Letting go is itself belief. Without faith, you can’t let go. You need to completely let go of everything, knowing that juingong—the shared foundation of our selves and our thoughts—is taking care of it all, no matter whether things seem to be going well or badly.
How can you completely let go if you do not believe? How should you entrust everything to your inherent nature? First, sincerely believe in your inherent nature, juingong, and know that it is taking care of everything. Second, go forward with courage. Third, experiment with how juingong takes care of everything, continuously apply what you experience, and never let yourself be daunted by anything.
Letting go is not saying, “I don’t care” or living in denial. If you try to let go with the attitude that “I don’t care,” or “Please make things go well,” while hoping for a miracle without any effort on your own part, then this is not truly letting go. When you act like this, you’re treating juingong, your foundation, as if it were something separate from yourself. When you let go, you let go single-mindedly, knowing your foundation is the only thing that can truly take care of everything. Let go knowing that everything arises from juingong, so only juingong is able to solve everything.
Let Go Unconditionally
There are no justifications or reasons involved in letting go. As soon as something arises, unconditionally entrust it to juingong, your foundation. Entrust everything to juingong: entrust the things you understand and the things you don’t understand, entrust happiness and entrust suffering, entrust poverty and entrust disease. Let go of things that are not going well, and let go of things that are going well. Let go, knowing “Only juingong can truly show me the path.” By letting go like this, you can empty your mind and unload the heavy luggage you have been carrying for eons. By letting go like this, you can clean up the dust of your mind, which has been accumulating for eons, and you can truly live and truly die.
Don’t try to take care of things by relying upon theories, sutras, clever words, or other people’s ideas. Instead, just let go while believing that only juingong can solve it. Let go once, let go twice, let go continuously, so that you are used to letting go. Keep letting go, so that it becomes second nature, like taking off your shoes when you enter a house. Then even problems of genetics and karma will melt down.
Let Go to Emptiness
Where should we let go to? Let go to emptiness. What is emptiness? Emptiness means all lives changing and manifesting every instant, and functioning together as one. Every single thing is empty, including myself. Everything is part of this emptiness; everything is subject to the law of emptiness. Everything is changing and manifesting, including myself, so we are inherently living while letting go. Even the thought “I’ve done…,” has no place to stick to. Thus, there’s no need to even say “let go” or “entrust.” However, many people don’t understand this, so I say “let go to emptiness” as a method to help them realize the truth. How could we live without letting go to emptiness?
Everything is part of this emptiness, everything is subject to the law of emptiness. Everything is changing and manifesting, including myself, so we are inherently living while letting go.
Karma is the absolutely unavoidable result of what we have done. It arises continuously from within us. I’m concerned that if I say to just let go of everything, it may seem too ambiguous or cause some people to fall into nihilism. So I have said, “Take emptiness as the central pillar, and let go of everything to that.” When a pinwheel rotates, it relies upon its central point. Likewise, you have to make juingong your foundation, your center point. Rely upon this center and entrust it with all things. When you can do this, you can live with vitality, and you can live freely, like flowing water.
All things are directly connected to each other through the foundation, and unseen energy flows back and forth between all lives and things. However, when people discriminate, clinging to some things and rejecting or avoiding others, they block this energy from flowing freely. Thus, if you just let go and entrust everything to your foundation, to juingong, this energy can flow naturally, exactly as needed.
Although it is said that you should let go inwardly or return things inward, in fact, juingong is neither inside nor outside. Juingong is the combination of all things in the universe, and existed before all of those things. Although it cannot be grasped, it can be grasped.
The Virtue and Merit of Letting Go
When you keep letting go of everything to juingong and observing, karma will collapse, habits will melt down, your true self will be revealed, and every kind of hindrance will surrender to you. Juingong is like a mailbox. If you put something into juingong and observe, it will be delivered and a reply will return.
When people hear “Let go of everything,” they often ask, “How can I live if I do that?” However, when you let go, you can truly live. Unenlightened people believe that it is necessary to plan and think carefully about every single thing. However, awakened people don’t raise thoughts for each little thing they do. Instead, they just rest deeply. Yet everything they do is in accord with the dharma, without even the slightest error. Because they let go, their actions are more harmonious, natural, profound, sincere, beautiful, and more beneficial than any actions that are done by relying on intellect or planning. Thus, for a true practitioner, everything in daily life is itself the path. Because they let go and rest, every single thing they do, whether moving, standing, sitting, or lying down, is all naturally in accord with the dharma.
If you try to practice by depending upon some specific regimen or physical method, in the beginning, your goal may seem clear and close at hand. However, as you go further, your path becomes hazy, and eventually it will come to a dead end. On the other hand, if you keep letting go and entrusting, and experiencing the results of this, then the path that seemed narrow in the beginning will gradually widen, and, in the end, will become a great avenue and gateway to the truth.
Living while completely letting go of everything produces infinite virtue and merit. First, every kind of suffering will collapse. Second, habits that have been sustained for eons by karmic affinity will all melt down. Third, the defilements and delusions that filled the mind will gradually disappear, and eventually there will be nothing to be empty and nothing to be full. At this point, your true self will be clearly revealed. Spiritual practice is like building a house—when you have reached this point, you have a strong foundation, and are therefore ready to begin erecting the pillars that will support what comes next.
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© 2007 by Daehaeng Sunim, No River to Cross: Trusting the Enlightenment that’s Always Right Here. Reprinted by arrangement with Wisdom Publications.
This excerpt was originally published on November 9, 2025.
