If I were asked to distill the path of practice into one simple phrase, it would be: letting go.
Letting go is the heart of the contemplative life, yet it is not a single act. It is a skill and understanding that deepens over a lifetime, from loosening a tight grip to seeing that there was never anyone gripping at all.
In the Returning to Nature framework, practice centers on uninvited events: whatever arises in body, mind, and world without our choosing it. A pain, a memory, a flash of irritation, a sound from the street. We usually meet these events with a grip of some kind, either pushing them away or reaching to keep them. Letting go is the movement of returning them to nature, to the grand fabric and intelligent operation of the Great Way (Dao).
This is to release the gripping that occurs so that events can freely arise, play out, and return to the source that they emerged from.
This guide describes four depths of that movement, resting on a common foundation. They are offered as a map of how letting go tends to mature, not as a ladder to climb. To make the map easier to hold, we will use the image of a boat on a river.
The boat on the river
Imagine yourself in a small boat on a wide river. For most of our lives we row hard, often against the current, trying to get somewhere and trying to keep things from hitting the hull.
The river keeps bringing things downstream toward us: branches, debris, a floating blossom, and sometimes another boat. These are the uninvited events of our lives. Some are pleasant and some are not, but none of them asked our permission. Our habit is to grab the oars and fend them off, or to steer hard toward the ones we want.
Each depth of letting go changes our relationship to the boat and the oars.
- At first we simply ease our grip.
- Later we lift the oars from the water and look closely at what is happening.
- Then the oars stay shipped (drawn into the boat) and the boat drifts with the water until the water seems to still.
- Finally we discover that the river has been carrying the boat all along.
Beneath all of it, the water is holding the boat up.
The foundation: Settling
The water holds the boat.
Before any rowing or not rowing, the boat is already floating. Nothing we do holds it up. Settling is feeling that support.
Physically, Settling follows the classical pattern of heaven, earth, and person. Aligning with gravity, the body settles down into the sit bones and whatever they rest on. At the same time, we feel the body hanging from the crown of the head, as if suspended by a golden thread. The person is the interplay of these two polarities, the experience of being drawn down and suspended from the sky as it occurs moment to moment. Nothing needs to be achieved here. We are only noticing that we are already held from below and suspended from above. As the body settles, the energy smooths out, and the mind grows stable on its own.”
Settling is not a first step that we leave behind. It is the foundation beneath every depth. It is also where the grip first becomes visible. Many of us do not realize how hard we have been holding until the body begins to align and let its weight down. Whenever practice turns tight or effortful at any depth, we come back to the feeling of the water holding the boat.
Depth one: Meeting
Easing the grip on the oars.
At the first depth, we stop fighting what arrives. Something drifts toward the boat, and instead of fending it off we let it come and touch the hull.
An uninvited event is greeted as a guest rather than an intruder. We soften around it and, where we can, savor it, discovering that even a difficult sensation has texture and life. Chanting a mantra or the name of a buddha often works at this depth too, its steady rhythm loosening the hands on the oars.
When something feels too strong to welcome, we come back to Settling and let the water hold the boat. That movement is part of the practice, not a retreat from it.
Who is letting go here? At this phase it feels like I am. I am choosing to soften and choosing to welcome. That is fine. Nearly everyone begins with this kind of effort.
Potential pitfall: tolerating what arrives while privately waiting for it to leave. Welcoming with a hidden agenda is still a grip, only a more polite one.
Depth two: Seeing Through
Lifting the oars and looking.
At the second depth, we lift the oars out of the water. Almost at once we catch ourselves rowing again, so we notice and lift them again. In the pauses, we look closely at what is actually happening.
Interrupting is the simplest form of this. A train of thought or reaction is stopped in its tracks, and in the gap there is a moment of open, unknowing awareness. Inquiring and investigating turn that gap into a study. Where does this anger come from, and where does it go when it fades? Who is the one rowing?
When observing sincerely, we cannot find a solid source or a fixed destination for what arises. We cannot find the rower either. This depth leads to not finding, and the not finding is the point.
Who is letting go here? It still seems to be me. But if we are honest, the one doing it has become a question rather than a certainty.
