Letting Go

       During my meditation practice tonight, I felt a certain tightness arising in my low back. I tried to let go of the tension as I started  to do a gentle recitation. During my short break, I also did some exercises to loosen the muscles. I gather that likely all this is related to me sitting for a long time, and my exercises help me to stretch the muscles. But something else also happened. I think that rather than trying to control the pain, I let something greater than 'self' take care of that pain. Instead of trying to use the conscious mind to control or add thoughts to it, I allowed the pain to be known to the whole mind, and to yield to the total experience of mind. This is neither about repressing, nor 'embracing' , nor enjoying or controlling. A more accurate description might be fully being with the entire mind during this experience, while acknowledging the distressful emotions arising. In a sense, I was allowing all these reactions to arise, but surrendering them to something greater and much vaster than my consciousness, without saying that any of it is 'the true me'. This knowing that there is something more than consciousness seems to be so crucial. With this subtle knowing, there is no longer the compulsion to try to influence the moment to be a certain way, because the moment itself is experienced as fully perfected in its current state. But the most difficult thing of all is to try to describe what this 'whole mind' experience is about.
       An analogy might be to compare this experience to a fountain where water is continually coursing down it, after which it is recycled again and drawn back up to feed the fountain again. Although the water is never at any point retained, it is never lost either. With this 'letting go', there is a faith that there is nothing that will be 'gone' or lost. All phenomena simply goes back to the source from which it arose. There is no sense of 'depletion' or conservation of energy. Because nothing is lost, there is nothing to let go either. The letting go is simply an attitude of faith and of trust that the moment is already perfect as is, and there is no need to control any experience.  Even when a person takes actions or responsibility, are they ever fully 'in control' of that moment? Not quite. It is more that the person is simply using what's available to meet the needs of that moment.
    My experience leads me to wonder about something. My previous writing professor had once related how many young students who are having difficulties in school immediately start to recover themselves once they are given a specific diagnosis of what causes their difficulties, such as attention deficit disorder. I often wonder, what is the secret to being given a label to indicate the source of an illness? I think the answer is that perhaps these labels free people from continuing to blame themselves for experiences over which they might have minimal influence. A label helps people to organize their minds so that they are able to let the pain go a bit. It doesn't fully explain anything, but at least it gives a person the temporary space not to identify themselves as their condition.