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“Therefore, surely, O monks, whatever feeling, past, future or present, internal or external, coarse or fine, low or lofty, far or near, all that feeling must be regarded with proper wisdom, according to the Dharma, thus: This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my Self.” – The Buddha (Anatta-lakkhana Sutta)

When there is no self, there is peace. When there is me and mine then there is no peace. Worry, anxiety, what are they? They are all from me and mine. When you let go, then there is cessation of me and mine. There is peace, calm, clarity, dispassion, emptiness. – Ajahn Sumedho

Lose the mind, stop the thought, by ridding yourself of the motivator of thoughts, called feelings. No feelings, and you’re there. You see how simple it is? And when you so decide to let go of your feelings, it’s easy. It’s an accretion that takes tremendous effort to hold on to. Become effortless right now, and you’re free. Let go of all your effort, every ounce of which is expended on being limited, on being what you are not. It’s simple, you are it, and it’s easy—it takes no effort. Every ounce of effort you expend is on trying to be a limited body. – Lester Levenson (Get Off the Rollercoaster)

As long as the shells covering the soul are intact—be they ever so slight—the soul cannot see God.  Thus Boethius says: If you would know the straight truth, put away joy and fear, confidence, hope and disappointment.’  Joy, fear, confidence, hope and disappointment are all intervening media. As long as you cling to them and they to you, you shall not see God. – Meister Eckhart (Sermon Forty Two, Blakney)

 

Dispassion

In Buddhism passions are called klesa (klesha); these are unwholesome states of mind such as fear, loneliness, anger, guilt, sadness and sexual desire. Passions arise from attachments, which are obsessive desires to have some things and avoid other things. Attachments are not only the cause of our birth, but are the immediate source of whatever trouble we get into.

Stop pushing away your feelings

A young child who feels frustrated can cry and throw a tantrum. As we grow older, however, we grow afraid of disapproval and we start to push our feelings away:  “If Mother sees I’m angry with her, she’ll stop loving me”; “If they see I’m angry, they’ll make fun of me.” But bad feelings never go away: they just accumulate. 

When we release we do the opposite of pushing feelings away: we allow them to come up. We allow ourselves to feel fearful or lonely or angry or guilty or sad. This isn’t what we usually do when we’re upset, which is to argue with ourselves about how we are reacting to a situation. “Should I feel ashamed about that?” “Did I say the wrong thing?” As Lester said, “Thinking is rationalizing, usually our emotions and desires, and has its source in the ego.”

When we release, we don’t think about what others did or what we did. Instead, we focus on the feeling. 

Have you ever attended an opera? A banal plot is used as a frame, sort of a loom, for sublime music. Dismiss the people and the situation as if it were the uninteresting plot, and focus on your feeling as if they were the all-important music.  Observe the ‘I’ who feels angry or ashamed, etc. Who is this ‘I’ who feels this way? This is the teaching that Bodhidharma is talking about.

Even though thoughts have entered delusion, do not counter them with thoughts of non-delusion.  Instead, when a thought arises, rely on the teaching to gaze at the place from which it arises.  If the mind discriminates (judges), rely on the teaching to gaze at the place from which discrimination arises.  Whether it is greed, anger or delusion that arises, rely on the teaching to gaze at the place from which it arises.  To see that there is no place from which they can arise is to cultivate the Way.  If there is arising of the mind, then investigate it, and relying on the teaching, resolve it. – Bodhidharma (Method for Quieting the Mind)

 

The Release Technique

Lester Levenson developed releasing, or the Sedona Method, from his own enlightenment experience.  Having undergone four years of Freudian psychoanalysis, he knew that negative feelings buried deep in the subconscious govern our thoughts and behavior and make us ill. At the age of forty-two, having been told he could drop dead at any time, he discovered that he could bring these feelings up into his awareness and let go of them. Furthermore, this involved no effort—only a decision to do it. He discovered that letting go of his feelings not only made him incredibly happy, but it also made him aware of the fear of dying that was at the root of his thoughts and feelings.

A student of Lester, Lawrence Crane, taught what he called the Release Technique until he passed away. He posted free demonstrations of releasing, available at http://www.lesterlevenson.org/about-releasing.php and https://www.releasetechnique.com/audios/.  To understand how Lester learned to release you can read the post, Lester Levenson (1909-1994). A shorter version of Lester’s story can be found here: http://www.presentlove.com/lester-levenson/.

