The Passivity of Surrender

I want to talk about the act of surrendering. As an act, it is an negation of itself, the act to stop all action. It is an act in as much as this negation, the stopping of momentum, requires force. Our pattern might be primed in another direction, in that of having and exercising control. As such, we have to consciously stop ourselves from acting, which in itself is an act. But we mustn’t get confused. The act of surrendering is an act solely in as much as it is a negation of previous patterns, of habits. Then, it is not. We do not have to continually exercise control in order to keep on surrendering. In practice, old habits die hard. We will of course grasp on to things, and have to surrender again. This is the ebb-and-flow, the oscillation, which defines daily practice. It’s the muscle that must be trained, and as such it becomes easier and easier as time goes on. The act requires less and less conscious effort.

This is, in theory, extremely basic. In fact, it’s almost too simple. “That’s it?” we say. It would be so much easier if it was complex. If we had an intellectual framework worthy of its name, to divert our attention to. Simply and easy, however, are not the same thing. In practice, the story reads different. In practice, I have struggled. In theory, we know that you should not try to force away feelings. You simply let them be there and they dissipate by themselves. This is to surrender to them. We act by not diverting our attention. It is a negative act.

But I get confused. I wanted to let go so much, and I tried so very hard, exercised so much control. Which, of course, is only clutching the ball tighter and thinking that it’ll fall. I did not let myself feel. Buddha did not have negative feelings, did not desire, so I mustn’t, too. When I did, I saw it as failure. Which eventually led to lost motivation and confidence, which leads to grasping even harder at something, anything, to feel safe.Then when I did sit down, all the emotional turbulence and negativity was so overwhelming that all I felt I could do was run, to hide. Which, of course, is futile. Ignoring the pain does not make it go away.

The thing that finally made a difference was the concepts of awareness and sensitivity, really allowing myself to feel, being aware of the feeling, and acknowledging it. I am hurting. Fine, then let yourself hurt. Open yourself up to see how it really affects you, how much suffering is needlessly perpetuated as you try to hide from the hurt. It’s enough to make the whole world cry. So, you hug yourself. You acknowledge the hurt. Then you sit in it, and just feel. Hopefully it fades, but if not, or if its just too unbearable and you must look away, you do what you have to and you return later. There is no rush, but running in the wrong direction is of course not helping anyone. We require patience. We surrender, and then it is no longer in our hands. I let myself feel, and whatever feelings arise, I let them exist. Their existence justifies themselves. We do not judge.