Letting go

Is letting go the same what surrender to what is happening at the moment? It has somehow passive feeling but is backed by teachings/wisdom - pain is like this, feeling is like this… Is surrender mentioned in the suttas?

“It’s when a mendicant has heard: ‘Nothing is worth clinging on to.’ When a mendicant has heard that nothing is worth clinging on to, they directly know all things. Directly knowing all things, they completely understand all things. Having completely understood all things, when they experience any kind of feeling—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral—they meditate observing impermanence, dispassion, cessation, and letting go in those feelings. Meditating in this way, they don’t grasp at anything in the world. Not grasping, they’re not anxious. Not being anxious, they personally become extinguished.

From the numbered discourses 7
6. the undeclared points

61. Nodding Off

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Some discussions in Dhamma Wheel.

In the Suttas paṭinissagga and its synonym vossagga are the words that usually get translated ‘relinquishment’, ‘letting go’ and suchlike. What is relinquished is appropriation (ādāna) which is a term for taṇhā and upādāna.

https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=16201&start=15#p344574

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?

“Surrendering to what is happening at the moment” has many connotations. If it means to surrendering to sensual desire or ill will or any of the other hindrances or other defilments (Lord Buddha discourses on 44 of such defilements in the Sallekha Sutta MN 8), then it would not be letting go, it would rather be grasping. In such situations, our support is the Noble Eightfold Path. Right Effort would play a major part by preventing the unwholesome that has not yet arisen & by discarding the unwholesome that had already arisen. Letting go, to my way of understanding the Dhamma, has its roots in the Ethical Conduct. When one practises Ethical Conduct, the Letting Go would happen naturally. Why is that? Because Ethical Conduct is the “Doing what is naturally good! Dhamma is the naturally good! Naturally wholesome!

On the other hand, if one is surrendering to the right view that all existences arise from causes & conditions & that they are Impermanent, Dukkha & Non-self , then it would be the Letting Go in its true meaning.

In the following Sutta, the Lord Buddha discoursed, “If one does not surrender to the underlying tendency at death, one is liberated from grasping.”

https://suttacentral.net/sa15/en/analayo

In SN 45:175 the Lord Buddha discourses of seven underlying tendencies. The underlying tendencies of sensual desire, repulsion, views, doubt, conceit, desire to be reborn, and ignorance.
https://suttacentral.net/sn45.175/en/sujato

May all being be happy & well!

Metta to all beings,

Upasako

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The way you described surrender sounds like Upekkhā (equanimity) to me.

For my self letting go of any and all craving is ultimate surrender to Dhamma or ‘nature’ or ‘way it is’.

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Thank you very much for your replies. Looks like this are just semantics and surrender is just my personal preference. Surrender to Dhamma, to the way it is - love it. Thank you for that.
Don’t worry, everything is out of control :slight_smile:
Much metta

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Surrendering sounds like there is something to surrender and a person doing the surrendering.

You could say the same about letting go…
Antonym to surrendering is to resist, withstand or seize which feels more grasping personality to me

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