CHAPTER 1
Falling into the Arms of God
The great Chan master of the Song dynasty, Da-hui Zong-gao said, "Just let go and make your heart empty and open.
translation by Dana Dunlap
Autumn
The leaves fall, fall from afar
as if faded from heaven's gardens
they fall with negating gesture.
And in the night falls the earth
away from all the stars in its loneliness.
We are all falling. This hand here falls
And look at the other one. It's in all of them.
And yet there is one who holds this falling
in His unendingly gentle hands.
Rainer Maria Rilke, translation by Robert Cornell
Introduction
This book is basically many variations on one central theme: how to let go and fall into the arms of God. Or, to put it in Buddhist terms, letting go of the small self and realizing our Buddha Nature. The greatest challenge in life for us all as the imperfect human beings that we are, is to be able to let go of our fears and self centered desires, our limiting stories about ourselves and the world around us and to open up to a bigger picture of what Life is about besides me, mine, and myself. The individuals that we, as a healthy culture, most revere are the ones who were able to transcend their personal situations, identify themselves with humanity and to give themselves to a purpose that framed their lives of service and undergirded their inspirational leadership.
In order to expand our sense of who we are and what our calling is beyond our limited sense of ourselves, we need to let go of many things that do not serve us or our world. A deep faith in God or some other transcendent entity such as what Buddhists call the True Self or Buddha Nature or the Twelve Step traditions speak of as our Higher Power can support us in moving beyond our character defects, our psychological complexes and our all too human limitations. These religious and spiritual concepts and the sacred texts, writings, rituals, traditions and cultures that they are embedded in become, for those of us who commit to a particular faith journey, the wind in our sails, the safe ship that conveys us to our ultimate destination; the other shore, the Kingdom within.
The image of letting go and falling into the arms of God can elicit some fear in us as to whether or not there is Someone or Something there to catch us when we do let go. After all, fear of falling is one of the basic instinctual fears we humans have! And falling is a great metaphor for the challenges that are part of spiritual practice: to let go into the unknown, let go of our need for too much control, too much self protection and to move way beyond our comfort zone. For our ego, this letting go can feel as if we are going to fall into a bottomless abyss of darkness.
This is why the spiritual journey requires us to develop an ever growing and deepening faith in order to make possible this inner movement of letting go of our fears and allowing ourselves to be held by Something Greater than our little egoic consciousness. This faith journey that we are on is one where we regularly remind ourselves through meditation, prayer and ritual of our being held by/within the Beloved, the Tao, Divine Spirit, Buddha Nature. As the imperfect, conditioned human beings that we are, we need these ways of worshipping and practicing to grow and strengthen our connection with and trust in the Beloved.
Many years ago, my Zen teacher talked to us his students about throwing ourselves into the House of the Buddha. Several times a year we would renew our vows at the Zen Center as both lay members and monks. We would recite as we bowed, "Namo Buddha, Namo Dharma, Namo Sangha." I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the teachings, and I take refuge in the practice community. Every religious tradition reminds us that we have to give over our self centered ways, because our self centeredness is exactly the cause of our own suffering- and the suffering of mankind in general.
Personally, I like the image of falling back into my Big Self – my deep and true Self that has let go of fear, of self judgment and is playful and relaxed. Sometimes I picture myself being on a rolling log (my ego) such as lumberjacks compete on and then suddenly and joyfully letting myself fall back into the water. Other times, I like to hold my hands upwards towards God in a gesture of surrender and receiving His Love. These ways of picturing letting go and letting God encourage me, when I am tempted to get uptight and defensive about something, to just relax and let go.
We inevitably will get triggered at times and our old automatic emotional reactions and defensive patterns of behavior will manifest themselves. If we practice letting go on a regular basis, then when the ego defenses are triggered, we have something to literally fall back on! When we are reactive, it is so helpful to have a way of relaxing, letting go and abiding in Divine Love. This is a love that we all rest in, and when we forget, we use our spiritual practices to re-member that we are an essential part of this Love. This is why the practice of "letting go and letting God" (or however you name the great mystery) is so foundational to our spiritual life.
Because the templates of how we see the world and ourselves are so deeply set in our consciousness and can take over in our minds and hearts so quickly, we need to regularly practice letting go of our thoughts, beliefs and impulses. Recently, I had a spiritual directee share with me a funny example of this. She was in a parking lot and happened to look over at a woman that she had never seen before in her life, and BAM her mind immediately stereotyped this woman as "poor white trash" and came up with a whole back story just from this brief encounter.
This is a perfect example of the workings of the part of our brain that Daniel Kahneman in his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, called "a machine for jumping to conclusions." And we all have it as part of our brain that is designed to respond quickly -and emotionallyto external stimuli. Because of our evolutionary heritage and our brain's bias for remembering negative experiences over positive ones, our first impressions can take us deep into negative emotional territory very quickly. That is, if we don't have ways of catching ourselves and overcoming our tendency to go to fear and anger with practices that increase our self awareness and deepen the channels in our brains that engender love and compassion.
We now can say, based upon neuroscience, that what was once regarded in Western Christianity as original sin is in fact the product of our less than perfect human brains that are programmed for survival. Our brains have been molded by evolution to be easily triggered into greed, lust, anger, fear and other negative emotions as survival mechanisms. As we practice the many ways of letting go and letting God that are described here in fifty chapters, we will learn more and more how to overcome these less than angelic parts of ourselves.
Self Inquiry & Practice:
Love is letting go of Fear.
