Oakville Zen Meditation

#418 Surrendering: a tool towards serenity

    Surrendering: an arrow to our ego, a hidden branch in the tree of serenity

From education, culture, and experience, we must be achievers, fighters, and winners.

Therefore, we are addicted to control .....or trying to ...on almost everything around us:

We want to control our day, our routines, schedules, system, finances, work, health, relationships, our future, etc... We build our whole lives and identities around these controls because they provide comfort, and admiration, and feed our ego.

We are always seeking control or having an impact, and keeping it, because we don’t like uncertainty, and we don’t like to lose. In other words: controlling is a desire, and desire is a source of suffering.

It is futile trying to control or have an impact on everything all the time because things, events and people are changing all the time, and your controls or impacts become shaky, uncertain, transient or. in fact, uncontrollable.

Constantly trying to get control /change and to keep their results in:

Stress, anxiety, unhappiness, depression.

Fears of losing control.

Being unhappy with how things are (because they’re not in control)

Lashing out at others when they interfere with your controlled world.

To surrender for not being able to control /change A or when you lost your control of B is not acceptable in our Western society.

You and others will stamp yourself as looser, coward, and weak. “I am giving up”

It is an arrow to our ego. So it will resist, and fights against the unacceptable.

At this point, your emotional mind becomes full of more negative energy.

As far as Zen is concerned, Surrender has nothing to do with failure, giving up, or weakness.

In fact, we use the wording “To Let it go” rather than to surrender. 

To let go is the inner transition from resistance to acceptance, from “No to .........YES,

it is OK.......... I am accepting”.

Letting go becomes a positive attitude rather than a negative one.

It is a shift from a negative emotional mind in turmoil to a peaceful one.

Surrendering doesn’t mean that you don’t take action, because you do take action:

“I accept things as they are,” is to act.

Surrender will come when you no longer ask: “ Why it is happening to me?

How to proceed then?

Pay attention to the situation.

Realize that there is nothing you can do about it even if your ego is erupting like a giant volcano.

Accept it as it is.

Is it easy? Nothing is easy when facing a negative emotional situation generating a strong refusal

However, with time, accepting will become easier and easier.

Surrounding can be applied to various situations in which we have no control or change such as

 “ Not getting what I want.............. Accept and let it go

“ Getting what I don’t want............            “

 “Not Knowing but I want to know”.            “  

Conclusion:

There are zillions of events, situations, and people over which you don’t have any control or impact

even if you want to.

I repeat: trying to control or to change A when it is impossible to do so is creating ongoing strong negativities such as anger, feeling of failure, poor self-image, regrets, etc...all of their source of suffering and struggle. Thanks to your ego for that.

A reminder this: Surrendering is a hidden branch in the tree of serenity. Thanks