Month: April 2026

Posted on by joseph mauricio

PLEASE RELEASE ME

The Joy of Letting Go

Letting go is not getting rid of anything. It is not pushing anything away. It is simply releasing our stranglehold on the things to which, in existential panic, we cling. Our gripping and appropriation causes pain for ourselves as well as the object of the gripping, which is strangled and imprisoned by our projections. We don’t see the things we grip to, we see out idea of them.

We grip, cling and identify to things we love, but also to those we disdain as if we have come to love that which we don’t love. Though we are holding on f0r very  different reasons, the result is the same. We have forged an identification with something we hold too closely to see.

Letting go doesn’t mean getting rid of anything. It’s not self-denial, nor a denial of that which we’re holding. It’s simply releasing our relentless struggle to hold things in place. This release not only eases tension but also creates the space for clarity.

Attachments are often the boogeyman in Buddhist thought, but this is not because what we attach to is necessarily problematic. It’s because attachment creates a stickiness that keeps us from moving through situations with ease. We get stuck, as Pema Chödrön would say.

That sticky quality of mind—our attempt to appropriate what we see and hold it in place—serves to keep us emotionally tethered to what we understand, or think we understand. In fact, everything we cling to keeps us from seeing alternatives. Our frames of reference may feel grounding, but there is no solid ground. It’s a false sense of safety. Chögyam Trungpa famously said life is like falling out a window. The good news is, there’s no ground. There’s nothing to catch us—but also nothing to hurt us—if we have the openness and bravery to experience life as it is, rather than clinging to what we like and pushing away what we don’t.

That binary—like/don’t like—reduces life to a two-dimensional experience. Some people find that more manageable, and perhaps that’s the root of turning attraction into addiction. This is my reference point. This is who I am. I will always love this person. I will always be this person. I will never not drink. Something I told myself many times: no matter how difficult it gets, I’m not a quitter. Even if I was killing myself, I wasn’t a quitter.

But in truth, it was the addictions that were killing me—harming my health and trapping my mind in cycles I couldn’t grow beyond.

So yes, I’m a junkie. I always have been. At times, I tried to replace the Dharma with the very substances that kept me clouded. In recovery, we talk about “islands of clarity”—moments when we see through the fog. As a Dharma junkie, my orientation is to see through the clouds as often as I can.

This requires me not to live in a greedy, grasping way, but to live with an open hand—to let go and allow life to meet me as it is.

Once we move past the fear of letting go—of abandoning reference points that have shaped our identity—we may discover something surprising. Joy. Relief. A sense of release.

Who are we without the things we cling to? Who would we be without the tethers we create—the things we think will save us?

Whether we see it or not, life is carrying us down the river of space and time toward a waterfall we will never navigate. Along the way, we navigate what we can. That is both the beauty and the tragedy of existence. We learn to live only to meet the final letting go.

But if we understand that—if we truly feel it—there is great power in this moment of being. We don’t need to cling to the reeds along the riverbank. We don’t need to pick up a cigarette out of fear. We don’t need to hold our children so tightly that they cannot grow into who they are.

Letting go is not getting rid of anything. It is, in fact, accepting everything—allowing things to be as they are. Non-appropriation.

It’s like traveling to a foreign land and allowing the people we meet to be who they are, letting them enrich us through the simple act of encounter. We don’t need to turn everything into a trigger or a belief, something to wear and perform. We can let things be.

We can let animals live and roam—even destroy one another, if that is their nature—without needing to turn them into trophies. There is nothing brave about hiding in the bushes and killing an animal with a weapon it doesn’t have.

We are greedy. We want, and we want, and we want. That’s okay. The question is: can we stop grabbing? Can we stop harming? Can we stop appropriating?

I once asked an older student in a Dharma community where I was practicing, “Is studying and practicing the Dharma also an attachment?” He said, “Yes—but it’s an attachment you can’t hold onto, because it leads to openness, change, and acceptance.”

Letting go has allowed me to see what’s there when I’m not holding on to everything. The practice is to notice the impulse to grasp, recognize it, accept it as the habit of a poorly trained mind, and then release it—returning to what is here.

And learning to accept what is here as enough.

A few

light suggestions

(no rewrites, just invitations)

  • Opening sentence: Strong, but slightly dense. If spoken, consider a tiny pause break after “our grip”—you already imply that rhythm, so just lean into it vocally.
  • “We are greedy” section: You softened “mother truckers.” If you want bite, consider putting one sharp line back in—your audience knows your voice, and a single well-placed edge can wake the room.
  • River → waterfall metaphor: This is one of your strongest images. You could amplify it slightly in delivery (not writing) by slowing down here—this feels like the emotional center.
  • Ending: “And learning to accept what is here as enough.”
    This lands cleanly. You might consider dropping “And” when spoken for a firmer final strike:

    “Learning to accept what is here as enough.”

