Letting Go

The unsavory and miraculous daily activity of the bowels is an intricately choreographed dance of contraction and release that most of us would just as soon not think about. But, when the dance stops, few things take center stage so insistently and urgently.

After the surgery, my whole abdomen seemed shut down. That whole region was pain and I seemed to want my attention anywhere but there. I ate to get strength back, not out of hunger. Peeing was the first hurdle - that came in the first day – but it wasn’t till the third day that I got rumblings of something more wanting to come out. The incision was still quite painful and I couldn’t sit long on the toilet without discomfort. And I was afraid letting go would hurt – so I was in a perfect double bind – couldn’t hold on and couldn’t let go.

Numerous trips to the toilet resulted in no output and greater discouragement. I felt like a little boy whose father is trying to toilet train him when he has no interest in cooperating. I would dutifully go to the toilet, waiting for some miracle, but nothing happened. And with each unsuccessful attempt, my ‘father’ became more agitated. I began to truly despair that this prosaic act of release would ever happen again. I had visions of being taken to the emergency room in total shame and embarrassment.

So sitting on the toilet – desperately wanting to let it out – to release and yet feeling this elemental urge to hold it in – this fear of pain – fear of something. Clutching a pillow to my belly to support my incision – perfectly stuck. And from this place of no escape – also calling out to all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas – calling out to God – to be rescued. And then receiving the possibility that even this straining of impossibility is God – in this very moment.

This place of stuck – ‘I have to’ and ‘I can’t’ – feels familiar from my spiritual work – we’re told to simply ‘let go’ – but when we try to do this, we encounter a deeper level of holding. The resistance we encounter, though clearly part of us, feels to be something we don’t have conscious control over. Why can’t we just let go into the arms of God? What is this holding back that seems so essential – so vital in us?

I encounter this resistance again and again when I sit – I have spent long hours in the meditation hall with a running dialogue of internal complaint. My back hurts. I’m bored. Why can’t I do this right? Why can’t I just accept where I am? I long to let go – I long to be taken over by God and yet I resist. Why is this so? This holding back – such a mystery – and when I fight it, it just gets worse – fighting seems to give it more power.

Eventually, it did happen. The necessity of nature overcame the resistance known as David, and my bowels moved. This was indeed a blessed event and has given me a new appreciation for this daily spiritual practice of letting go of what is no longer necessary – and also for this ‘stuck’ place – this place where we can’t go forward and we can’t go back.

Release seems to come only when we allow ourselves to be truly stuck – all out of tricks and skillful means. As we allow ourselves to be here, surrendering to the prosaic and the holy in the particular form of this moment, we open ourselves to the possibility of grace – the grace that is the very fabric of our life, but is often palpable to us only when something deeply disturbs our comfortable illusion of our control.