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You can still use a blueprint to build a house or practice diligently to play an instrument, but it’s when your hands or breath sensuously shape a beautiful phrase and the sound soaks into your body and you and the instrument become the music that you dwell in experience. If you’re practicing an instrument with your mind pointed toward a coming performance, you may feel an edge of anxiety that interferes with your ability to relax into the music. If you immerse yourself in the melodies, rhythm, and harmony, you become one with them.

Letting go of the outcome means being easy with yourself no matter what happens. You just spent eight dollars on a lousy movie, the dream job became more of a nightmare, the relationship was a big mistake, the cancer treatment didn’t work. Have your feelings, but don’t be hard on yourself. All we can do is step from one moment to the next, make our best decision with what we know, and breathe.

Some people who were faced with the possible loss of their homes during recent summer fires blazing around Missoula were intensely agitated with worry and couldn’t function, while others moved their valuables to a storage shed and were able to proceed with life amid the uncertainty. They were able to let go of their attachment to their homes and possessions. One man said, “We’ve had eleven lovely years amid these beautiful pine trees and we’ve always known there was a chance of fire. But if the house burns down I’ll never regret having lived here.”

When we can say, “Yes, it’s been lovely, and it may all burn down any moment,” we are free. This applies to our beliefs, possessions, loved ones, work, and health. Our house may burn, we may have an accident, lose someone we love, or face a life-threatening illness. The more we can breathe into an experience, be totally with it and let it burn to ashes, the more we are ready for the final step of letting go, that mystery called death.

Breathing Exercise

Take a full, deep breath. Do this anytime you’re suddenly disappointed, hurt, upset, or starting to defend or argue. Soften your belly, relax your shoulders, take a breath, and fully exhale. Breathe deeply again into the belly, slowly exhale and stay at the “bottom” of the breath, without immediately inhaling.

Sit with a straight back, soften your belly, and relax your shoulders. Repeat each one five or six times.

Breathe in through the nose and out through the nose.

Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Breathe in through the mouth and out through the nose.

Breathe in through the mouth and out through the mouth.

Come back to your regular breathing.

Variation: Focus on your third eye—the spot located on your lower forehead above your eyes—while you do these breathing exercises.

A breathing exercise taught by the Sufi teacher Shabda Kahn.

Breathe into your belly and abdomen for four counts.

Hold your breath for four counts.

Exhale slowly for four counts.

Pause for four counts before repeating.

57. Let the Moment Burn to Ashes

Zen activity is activity which is completely burned out, with nothing remaining but ashes.

—SHUNRYU SUZUKI, ZEN MIND, BEGINNER’S MIND

In Zen meditation, there is no goal. You meditate and see what happens. Likewise, when you take on an activity or project, you can give it your full attention and see what happens. It might be fun, easy, difficult, or unpleasant, and it will work out or it won’t—it really doesn’t matter. The task is to let ourselves become fully immersed in the moment.

Here is Jamie’s story of letting old fears burn to ashes: “My teenage daughter, Penny, asked me to buy a pet rat. My immediate answer was, ‘Hell No! There’s not going to be a rat in this house!’ I was adamant. Months later, at Christmastime, feeling loving toward Penny, I asked, ‘What can I give you for Christmas?’ When she said ‘a pet rat,’ I could feel the flares rising, but I took a breath and calmed down. ‘What is this huge fear and tension?’ I wondered. I wanted to please her so much that we went to the pet store and