Insight Matures as Letting Go
Tonight we'll continue with last week's look at the final instructions in the Ānāpānasati sequence, focusing on the final step: letting go, or relinquishment (Pāli: paṭinissagga).
One way we can think about letting go is that it is the result of insight into the 3 characteristics, or marks (lakkhaṇa): impermanence, suffering, selflessness. The ānāpānasati instructions formally include impermanence, but we can feel how all 3 marks are present when we are seeing clearly. Because they're impermanent, experiences elude grasping. Because they're unsatisfying, experiences inspire non-grasping. And because they're selfless, experiences resist grasping. Letting go is the mature insight into how all of these are true.
As always in vipassanā (clear seeing) practice, observing experience with depth is necessary for these insights to take root. Ignorance is defined as mistaking the impermanent for the permanent, the unsatisfying for the satisfying, and the selfless for the self-ish. 😉 But all of these perceptions are illusions. Our task is to see experiences for what they are, and to live into the implications of seeing with this depth.
