“Letting go is not the same as aversion, struggling to get rid of something. We cannot genuinely let go of what we resist. What we resist and fear secretly follows us even as we push it away. To let go of fear or trauma, we need to acknowledge just how it is. We need to feel it fully and accept that it is so. It is as it is. Letting go begins with letting be.
Jack Kornfield”
Aversion is another hindrance to skillfully dealing with experiences in life that we sometimes confuse with "letting go."
We have an understanding about two realities that are at the heart of Buddhist thought -- Impermanence and Interdependence. In our relationship with these two realities, we can have a range of reactions from dissatisfaction all the way to profound suffering. On one hand we are uncomfortable with things always changing, so we attach ourselves to various object of experience trying to steady the ground beneath us. On the other hand, when we don't see the interdependent connectivity of all things, we feel separate and sometimes isolated. Hoping to protect ourselves from outside forces, we attach and identify with external objects for support.
We also need to consider the energetic opposite of attachment -- Aversion. Aversion has to do with our relationship with and reaction to things we don't like or don't want. We can experience aversion in a range of ways from irritation and annoyance to anger and rage. Fear is also frequently a component of aversion and even mind states like sorrow and grief can contain its aspects.
The undercurrent of aversion is really hatred. And, while, as adults, most of us have tempered our outward expression of hatred, we certainly have had experience of it flaring up in moments of stress or danger or when our beliefs about how things should be is challenged.
As Jack Kornfield suggests in the quote above -- "To let go of fear or trauma, we need to acknowledge just how it is. We need to feel it fully and accept that it is so. It is as it is. Letting go begins with letting be." In mindful meditation, open awareness provides an important opportunity for allowing and investigating aversion as it arises.