If you want next pass, we can shape this for oral delivery—breath, pauses, emphasis—without changing a word.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

CRYING TO THE SKY

The Role of Prayer in a Non-Theistic Tradition

 

Buddhism has largely been divorced from the idea of an overseeing creator—someone to whom we can supplicate, someone managing our experience, someone to yell at us when we’ve gone astray. This is called Theism. Turning an object into a thing that, in turn, becomes a solid reference.

Refuting the existence of God, as we know, is called atheism. Sometimes atheists can be more dogmatic than theists, turning a non-thing into a very solid proposition.

Then there is a story of the Buddha, when asked by Indian scholars why he did not refer to a god. Buddha reportedly answered, “Because that’s not important. This was not a denial of gods. It was a repositioning. By placing the question of a deity into the realm of theology, he freed himself to be a teacher, not a priest. This was his great reformation. And this is what we call non-theism.

As Buddha removed the idea of a spiritual hierarchy he placed responsibility back into the hands of human beings. The gods were not the issue. The issue was how we wake up in this life right now.

But what if I simply want to pray? 

When I am faced with confusion, reaching out to something feels important. When I have failed myself—as I have, repeatedly in my life—it would make sense to look beyond myself for solace.

Before I came to Buddhism, I would fall into treating God like my butler. Someone to do my bidding when difficulty arises. I’d ask for this, ask for that—often with more demand than humility. And when I didn’t get what I wanted, I’d recoil in a huff, turning the name I once called in reverence, into a curse.

It would seem I was invoking a codependent, rather than empowering, relationship.

The point of Buddha’s teaching was not to establish a system of divine dependence, but to guide people toward leading themselves on the path of awakening. Nonetheless, I have secretly envied the certainty of deeply religious people. I am moved when I walk down a busy street and see someone kneeling in prayer, facing Mecca. I am struck by the conviction of those who feel aligned with a power they trust completely.

Non-theism is not a denial of god. It is a refusal to rely on a deity as a solid, external savior. Instead, it suggests that when we call upon something beyond ourselves, we are co-creating an experience between our mind and the wisdom beyond the conceptual limitations that mind. So, praying to the sky, indeed crying to the sky in sadness and frustration, with the hope that we can go beyond ourselves is actually a very practical method.

When I am in states of confusion or despair, praying to Padmasambhava gives me relief. It gives me orientation outside of my habitual patterns. Over time, this has developed into a kind of faith.

But it is a practical faith.

I don’t assume this process would work for everyone. I don’t believe it is better or truer than any other object of prayer. It is personal. A gateway. A way of stepping beyond myself and receiving.

The non-theistic view suggests that we can use the idea of a deity—or prayer itself—as a gateway to access something larger. If someone believes wholeheartedly in a deity and finds strength in that, then that’s great. Buddhism has not rejected these forms. And although in its fundamental form Buddha’s teachings turned away from reliance on a deity as the teachings spread, it adapted and changed. In Tibet, for example, figures like Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) were said to transform local spirits—forces of fear and chaos—into protectors of the Dharma.

Whether taken literally or symbolically, the message is clear: what is frightening, chaotic, and unknown can be transformed into something that supports, even protects, our path.

That is deeply compelling to me.

So yes—I pray to Padmasambhava. Not because I believe in a solid being somewhere granting favors, but because I have faith in the transformation of darkness into awakening.

When I am lost in confusion, doubt, or fear, I remember my teachers. I remember the Buddha. And sometimes I call out—to Padmasambhava, to the sky, to something beyond myself. My work is to find passion in a belief that opens to possibility rather than narrows down on expectation.

Whether I visualize a deity, a teacher, or simply cry to the very sky amounts to the same thing. Rather than limiting my prayer to a fixed, external god I am asking for guidance to step beyond myself.

Buddhism tells us to rely on ourselves, why do I still feel the need to pray?

Because I have run afoul relying solely on myself. So I ask for help. And the simple act of asking opens the gateway to a greater possibility. And rather than limit those possibilities to my own usual thinking I’m simply opening with the question.

Not expecting reward. Not demanding results. But praying to the open sky – and the loving spirit of the universe – removes the burden of having to do anything my way. All I have to do is open and trust that I will understand.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

OPENING TO LIFE . . .

 

And Living the Life We’ve Been Gifted

In some readings of Buddhist thought, there is the interpretation that desire is problematic—that people on a path to awareness shouldn’t be desirous. We shouldn’t want anything, and we most certainly shouldn’t hold onto it if we did.

