it. “ I’m clinging to this thing”. What’s the experience of clinging? Well, there’s tension, my arm is vibrating, my knuckles are white, there’s a sense of stress and agitation. So to let that go, letting go is attractive. Like this is stressful!

Does letting go mean that I throw it away? No! I don’t have to get rid of the matchbox. I don’t have to get rid of this piece of cloth. To let go just means to relax the grip. So I’m still holding it, as long as I need to but there’s no suffering. There’s no tension and there’s no agitation. My arm has stopped shaking. That was how he developed the insight in to letting go. It was literally through picking up an object, grasping it and then playing with it, it’s not throwing the match box away. The problem is not the match box. The problem is not the piece of cloth. The problem is hat way we hold it. So he realised that letting go is when you need to use something, I need to use an object as an example for this TV interview, so I pick up this piece of cloth, and then I hold it, I’m keeping a firm grip on it, now that I don’t need it as an example anymore, I put it down. So you pick it up, you use it, you put it down. There’s no Duhkha, no dissatisfaction, no problem involved with that.

So letting go is essentially learning to relax our grip. It doesn’t mean never doing anything, it doesn’t mean never feeling anything, it doesn’t mean not taking action or not making decisions. Because sometimes people will say “are you going to go and help your mother in the garden this afternoon?”. No I’m practicing non-attachment, she can do the garden on her own [laughs]. Or “ who’s going to edit this film?”. “Well someone else can do it, I’m practicing non-attachment, I’ve let go of all that.” [laughs]. That’s called laziness and wrong grasping, wrong understanding of the teaching.

So to let go means to act and to make choices but without attachment, without confusion, without clinging. You need to do something? You step up and do it and then you carry it out and when it’s finished you make nothing more of it..