Gil: It is a good question, but it is a little bit abstract, so it is hard to know what to say. One thing is that, if someone is getting harmed, then it is sometimes better to avoid it. That’s one possibility. If someone is getting harmed, you or someone else, then it is best to avoid it. Sometimes by hanging in there with something that we can’t let go of and you just keep doing that behavior, it just makes things worse. Then maybe you should avoid it for the time being. Certainly there are times when it is healthy to just step away and avoid something. However, it is also very important to look at the inner quality, the intention. Then you ask the question: “When am I avoiding something in a healthy way, and when is it aversion—hate, pushing away? If you are sensitive, you will get the evidence very quickly.
New Questioner: I just wanted to say something that you have said before and that nobody has mentioned here. Luckily, this is a self-correcting practice. If you can’t get a notion of what real freedom is and what real letting go is, or what kindness to yourself is, then you keep doing it and it will happen to you, and then you will know how to do it. This is to encourage people to keep doing it and not worry about how you do it, but just keep doing it and it will just open up. I’m sure that is what happened to you. You sat for a long time and struggled and then what happened? How did you know that you could hold it lightly?