Put Down the Duckie

One of the great ironies in this pursuit for enlightenment is that the harder you chase it, the farther away it gets. It cannot be arrived at on purpose, but is instead an exercise in letting go. The moment you decide, "Now, I will go out and find joy," you have already gone off track. Purity of mind is your natural state of being, a condition uncontaminated by attachment or delusion.

It is like finding a golden box, buried in the back of a closet. The closet is packed with other boxes, each one filled with all kinds of stuff; all your thoughts about everything and anything. Obviously, you can't get to the golden box by adding more boxes. You have to let go of all the clutter to get to the prize. Meditation is a conveyor belt for removing that mental clutter. Whenever we come across another box, we peek inside, stick a label on it, throw it on the belt and watch it glide effortlessly away. Finally, all we have left is that last golden box. But just like all the other boxes, we peek inside, label it "enlightenment" and throw it on the belt. Then what are we left with? Just an empty closet.

Being an empty closet may sound a little weird, but it is this "empty space" that allows us to see clearly. Most of us spend a great deal of time adding things to our lives, but hardly ever "clean house." We accumulate things, ideas, beliefs, judgments...all of which add up to inflexibility. How can you open your hands to receive the gifts of the world, when you refuse to put down what you already hold? It is in our nature to be pack rats. We collect not only material things, but mental and emotional things, too. The extent to which our minds are open and flexible is the measure of how capable we are of receiving joy.

One of my favorite songs is from Sesame Street. It is entitled, "Put Down the Duckie," and contains the most profound wisdom you are ever likely to hear. If you are familiar with the show, you know that Ernie is quite fond of his rubber duckie. One day, Ernie was trying to practice the saxophone, but became frustrated by his lack of success. Confounded, he asked a real blues musician (Mr. Hoots) what he was doing wrong. Hoots immediately noted that Ernie was trying to play the sax with something in his hand. Thus were sung the wisest words I have ever heard: "You gotta put down the duckie if you wanna play the saxophone."

If you want to be successful in any endeavor, it is best to free your hands. More importantly, you must free your mind. You can't empty your hands--or mind--by picking things up; you have to put them down. Just because you put something down, it doesn't mean you can't pick it up again when you need it. The fear we must overcome in releasing our attachments is that we will lose the things we love. Herein, however, lies the magic. When we completely free ourselves of our bondage to "things"--be they material or mental things--we suddenly realize we haven't lost anything at all, but instead, we have gained the world.

Possession is an illusion. The only thing we really have is our own conscious awareness, centered in the here and now. This moment, and nothing else, is the entirety of our existence. All the things we find around us are temporary and fleeting. Our minds create boundaries of possession, and we may cling to this and that, but ultimately we cannot own even ourselves. Everything is in constant flux. Objects and ideas pass in and out of our lives, and we watch them like we watch the clouds come and go. Even the people we love are here only briefly. This is why it is so essential to live and appreciate our lives, right here, right now.

There is no path to happiness. Joy cannot be found out there, somewhere, someday. You can't go out and get enlightenment, like picking up a prescription at the drugstore. You won't find it by seeking it, and you can't acquire it by holding on to things. Empty your closet. Free your mind.

Put down the duckie.

~ Heather Haze