 

Negative feelings

We deal with negative feelings by expressing them, suppressing them, or by trying to escape them through distractions or keeping busy. These coping mechanisms don’t work. When we express our feelings we usually regret it, and when we try to suppress them or run away from them we only succeed in keeping them firmly in our mind. The only way to get rid of a feeling is to to let it come up and face it. “I hate them!”  “I’m going to die unloved and alone!” The feeling will then pass away all by itself.

Question: How does one quickly attain the Way?
Answer: The mind being the nature of the Way, the Way can be attained quickly.  When the practitioner knows that delusion has arisen, then, relying on the teaching, he observes it and causes it to vanish. – Bodhidharma (Bodhidharma’s Method for Quieting the Mind)

To make it easier to identify negative feelings, try thinking of them as F-L-A-G-S. These are Fear, Loneliness, Anger, Grief, Shame. 

Work on just one feeling at a time.

 

How to Release

To release, you allow the feeling to come up without resisting it, since it is the resistance that holds it in your mind. Remain focused on the ‘I’ who feels afraid, lonely, angry, guilty or sad.  If any thoughts arise about the person or the situation, bring your focus back onto the feeling.

Don’t turn away from the pain.  Face it.  Feel it fully.  Feel it—don’t create a script in your mind around it.  Give all your attention to the feeling, not to the person, event, or situation that seems to have caused it.

Since it is impossible to get away from the feeling, the only possibility of change is to move into it; otherwise nothing will shift.  So give your compete attention to what you feel, and refrain from mentally labeling it.  As you go into the feeling, be intensely alert.

At first, it may seem like a dark and terrifying place, and when the urge to turn away from it comes, observe it but don’t act on it.  Keep putting your attention on the pain, keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread the loneliness, whatever it is.  (Eckhart Tolle, 1999, p. 135).

While you are releasing, make sure there is no tension in your body. Relax the jaw muscles. Relax the muscles of the chest and abdomen and exhale. Relax any other place where there is tension.

Feelings come up in waves. Even the strongest feelings attached to a particular event go away after a few seconds; however, with deeply buried feelings it will be necessary to bring them up several times until they are all gone. (Watch EMDR video to see how this works)

 

Releasing painful memories

There is more pain from holding on to the thought of pain than there is in the situation itself. A painful memory, when faced fully and squarely, will resolve. Because of its unpleasantness, one tries to flee from it and escape it; this holds it in mind and thereby holds on to the pain. – Lester Levenson

If a feeling attached to a memory is traumatic, you can try EMDR and bilateral tapping to release it (see EMDR and bilateral tapping). Alternatively, find an expert in PTSD, such as Cathy O’Brien, to help you. 

The following is the releasing method without EMDR or bilateral tapping:

• Recall the event; allow the feeling to come up into your awareness.
• Relax any tension in your body and exhale.
• Maintaining your physical relaxation, stay focused on the feeling until it passes away.
• Recall the event again, but only long enough to bring up the feeling.
• Repeat this process until there is no longer any feeling attached to the memory.

 

Releasing guilt or shame

At our core we are pure and transcendent, and any negativity we engage in is not who we are—the essence of who we are remains unscathed. Actions occur on the level of manifestation, the level of experiences . . . but they cannot affect nor influence the deepest infinite part of ourselves—the part of self which is always present and unified. – Rabbi DovBer Pinson (Chabad.org)

Only God can cause injury or death in another. You are not God: you do not have that power.

• Recall the event and allow the feeling of guilt or shame to come up into your awareness.
• Relax any tension in your body and exhale.
• Maintaining your relaxation, stay focused on the feeling until it passes away.  If it helps you stay focused, repeat a thought such as, “I feel really ashamed.”
• Recall the event again, but only long enough to bring up the feeling.
• Repeat this process until there is no longer shame or guilt attached to the event.

Once justly set in the will of God, a man will not wish that the sin he committed had never happened. To be sure, it was contrary to God, but by it he is committed to greater love, being abased and humbled because he did act contrary to God.  You may, however, fully trust God not to have put the sin upon you except to bring out the best that is in you. – Meister Eckhart, The Talks of Instruction

Such a man is so one-willed with God that he wills all that God wills and in the way God wills it. And so, since God in a way wills that I should have sinned, I would not wish that I had not done so. – Meister Eckhart, The Book of Divine Comfort

 

Releasing anger

Our anger towards people usually stems from our inability to make them change their behavior. When people don’t give us the approval we want, or when they are doing something that makes us feel insecure, we wish we could control them. This is impossible. You can never control another person; you can only distance yourself from him.  

