Alert to the needs of the journey,
those on the path of awareness,
like swans, glide on,
leaving behind their former resting places.
Dhammapada 91
Letting go is not always easy. But if the Buddha hadn't learnt how to relinquish all habits of clinging, we wouldn't have a path of practice today. Through his ardent effort and eventual Enlightenment, the Teacher showed us that it can be done. When we start out in practice, we might feel daunted by the task of taming this monkey mind; it runs around endlessly, refusing to settle. When we first learnt to swim or attempted to speak a foreign language, the task perhaps seemed equally daunting. The Buddha wasn't born enlightened; it was through his persistent devotion to practice that he realized the freedom from attachments. His many years of teaching were aimed at inspiring us in our work.
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