Flashlight
by Ajahn Chah
In Buddhism we are endlessly hearing about letting go and about not clinging to anything. What does this mean? It means to take hold of but not to cling. Take this flashlight, for example. We wonder: “What is this?” So we pick it up: “Oh, it’s a flashlight.” Then we put it down again. We take hold of things, even of wanting, in this way. If we didn’t take hold of wanting, what could we do? We couldn’t do walking meditation or anything else. It’s wanting, yes, a defilement, that’s true, but later on that leads to perfection. So we must take hold of things first. It is like coming here. First you had to want to come here. If you didn’t want to, you wouldn’t be here today. We do things because of wanting, but when wanting arises, we don’t cling to it, just like we don’t cling to that flashlight – “What’s this?” We pick it up. “Oh, it’s a flashlight.” We then put it down again. This is what “holding but not clinging” means. We know and then we let go. We don’t foolishly cling to things, but we “hold” them with wisdom and then let them go.