- Gerald Jampolsky
If you belong to one, your spiritual community probably has many rituals, images, prayers, and ways of worshipping that can help deepen your faith in the Beloved and engender love and compassion in your heart. Besides these, are there other images, symbols, music, words of scripture or writings from the world's wisdom traditions, poetry or rituals that you find most helpful to let go into God / the Universe? Without being too concerned if they meet the criteria of correctness for your spiritual community, explore which might be best for your own spiritual development. This is so important! There are no universal images, texts, rituals, etc. that work for everybody.
We know from psychological studies such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming that different people learn through different modalities of the senses. Some are visual learners, others auditory, still others kinesthetic, etc., etc. I encourage you to find your own touchstones and talismans that help you to remember how to let go. It is your privilege as a conscious human being – and your responsibility - to care for your spiritual well being and find what is most encouraging, consoling and empowering to you, given your unique history, gifts, and inclinations.
In meditation, practice using guided imagery with a picture, symbol, or words about letting go that you have chosen to represent this falling / relaxing into God's / the Universe's care. Perhaps with music of your choice, meditate on these images, symbols, word pictures that invite you into this surrender, this falling into God's arms. If you are visually oriented you might make a collage of God / the Goddess holding you in their arms that you could place on your altar at home. Perhaps poetry or scriptural passages call you deeply into Source. Have verses memorized that you can bring to mind when you need to remember your connection to the Beloved.
Sometimes, people like to have a loving dialogue with God/Source to find their way to this peace in His/Her arms. Try this out. Talk to Him/Her as you would a loving Father/ Mother and tell Him/Her about your fears, your hurts and concerns and see if you can let Him/Her heal and comfort you. Or just talk to Him/ Her as you would your Beloved as He/She most certainly is! Do this from your Heart Center so that it isn't just coming from your head. You might put your hand over your heart as you have this dialogue to keep centered in your heart space.
Important Practice
Relax in a safe space that feels inspiring and quieting to you. This could be your sacred space at home or in nature somewhere. Lie down on your back and deeply let go. Breathe out deeply, and let your breath breathe you. And allow yourself to feel supported by the earth (or floor). With every outbreath, allow yourself to relax more and more deeply, falling gently into the arms of the Beloved / the Universe / Buddha Nature.
Assuming that the place where you are is peaceful and safe, if you find your peace being disturbed in any way as you try to enter more deeply into these practices, pay attention to what is going on inside of you. Is it the call of duty, feeling guilty for giving yourself this "unproductive" or "irresponsible" time? Is it a feeling that something bad will happen to you if you let yourself be this relaxed and undefended? Is it a feeling gnawing away at you that something is wrong with you that must be fixed? If none of these scenarios fit (or schemas as psychologists say), feel into your body and see if you can find images and/or words to match the feelings that you are having.
Remember that, while it may seem strange to you now, it can be very valuable to feel and compassionately explore your dis-ease, to make friends with it and to inquire into its source. This will be a topic that we will pursue in many other chapters of this book. The key to working with our dis-ease is to be as loving and accepting with it as we would with a child, for indeed that is what it is: our own wounded Inner Infant, Inner Toddler, Inner Child, Inner Adolescent. Depending upon at what stage in our development we have been hurt by parents, peers or others, we have psychic wounds and egoic structures that protect these soft spots.
Our work to heal the ego is not to attack it but rather to heal and nurture the parts of ourselves that were wounded in our growing up so that we no longer need the ego's rigid protection. As we become familiar with our wounded selves, we may intuitively begin to sense what these young parts of ourselves suffer from and what they need from us. If it is a very young infant part, it needs our tangible, physical holding and nurturing. If it is a toddler or older child part of us, it may need permission to play and to make its own choices. If it is a preadolescent, it may need our encouragement and recognition for its accomplishments.
Much of our work in this book is body oriented, because the thinking mind, while very useful to us, is often not able to bring about the healing that we are looking for. Insight onto our issues often in and of itself does not heal the issue. We need to touch into our hurts in the body. To that end, Yoga is a wonderful way for us to learn how to relax, stretch, and let go with our body. This goes far beyond mental effort and becomes a way to embody letting go. If you tend to be mentally oriented, as so many of us are, Yoga offers us a gateway to Spirit through the body. We can practice using breath and asanas (postures) to let ... go. Consider adding Yoga to your spiritual practices if you continue to find sitting still in meditation difficult. It could very much help you to find the doorway into inner silence.
Invitation
Let nothing disturb you, nothing trouble you. He who has God has everything.
Saint Theresa of Avalon
Know that no effort is needed in this Letting Go, this Falling. You just ... let go. Let go of worrying about the future. Let go of trying to make something happen. This Falling happens on its own as you let it. Let go of judging yourself as not worthy, let go of feeling afraid, let go of needing to know what is happening ... Let go of being in control. Wheeee! Let go like a child playing. Let go like a lover making love to their beloved. Let go like a bone tired person falling asleep at night after a busy day at work, thankful for the comfort of their bed ...
Inside yourself, fall back into your deepest Self, deep below the thinking mind with all its concerns of right and wrong, gain and loss, beyond all its worries and concerns. Dive deep into the dark oceanic abyss that resides within you and swim there, buoyed by the Beloved. Making no effort, abide there, floating in the current, gently being guided deeper and deeper into this unknown dark realm of rest and bliss. This is your true home as a spiritual being. Rest and let no concern disturb your contemplation of the unknown Knower of you - which is you yourself, the Beloved in whom you are always immersed.
When you know this place, you then know the way Home. You will know how, even in difficult circumstances, to find your way through the thicket of fears, concerns and desires to this place of abiding. Remember to practice this falling and abiding regularly, for then you can remember well the Way home. This is the work of the mystic: to let go into the Dark Abyss within and to sink into Love and Unknowing and to abide there over and over again until this becomes an indelible memory that infallibly leads you back to your true Home.