• Think of the person and try to identify the feeling—anger, envy, etc.
• Don’t push the feeling away. It’s better to say, “I hate him!” than to lie to yourself. You need to face the hatred in order to let go of it. It’s fine to imagine you are punching the person in the face–she was asking for it.
• Stay focused on the feeling until it passes away. If a thought about the person arises, bring your focus back to the ‘I’ who who feels angry, envious, betrayed, etc.
• Bring up the feeling again.
• Repeat the process until you can think of the person without any negative feelings coming up.

Once you have let go of your anger, you can replace it with love. Our love for people is inversely related to our desire to control them, so, the less we want to control someone, the higher the love. 

The first level is to love someone in spite of the way he is—this is to “love and judge.”  The next level is to love someone as he is—this is to “love and understand.”  The highest love is to love someone because he is the way he is.  Ask yourself,

“Can I love this person in spite of the way he is?”
“Can I love this person as he is?”
“Can I love this person because he is the way he is?”

Stuck?

The reason we should love people because they are the way they are is that we can only transcend the ego through adversity, and there is no adversity without an adversary. If my adversary suddenly started being kind to me, he wouldn’t be doing his job. Hakuin wrote: “The superior man succeeds his enemy,” meaning that the superior student seeks a harsh master and eventually succeeds him. Lin Chi remarked how he missed the “grandmotherly blows” of his old master. 

 

Releasing fears

(audio file Larry Crane demonstrating release technique) (link to download Larry Crane demonstrating the release technique)

• Bring up the thought and allow the fear to enter your awareness.
• Relax any tension in your body and exhale.
• Maintaining your physical relaxation, stay focused on the fear until it passes away.  If it helps you to stay focused, repeat a thought such as, “I’m afraid.”
• Return to the thought, but only long enough to bring up the fear.
• Repeat this process until there is no longer any fear attached to the thought.

 

Releasing attachments

All feelings arise out of a craving for approval or control, and these in turn arise out of a craving for security, which comes from our fear of death.

The Three Kinds of Cravings:

• For approval or love
• For control
• For security

Our earliest craving for approval is when we crave the love of a parent.  From then on, we constantly seek approval by grasping for attention, affection, recognition, respect, admiration.

Our earliest craving for control is wanting to control our parents in order to get love and attention. From then on, our craving for control takes the form of wanting to control others, wanting to be right, and wanting to change the present or the past.

Nothing that happens is accidental; every event is a lesson. Therefore, instead of regretting what has happened, “Let patience have her perfect work” (James 1:4).

As a progressive and evolving being, man is where he is that he may learn [in order] that he may grow; and as he learns the spiritual lesson which any circumstance contains for him, it passes away and gives place to other circumstances. (“As a Man Thinketh”, 1903)

Our earliest craving for security is when we fear our parents won’t love us.  Besides seeking security from approval or control, we may seek it by accumulating wealth, by an obsession with eating, by buying insurance, or by worrying about our health.

To release a craving, identify the corresponding aversion and bring the feeling into your awareness.  If I crave acceptance, it’s because I’m afraid of rejection, since acceptance is the opposite of rejection.  Therefore, I bring up the feeling of rejection. Use the thought of the group only as a trigger to bring up the feeling of rejection.  Focus on the ‘I’ that feels rejected, never on those who rejected you (who are simply doing their job).

The following is an example of releasing a desire to change (to control) a situation:

• Think of the situation, and allow the feeling of anger or anxiety to enter your awareness. It’s all right to say, “I hate them!”  Punch the meanest one in the face if you like. 
• Relax any tension in the body and exhale.
• Remaining relaxed, focus on the feeling until it passes away.  If it helps you to stay focused, repeat a thought such as, “I hate them!” 
• Recall the situation again, but only long enough to bring up the feeling.  Stay focused on how ‘I’ feels.
• Repeat this process until there is no longer any anger or anxiety associated with the situation.

Love your enemies from a safe distance

It’s hard to see family as enemies. Sometimes people cause hurt by what they don’t say or do. Do they forget your birthday? Do they not offer to help you financially or not invite you over? Do they treat you as if you were crazy? They might be your enemies.

Once you feel love for your enemy, you might expect him or her to change; but that isn’t likely to happen. Sooner or later you’re going to have to walk away from that family, job, school, church or town, so walk away as a winner, having learned your lesson. Walk away with your head held high and don’t look back.

Keep your attention focused on you.  If you would do only this for weeks or months, you would get full Self-realization.  –  Lester Levenson

End of Letting Go of the Ego