Stretching to reach it, we fall.
Running to catch it, we get lost.
Pretending to be enlightened, we become dim and foolish.
Trying to “do it right,” we fail.
Looking for praise, we get nothing.
Grabbing hold of it, we lose it.
All this strutting, striving, straining and grasping
Is excess baggage.
The very freedom it promises does not appear
Until we lay it down.
Lao-Tzu, from the Tao Te Ching, Ch. 24
These ancient words from the 5th Century BCE pierce the heart of contemporary struggles. No matter how complicated modern life gets, the short but infinitely deep text of the Tao Te Ching (pronounced “Dow Day Ching”) remains a master class to this day in the philosophy of letting go, “laying it down.”
In another place Lao Tzu says, This is a path of letting go, so there will be room to live.
This wisdom operates from the spiritual truth that freedom comes from subtraction more than addition.
Believe me, if addition were the answer I’d be brilliant, enlightened, and rich! I’ve consumed more classes, workshops, degrees, books (a lot of books!), retreats, and treatments than I can count. And, I don’t regret them. Then, of course, there is stuff - buying that next thing that I “really need.” But all for what?
This philosophy of “laying it down” reminds me that if I am expecting the next experience or thing to fill my inner vacuum, or calm my fear, it won’t work. For a time, the thing may satisfy, but the deep healing never happens. It’s like trying to put cheap bandages on a deep fracture in the heart.
The fracture is our strutting, striving, straining and grasping. Our suffering comes when we are reaching for something that cannot be grasped. And the remedy comes through letting go. Laying it down.
We can activate the spirituality of subtraction with meditations and prayers that quiet our yearning selves. Freedom and relief come when we wholeheartedly entrust our lives to a Higher Power.
As you enter this new year, I invite you to shift your inner spiritual equation, to move your life’s math from addition to subtraction. May this be a year in which your letting go creates more room to live.