Falling apart gracefully

One of the most skillful and compassionate things we can do for ourselves in our meditative practice is to let go and allow our artificial "self" to be dismantled by the process so that we can see through the sham and the ego-clinging that have been built up over the years. John Welwood speaks to this in his book, Toward a Psychology of Awakening. Here's an excerpt:

Many of us recognize that life is a continual process of moving forward, and that it's impossible to move gracefully through life unless we can let go of where we have already been. Though we may know this rationally, it is still hard to let go, and still painful when old structures collapse on their own, without consulting us first. The crumbling of our own identity right before our eyes is especially painful. Yet since life is continual flux, this means that we must be prepared to go through a series of identity crises. Especially in this era of advanced future shock, when the meanings holding people's lives together erode ever more rapidly, identity crises inevitably escalate at an ever-increasing rate.

Meditation is a way of learning to accept and welcome this, by letting go and falling apart gracefully. As we sit, we can see that most of our thoughts are about ourselves; in face, they are our way of trying to keep ourselves together from moment to moment. When we no longer reinforce these thoughts, the self we've been trying to hold together in a nice, neat package begins unraveling right before our eyes. As soon as we stop trying to glue it together, it quickly comes unglued. This allows us to see how we are constructing and maintaining it, and how that causes endless tension and stress.

I realize there is often a lot of fear associated with letting go of the constructed, held-together self. What I want to say by way of reassurance here is that it is completely safe. Nothing bad will happen. In fact, what you will experience is relief and freedom. Think how wonderful it would be if you didn't have to keep propping yourself up all the time. You don't have to. You can just let go and be the stream of consciousness that you are: happy, joyous and free.