Potential pitfall: turning looking into a new kind of rowing. Inquiry can harden into straining, or into a mechanical repetition of a question that no longer asks anything.
Depth three: Resting
The boat drifts with the current.
At the third depth, the oars are shipped and they stay shipped. We are no longer focusing on anything. The not finding of the previous depth is simply allowed to be, without being turned into a new object to hold.
The boat drifts and its wake fades. Moving with the current, the water around the boat goes calm and begins to reflect the sky. This is what the Chan teacher Hongzhi called silent illumination (mozhao): silence and clarity together, with neither one sought. In the Zhuangzi, Yan Hui called it sitting and forgetting (zuowang), letting body and knowledge fall away until he merges with the great way.
Non-abiding is uncovered here. Nothing is pushed away, and nothing is taken up as a resting place, not even stillness itself.
Who is letting go here? No one seems to be actively doing it. Letting go is happening by itself. Yet it feels as if there is still, quietly, someone resting.
Potential pitfall: stillness without clarity. Chan teachers warned against sitting like a dead tree, in a blank and comfortable calm with no illumination in it. The water calms in order to reflect, not to go foggy or dark.
Depth four: Returning
The river carries the boat.
At the fourth depth, we discover that the river has been carrying the boat all along. Rowing never moved it as much as we believed, and resting was never what truly held it.
Here, what arises is given back to the source it came from. The Daodejing describes this movement:
All things flourish, and each returns to its root.
-Daodejing
It goes on to say that returning to the root is called stillness, the stillness of Resting was already part of this return.
The Korean Seon teacher Daehaeng Sunim taught this as entrusting: returning everything, pleasant and painful alike, to Juingong, the true foundation that lives through each of us. In the language of this framework, we return it to nature. It is as if a request is set on the water and released. With a bow, we give back whatever we were carrying, including our regrets and our grievances.
The one who entrusts is entrusted too. Resting still had someone resting, and Returning gives that one back as well.
Who is letting go here? The question stops having a clear answer. Nature is returning to nature. What is uncovered here is that we and nature are functioning together as one fabric. We are not standing apart, handing things over to it. We are woven into it, and we are learning how to let it feel vividly through us and let its function unfold.
Potential pitfall: a quiet watcher in the stern who guards the entrusting, making sure nothing interferes. That watching is itself a subtle grip. When we notice the watcher, entrust the watcher too.
Depths, not steps
The four depths are not stages to be completed. Our natural function is already complete and can be recognized at once. The depths describe how letting go tends to mature in experience, not rungs we must climb before we are allowed to recognize it.
Any depth is an opportunity for proper practice. A mantra can be chanted with white knuckles or as a complete entrusting. An inquiry can be a strained search or an open question handed to nature. The practices are like vehicles, and the depths describe how fully the vehicle has been surrendered.
In practice, the depths are often moved through within a single day or sitting, sometimes within a single breath. Hard times may call us to Meeting, this shouldn’t be seen as failure. Practice may also open from one depth into another. Each depth is a complete doorway to true nature. Settling is always available beneath it all.
Three practices through the depths
One way to see the depths is to follow a single practice as it matures through them. Here are three examples.
Settling
Because Settling is the foundation, it shows up at every depth, and it changes as it goes.
Meeting: We let the weight of the body down into the sit bones and let the body hang from the crown, feeling whatever is occurring. This can be anything from warmth and the interplay of energies to tight shoulders or a restless belly. Settling often feels like something we do, gently and on purpose.
Seeing Through: Observing the holding itself. Where exactly is the tension? When a knot releases, where does it go? When we look for the person standing between heaven and earth we find only the interplay itself.
Resting: We manage to stop intentionally settling. Earth draws the body down and heaven draws the crown up, with nothing left for us to manage between them, the way a reed stands upright in still water.
Returning: The body is entrusted to being held. It was never we who held it down or lifted it up; earth and heaven were doing that all along, and the person was simply their interplay. Even the wish to be more settled is given back.
Chanting
Chanting a mantra or the name of a buddha is a potent doorway that can travel all the way through the depths of letting go.
