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Letting Go

by Tiago Albuquerque

Trinity Books · October 28, 2026

Old Buddhist ideas for holding life more lightly.

Reading time: About 4 h 10 min (at 230 words a minute)

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Details

AuthorBrazil Tiago Albuquerque
CategoryReligious teachings explained / Calming the mind / Introduction to Eastern thought
Language of the bookEnglish
PublishedOctober 28, 2026
Length278 pages
Product numberTB-K0009-EN
Reading timeAbout 4 h 10 min (at 230 words a minute)
Print-ready PDFA5 · interior PDF and cover PDF (with bleed: two versions, 3 mm and 3.175 mm, can be downloaded.) · 278 pages

Categories of this book

CategoriesThought, philosophy and religionReligious teachings explained

CategoriesSelf-help and workCalming the mind

CategoriesThought, philosophy and religionIntroduction to Eastern thought

About this book

A glass of water feels light at first. Held at arm's length for an hour, it becomes almost unbearable, although its weight has not changed. Many of us carry our lives like this: gripping old hurts, worries, plans, possessions, people and pictures of who we should be, until our hands and hearts are tired.

Old Buddhist ideas for holding life more lightly.

Letting Go explains, in warm and plain language, the Buddhist ideas that speak most directly to this weight: the Four Noble Truths, the second arrow we add to pain, impermanence, the raft we carry too long, craving and contentment, the surprising idea of non-self, putting down a grudge, the middle way, owning lightly and giving, loving without clinging, grief, letting go of the life we expected, equanimity in praise and blame, and simple daily practices.

Each chapter begins with an everyday moment of holding on, retells a teaching or story from the early texts in clear modern words, with its source, shows how it helps people of different ages and lives, and ends with practical steps, a short practice and answers to common questions. The book treats Buddhism respectfully as a living tradition, asks you to believe nothing on trust and makes clear that letting go never means accepting harm.

