Letting Go of Resistance

"And incidentally, when you let go of your resistance, not only does suffering diminish, but your ability to change the situation dramatically improves."

-- Benjamin Langley. www.PeacefulProsperity.com

You've heard it a thousand times -- what you resists, persists. It's as simple as that. Resist that which you think is causing you to suffer, and you will just suffer more. The fact is, it is not the "thing" in and of itself (whether that thing be a person, condition, or thought) that is creating your suffering. It is your resistance to it that creates your suffering.

It's important, though to differentiate between suffering and pain. When I shattered my knee cap in a fall, I was in pain. There's no such thing as a painless broken knee, at least as far as I know. If after breaking it, I continually bemoaned the fact that I couldn't play tennis for awhile, if I beat myself up emotionally for being such a klutz, or if I bitterly blamed other people for my so-called misfortune, then, I''d have created untold suffering for myself. Sure, I'd start down those paths occasionally, but whenever I caught myself, I'd change course. What the broken knee taught me, among a slew of other things, is that pain is an inevitable part of life, but suffering is optional.

The second part of Ben's statement is equally important -- let go of suffering and you immediately increase your potency as a change agent. Suffering ties up your energy and attention. All that oh-woe-is-me drama leaves very little space in which change can happen. Being locked down into suffering is a powerless feeling. But saying "I can let go of suffering" and actually doing it are worlds apart.

Here are two very different, but very effective, strategies for moving out of, and beyond, suffering. The first is to redirect your thoughts away from suffering by becoming positively, physically involved in the world. I couldn't play tennis, but I could still read, write, cook, eat, talk with friends, have sex (as long as I was on the bottom!), and do countless other enjoyable things. It's hard to suffer when you're having a great time!

The second strategy is also a redirection away from suffering, but this time you enter deeply into pain rather than deeply into pleasure. I can see most of you saying, "Thanks, anyway, Dave, but I think I'll just stick with strategy number one." But don't knock number two until you try it. The interesting thing is that when you enter deeply into the pain, the pain disappears! Not necessarily continuously and completely, but you can, at times, come out on the other side of pain without losing consciousness. Other times the pain remains, but you experience of it is so different that it becomes fascinating.

Once you've short circuited your automatic resistance response, and let go of suffering, change can happen. It's true, as Ben points out, that saying "Yes" to whatever is, empowers you to create change. But it's equally true that saying "Yes" transforms your experience immediately and non-volitionally. Say "Yes" to what is-- rather than no, I'm not sure, or maybe -- and you enter the flow of the Tao, and the Three E's kick in -- easy, effortless and enjoyable.

There is no struggle. Life is. You are. Your whole being sings "Yes!" And as far as that broken knee goes, nothing but gratitude.