Thought for the Day: Holding on and learning to let go

Filed under: Thought for the Day

Hank Dunn, a nursing home and hospice chaplain for over twenty years, writes about letting go in his book, "Hard Choices for Loving People."

Dunn writes that it is a natural response to hold on tighter when faced with the thought of loss, whether it be someone or something that we love. How can we learn to let go while still enjoying life? Dunn talks about this concept of letting go and references an analogy from Sogyan Rinpoche's The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying:

There are two ways to hold on. We can grasp tightly as we would a coin in our fist. We fear we will lose it, so we hold it tight. Indeed, if we open our hand palm down the coin falls from our possession, and we feel cheated. The other way to hold on is by opening our hand palm up. The coin may sit there, or it could be blown away or shaken out of our "possession." But while it is there, we are privileged to have it. We hold on with an open hand.

Our hand is relaxed and we experience freedom.

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[Source: The Cancer Blog]