Lecture on Surrender: Meaning and Practice

Introduction to Surrender

• Surrender emerges when the exhaustion of trying reaches its peak:
  • Trying to engage in spiritual practice
  • Trying to awaken
  • Trying to accept or be open
  • Trying to alter current experiences
  • Trying to feel lovable

Understanding Surrender

• Vigilance required to avoid turning surrender into a mental effort:
  • Avoid overthinking surrender or trying to understand it analytically
  • Overthinking keeps us attached to a fear-based, analytical worldview (left-brain dominant)
• Practice the ability to relax and shift from the left to the right hemisphere of the brain:
  • Moving from resistance to unity with the universe

Alternative Perspectives on Surrender

• Surrender compared to:
  • Softness
  • Tenderness
  • Loving kindness
• Easy to embrace these attitudes when events are pleasant; however, the mind may cling to these pleasant experiences
• When experiencing loss or pain, surrender is difficult because the mind resists unwanted experiences

Embracing Tenderness and Softness

• Tenderness towards experience as a form of surrender:
  • Not about sending kindness to the cause of suffering, but shifting focus away from the narrative
  • Tenderness and softness remain when there is no attempt to fix the world, ourselves, or relationships
• Surrendering involves shifting attention from the desire to change or fix to acceptance of tenderness and softness present within
• Relaxing effort and resistance leads to tenderness

Key Takeaways on Surrender

• Surrender is not a mental activity or effort
• Surrender is the effortless relaxation of attention into acceptance:
  • Embracing the present moment as it is
  • Inner 'yes' to what was, what is, and what will be

Conclusion

• Tenderness, softness, and loving kindness are foundational aspects of surrendering experience
• Liberation and compassion come through an effortless acceptance of all things, whether light or heavy