I can’t think of a better way to forestall someone’s development on the Buddhist path than to turn them away from their basic human instinct.

The purpose of meditation is to wake up, or you might say, learn to pay attention to our life. If we are awake in our meditation, then we may wake up in our life. If we are awake in the world, then our senses would likewise be awake. In Buddhist practice, these senses are sometimes referred to as gates as these sense gates are our connection to the world.

I suppose, for the sake of developing calmness we could keep these gates locked. We could shutter our ears, wrap out mind in a cocoon, look to the ground, and live out life dutifully waiting for it to pass. We might move to a cave and lock ourselves away from everything. But even then there may be interesting stalagmites, stalactites, rock formations, and dark secrets that exist in this subterranean world.

As long as we have a mind, we will have no shortage of things that grab our attention. But shutting down the mind would be to shut out life. I think it’s a much braver to be willing to open our senses to the world. But how can we do this and keep our equilibrium?  With consistent meditation practice we can train our mind not to grasp at everything it sees, thus getting thrown out of balance.

Perception and desire are not the cause of suffering. Suffering happens when we grasp at things, often with a gripping panic as if holding on for dear life. This becomes problematic with our unbridled appetite to devour all the things we see, feel, taste, touch and think. Likewise when we lash out attacking all the things we disdain. And likewise ignore everything we deem beneath our attention.

Passion, aggression, and ignorance are the three seeds that are the cause and condition of the clinging and grasping that throws us off balance and causes suffering when we land on the ground.

Suffering comes from the friction between our solidification of things we desire, disdain, or deem unworthy, against a reality that is always moving and changing in continual dynamic flux.

The world is moving. It’s singing. It’s dancing. And we’re invited to join the party.

But if we see something we want, our attention will narrow and focus on the desired object. That’s problematic. When we objectify anything we turn it into something solid and fail to see it clearly. This is not reality. Believing in things that are not reality causes harm.

As much as anyone loves to be desired, it’s a rare circumstance when people want to be owned and objectified. Life wants to be seen. Life wants to be understood. Life wants us to dance, not growl at the wedding table because our partner is dancing with someone else.

By the same token, there are certain attachments that are entirely natural—for instance, parent and child, any of us and the pet that loves us, our favorite music, poetry, or favorite places on the beach or in the woods.  This is natural.

It becomes unnatural when we are grasping and clinging at objects  driven by a need to control. Our need to control comes from insecurity, from a disbelief within ourselves.

And hence we hold on to things that we deem valuable, things that we believe will increase our status if we cling to them, or manipulate them into clinging to us in some codependent dance. This is the dance of insecurity, not the open and flowing dance of life. Neurotic clinging and control is a stumbling, drunken reeling across the floor, bumping into tables and chairs, knocking things over. It is out of step with the natural flow of life. And it is precisely this dissonance—being out of step with the flow of life—that causes suffering, pain, and anxiety within us.

The more anxiety we feel, the tighter we cling. The tighter we cling, the less in the flow of life we are, and the more pain we are likely causing.

If we grip hard enough, we might believe for limited periods of time that we have gotten what we want, that we have wrestled that which we desire into our grasp and placed it in an immovable straitjacket. But it will never really please us, and it certainly won’t please the objects that we cling to and refuse to truly see.

We fall in love, and then we go into this state of blind gripping that keeps us from actually knowing and understanding the very thing we covet. We would rather keep a bird caged than experience birds in their natural beauty and majesty.

So how do we allow ourselves to feel natural attachment without falling into clinging and grasping?

Like everything, it takes training.  We sit in daily meditation practice and finbd the stability to see and release all that we perceive.  If we are willing to open our mind in meditation, and release ourselves from the grip of compounded thinking  then we are learning to open our eyes in life.

We start the process of releasing our grip when we see something that attracts us. Rather than grabbing and narrowing down on it, we could open up to it.  That opening can lead us to further perceptions.

We could see one thing we love and rather than narrowing down on it like a predator we can open top it in appreciation.  The same is true of things we hate, disdain, or fear. When we grab onto hatred, or really want something feared to leave us, we are still clinging. And we are imbuing it with much more power. By struggling with them, we are making ourselves smaller than the things we struggle against.  When we are smaller than an adversary, we are prone to lash out and grapple. But in the martial arts, for instance, students are trained to remain relaxed, open and balanced.

So the work here is to open up to that which we fear. Opening up simply means allowing ourselves to see the object clearly. We are not increasing the fear so much as opening to it and seeing what is actually there. And opening our eyes is the best defense.

Releasing our grip, lifting our gaze, and opening our senses to the world is not only brave, it’s an effective way to live.

It doesn’t mean we have to agree with anything. It doesn’t mean we have to like what we see. It simply means we are joining the party and becoming part of life.

