Zen Is Practice

In Zen practice, we frequently talk about cutting, letting go, not attaching. It is such common advice that we sometimes just take it for granted that as we train, we will just be able to do it.

A new student, who was going through a particularly challenging time in her life, recently asked: How do I let go? She was finding this very hard to do because she was hoping for a specific outcome.

So, just how do we let go?

This is an important question with which all of us need to grapple. It also applies to past good times you wish could continue, past tough times you wish never ever happened and hope will not happen in the future.  We’re only human, so it is quite natural to want to hold on to the good and to forget the bad. The most fundamental desire is to live.

Zen teaches to not attach to any of that, not even to life.

Is there a method to follow? Yes, there is a way, but as is so often with Zen, the answer is simultaneously both simple and difficult: Just do it! Just let go!

This means we have to look at our habits, those things we do or think in certain ways without even knowing why. These are habits that we have developed over time, sometimes years. Our minds and bodies have become accustomed to acting and reacting in particular ways – ways that have worked for you in the past, ways from which we have benefited, or ways that we learned from others.

Zen practice is about breaking those habits and returning to our True Nature. The objective  underlying the sword martial arts, Hojo, directly addresses this: “To cut off all the habits you have acquired since you were born and to return to your original nature.” As in martial arts – or any practice, reaching this objective does not just happen.

This is not easy. Instead, it requires deliberate, diligent, disciplined practice. A lot of practice that demonstrates a commitment to change, to letting go – including letting go of fear and anxiety about the future, sadness about the past; and letting go of wanting.

Even factoring in natural ability and complexity of the path chosen, training to attain expertise in anything – including non-attachment – could take thousands of hours or thousands of repetitions.  

From a Zen perspective, not a thing has self-identity or self-substance. Through the process of practicing non-attachment, we begin to realize that there is nothing to which to attach because all things – including ourselves – are constantly changing.

It takes practice to reach this level: Practice paying attention to what your mind is doing – is it reverting and attaching to old habits in the way it views the universe? Or, or are you practicing being one with this constantly changing Universe, which is Emptiness itself?

You must  pay attention with all your might. You must practice with all your might. You must let go with all your might. In each moment. This is the practice of non-attachment; this is Zen practice.