Contents

  • Letting Go
  • Introduction: The Weight in Our Hands
  • How to Use This Book
  • Chapter 1: Why Our Hands Get Tired
    1. Holding Everything Together
    2. The Grip of the Mind
    3. A Prince Who Left Home
    4. The First Teaching
    5. Four Truths in Plain Words
    6. What Letting Go Is Not
    7. A Teaching to Test
    8. Four Lives, Four Grips
    9. Practical Steps
    10. A Short Practice: Noticing the Grip
    11. Questions People Often Ask
    12. Chapter Summary
  • Chapter 2: The Second Arrow
    1. Two Days Before the Holiday
    2. The Two Arrows
    3. What the Second Arrow Is Made Of
    4. The First Arrow Is Not a Failure
    5. The Arrow of Escape
    6. Meeting the First Arrow
    7. Not Firing Arrows at Others
    8. Four Lives and Two Arrows
    9. Practical Steps
    10. A Short Practice: Counting the Arrows
    11. Questions People Often Ask
    12. Chapter Summary
  • Chapter 3: Everything Changes
    1. A Season of Endings
    2. Nothing Stays the Same
    3. The First Understanding
    4. Five Daily Recollections
    5. Why Change Hurts
    6. Change Is Also Relief
    7. The Buddha's Last Words
    8. Four Lives in Change
    9. Practical Steps
    10. A Short Practice: Watching Change
    11. Questions People Often Ask
    12. Chapter Summary
More
  • Chapter 4: The Raft: Ideas We Carry Too Long
    1. The Right Way to Raise a Baby
    2. The Raft
    3. Carrying the Raft on Our Heads
    4. Holding a Snake by the Tail
    5. The Blind Men and the Elephant
    6. When Ideas Become Part of Us
    7. Holding Views Lightly
    8. Four Lives and Their Rafts
    9. Practical Steps
    10. A Short Practice: Thanking a Raft
    11. Questions People Often Ask
    12. Chapter Summary
  • Chapter 5: Wanting More
    1. Parcels at the Door
    2. The Thirst
    3. The Hungry Ghost
    4. A Bone With No Meat
    5. Why the Glow Fades
    6. Contentment Is a Kind of Wealth
    7. Wanting Without Clinging
    8. Four Lives and Their Thirst
    9. Practical Steps
    10. A Short Practice: Watching a Want
    11. Questions People Often Ask
    12. Chapter Summary
  • Chapter 6: Not Quite a Fixed Self
    1. A Comment in a Meeting
    2. Who Is Being Hurt?
    3. The Discourse on Non-Self
    4. The Chariot
    5. "I" and "Mine"
    6. Not Taking It So Personally
    7. What Non-Self Does Not Mean
    8. Four Lives, Held More Lightly
    9. Practical Steps
    10. A Short Practice: Is This Me?
    11. Questions People Often Ask
    12. Chapter Summary
  • Chapter 7: Putting Down a Grudge
    1. Three Years Later
    2. "He Insulted Me, He Hurt Me"
    3. The Burning Coal
    4. Why We Hold On to Grudges
    5. Letting Go Is Not Approving
    6. Ways of Loosening the Grip
    7. The Grudge Against Ourselves
    8. Four Lives, Four Grudges
    9. Practical Steps
    10. A Short Practice: Setting Down the Coal
    11. Questions People Often Ask
    12. Chapter Summary
  • Chapter 8: Neither Too Tight Nor Too Loose
    1. From Every Day to Never
    2. Between Two Extremes
    3. The Lute
    4. When the Strings Are Too Tight
    5. When the Strings Are Too Loose
    6. Finding Your Tuning
    7. The Middle Way With Others
    8. Four Lives, Four Tunings
    9. Practical Steps
    10. A Short Practice: Tuning the Strings
    11. Questions People Often Ask
    12. Chapter Summary
  • Chapter 9: Owning Lightly
    1. The Guitar in the Garage
    2. What We Own, and What Owns Us
    3. A Monk's Few Belongings
    4. Wealth Gained Rightly
    5. The Joy of Giving
    6. Giving Without Conditions
    7. Sharing and Borrowing
    8. Four Lives, Held More Lightly
    9. Practical Steps
    10. A Short Practice: The Joy of Giving
    11. Questions People Often Ask
    12. Chapter Summary
  • Chapter 10: Loving Without Clinging
    1. A Son Moving Far Away
    2. Love and Clinging Are Not the Same
    3. May All Beings Be Well
    4. The Near Enemy of Love
    5. Boundless Care Without Possession
    6. Letting People Grow
    7. When Someone We Love Leaves
    8. When Love Needs Firm Boundaries
    9. Four Lives, Four Kinds of Love
    10. Practical Steps
    11. A Short Practice: Loving-Kindness Phrases
    12. Questions People Often Ask
    13. Chapter Summary
  • Chapter 11: When Loss Comes
    1. Three Months After
    2. The Mother and the Mustard Seed
    3. What the Buddha Did Not Do
    4. Grief Is Not a Failure of Letting Go
    5. Even the Closest Disciples Grieved
    6. Letting Go and Staying Connected
    7. Other Kinds of Loss
    8. When Grief Needs Help
    9. Four Lives Touched by Loss
    10. Practical Steps
    11. A Short Practice: A Letter and a Candle
    12. Questions People Often Ask
    13. Chapter Summary
  • Chapter 12: Letting Go of Who You Were Supposed to Be
    1. The School Reunion
    2. The Life We Expected
    3. Better, Equal, Worse
    4. Comparing Our Inside With Others' Outside
    5. The Gift of Sympathetic Joy
    6. Expectations From Others
    7. Grieving the Imagined Life
    8. Four Lives, Real and Imagined
    9. Practical Steps
    10. A Short Practice: Gladness for Others
    11. Questions People Often Ask
    12. Chapter Summary
  • Chapter 13: Steady in Praise and Blame
    1. Two Reviews in One Week
    2. The Eight Winds
    3. Nobody Escapes Blame
    4. Like a Solid Rock
    5. Equanimity Is Not Indifference
    6. Learning From the Wind
    7. When Blame Is Unjust
    8. Four Lives in the Wind
    9. Practical Steps
    10. A Short Practice: The Weather Report
    11. Questions People Often Ask
    12. Chapter Summary
  • Chapter 14: A Little Letting Go Each Day
    1. Good Ideas, Forgotten by Lunchtime
    2. Practice Is Small and Daily
    3. The Mirror
    4. A Lump of Salt
    5. Morning: Setting a Direction
    6. During the Day: Small Openings
    7. Evening: Looking Back and Putting Down
    8. Good Friends
    9. Four Lives, Small Practices
    10. Practical Steps
    11. A Short Practice: Planning One Day
    12. Questions People Often Ask
    13. Chapter Summary
  • Chapter 15: Holding Life Lightly
    1. One Rope at a Time
    2. The Monk Who Carried the Woman
    3. The Glass That Is Already Broken
    4. What We Have Explored
    5. Lightly, Not Loosely
    6. Lightness and Joy
    7. Test It for Yourself
    8. Four Lives, a Year Later
    9. Practical Steps
    10. A Short Practice: Open Hands
    11. Questions People Often Ask
    12. Chapter Summary and Farewell
  • Closing Words
  • Key Terms in This Book
  • A Note on the Sources
  • A Note on Care
  • About the Author
  • Colophon

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