So to me the two steps are simple:

open my eyes and remain open to what I see.

And when I inevitable collapse into grasping panic, I forgive that as basically human and seeing it as a departure from reality return to something present, such as out breath or our body.

There is nothing wrong with perceiving our world. There is nothing wrong with appreciating our world. There is nothing wrong with healthy attachments.

But there is nothing wrong with going wrong and clinging for dear life, as long as we realize it’s not reality and are willing to let go of the fantasy, and return to reality.  It’s okay to make mistakes. Notice them. Release your grip and come back to the flow of life in the present.

The art of being human is based on the practice of making mistakes and having the bravery to return to openness.

Posted on by joseph mauricio

SPRING AWAKENING!

Good morning.

Chögyam Trungpa often began his talks with that salutation. Regardless of the hour, he would hold his golden fan open and proclaim “Good Morning.” Even though he sometimes began his talks very late at night, there was no irony intended. He was inviting everyone to wake up.

Good morning.

Any moment can be a fresh start when we’re awake to greet it. This very moment, right in this moment, can be an invitation to open to life.

So much of our lives are lived sleepwalking. We move through our days inside protective cocoons of habit, belief, and repetition, until we stub a toe against reality. In recovery parlance we talk about “islands of clarity” – moments of awake when we see beyond ourselves with more perspective. Unfortunately, for most pre-enlightened beings, we fall back into our brown out almost instantly. The pull of our sleep is so very strong.

People say “wake up and smell the coffee”.  But I can smell the coffee just fine from bed.

Dilgo Khyentse, Rinpoche said that the difference between the dreams we have at night and the dreams we walk through in life is duration. Dreams at night last mere seconds, despite the fact that they feel much longer. In the same way, our lives feel long and solid. In truth, our lives are startlingly brief. In fact, we are dying the moment we are born. Each moment of life ends and gives birth to the next. Yet, though we know life is short, we live as though we are permanent. We believe our pain is permanent. Our fear is permanent. Our identities are permanent.

We believe in the bubble.

We often live inside bubbles made of belief—sealed worlds of fixed assumptions about who we are, what is possible, and how long our suffering will last. Once we expand as far as we can within that enclosure, we begin to dull and atrophy.

Then something merciful happens. The bubble bursts. Fresh air rushes in. And for a moment, life feels miraculous. And what is a miracle if not the sudden rebirth from what seemed lifeless?

Yet so often we try to preserve that miracle, clutching it this is like someone opening a window for fresh air and then quickly shutting it so the freshness cannot escape. But rebirth is not a possession. It is a cycle.

Nature teaches this relentlessly: winter gives way to spring, death to life, ending to beginning. They are not opposites so much as two expressions of the same movement. I once heard a Tibetan teacher ask a room full of students, “How many of you have accepted the reality of death?” It being a Buddhist gathering a few hands went up.

Then he asked, “How many of you understand that you are dying right now?”

That question remains with me.

The death of winter is already the birth of spring. The end is already the beginning. And just as surely as every beginning comes from death, every life leads to this same destination.

In birth we leave behind of the dark and protected enclosure that first held us. In our life, living to our fullest is leaving the soft enclosure of our cocoon and learning not to squint so much at the sun. But looking ahead, we always miss what’s behind. It pulls us. What we’ve experienced feels so much more real than what we’ve yet to experience. Beginning is always a barter with something we lose.

I think of my niece on her wedding day, radiant in the doorway beside her father, suspended in that extraordinary moment before stepping forward. The future seemed so luminous that I had to go and offer my blessing.

As I drew closer, she was l cursing in that abrupt jersey way that the damned dress was cutting into her ribs.

There it was all at once: the transcendent and the corporeal, the sacred and the profane, the perfect image and the very human discomfort beneath it.

Every human birth is beautiful and painful and horrible. Because awakening is not abstract. It happens precisely here, in the tender recognition that life is moving, changing, dissolving, and renewing in every moment.

Many years ago, I found myself in a mountain community of practitioners who had been deeply shaken by the death of their teacher. There was grief everywhere, yet also an extraordinary honesty and warmth.

In that open mountain space, my own heart began to soften. Something in me that had been encased began to thaw. What I discovered was that there are two kinds of containers. One is the bubble of self-protection, which suffocates possibility. The other is the cradle of love and kindness, which allows something truer to be born.

The first imprisons. The second incubates.

Perhaps this is the real invitation of spring: not merely to admire rebirth in nature, but to allow it in ourselves. To understand that every awakening asks for a small death.

Every fresh morning is also the ending of the night. So whether the weather is good or gloomy, if we’re sad or glad, any movement of mind is precious and everything we encounter is an invitation to wake up.

Good morning.