Meeting: The sound of the chant soothes. Its rhythm gives the restless mind something kind to lean on, and the grip loosens.
Seeing Through: Curiosity turns to the sound itself. Where does each syllable arise, and where does it vanish? In the space between syllables, who is chanting?
Resting: Sound and silence are no longer separate. The chanting continues without being held or pushed, the way the boat drifts once the oars are shipped.
Returning: The chanting becomes an offering, and the feeling of the one chanting is offered along with the sound. Chanting this way can uncover what Pure Land teachers mean by entrusting to other-power.
Requesting and entrusting
A request is a simple prayer or wish, such as “Please help what needs to happen be seen clearly” or “What seems best?”
The openness of the request matters. “Please make this pain go away” grips at an outcome, while “What seems best?” leaves room for things to unfold naturally.
Sincerely entrusting means handing whatever arises completely back to nature, the source it came from, rather than carrying it as our own. This act can be as simple as an inner gesture or a quiet phrase, such as “I give this back to nature.” Nature is not perceived as apart from us; it includes us and everything else.
Meeting: Something heavy arises, perhaps worry about someone we love, and we consciously hand it over. At this depth it often feels like a decision we make, and we feel the relief in setting the weight down, even if we pick it up again a moment later.
Seeing Through: We notice how quickly we take back what was entrusted, and we look at that. What exactly are we holding, and where does the one who holds it stand? Entrusting becomes a way of questioning ownership: is this worry really mine?
Resting: During these periods entrusting no longer needs to be repeated. Whatever was asked or handed over is simply left where it is, the way a leaf set on the water floats without anyone holding it.
Returning: There is no longer a feeling of an entruster and something entrusted. The request is released as soon as it is made, and any sense of being the one who asked is offered along with the question. Whatever comes is received as nature’s response.
Returning is not drifting
The image of a river carrying a boat can sound passive, as if the deepest letting go means checking out of life. Understanding that comes through experience puts this doubt to rest. Daehaeng Sunim was emphatic that entrusting is lived in the middle of ordinary work and family life, not apart from it.
A boat with no one rowing still moves, it may even have a sail. A sailor does not push the boat; the wind does that. The sailor’s part is to mind the sail and keep a light hand on the tiller, moving with the wind and current rather than against them.
This is the way Cook Ding’s knife in the Zhuangzi found the natural spaces without ever forcing the blade.
What I care about is the Way (Dao), which goes beyond skill. When I first began cutting up oxen, all I could see was the ox itself. After three years I no longer saw the whole ox. And now, now I go at it by spirit and don’t look with my eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. I go along with the natural makeup, strike in the big hollows, guide the knife through the big openings, and follow things as they are. So I never touch the smallest ligament or tendon, much less a main joint.
-Zhuangzi
Returning to nature includes responding. When someone needs help, we help. When something needs to be said, we say it. What changes is where the response comes from: not from a rower straining against the river, but from the river itself, moving through us.
The raft and the empty boat
The Zhuangzi tells of a man crossing a river when another boat drifts into his. If the other boat is empty, he does not get angry, even if he has a short temper. If someone is sitting in it, he shouts at them to steer clear, and when they do not answer he shouts again and starts to curse. The collision that occurs is the same. What changes the experience is whether it seems like anyone is there.
Zhuangzi’s teaching is to empty our own boat. With no one aboard, there is no one to be bumped and no one to do the bumping. This addresses the potential pitfall of Returning. The final step is not becoming a better passenger, but finding that no passenger was ever needed.
The Buddha offered a related image in his parable of the raft. A traveler builds a raft to cross a river, and on reaching the far shore he sets it down rather than carrying it on his head. The practices in this guide are rafts, meant to be used fully and then set down.
The raft points to letting go of the method. The empty boat points to letting go of the one using it. Together they form the whole of this path: settling into the water that already holds us, and returning what arises, along with the one it arises to, back to nature.
The boat, the river, the wind, and the one who seemed to be rowing were never separate. This is the fabric uncovered at the fourth depth. Practice is learning to let it move through us, until its feeling and its function are simply our own life.