Buddhism, one of the world’s oldest religions, offers profound insights into the nature of existence and the ways we can alleviate our suffering. As one of the world’s most profound spiritual traditions, it offers a transformative solution: the art of letting go. Unlike simply losing interest in things or giving up, letting go in Buddhism is about liberation, releasing ourselves from the chain of attachment that prevents us from experiencing true peace and happiness. Letting go is a profound philosophical concept in Buddhism, deeply intertwined with an understanding of suffering, attachment, and the nature of reality. This philosophy encourages us to release our grip on desires, attachments, and on what we hold dear- whether relationships, material goods, or even their identities, ultimately leading to greater peace and enlightenment. Our tendency to cling tightly to the various aspects of life leads to a significant source of stress. We tend to grasp at things, perceiving them as solid and permanent, yet much of what we hold onto is transient and subject to change. This mistaken belief in permanence can trap us in cycles of worry, fear, and anxiety.

The challenge of letting go is especially evident during difficult periods in life. We may find ourselves ruminating over lost opportunities, failed relationships, and unmet expectations. Such thoughts can keep us ensnared in emotions like hurt, guilt, and shame, hindering our ability to move forward. By holding onto the past, we often prevent ourselves from embracing the present and future.

At the heart of Buddhist practice lies the concept of letting go, often encapsulated in the term “non-attachment.” Letting go is a crucial concept in both Buddhism and Christianity, emphasising the release of attachments that bind us and contribute to our suffering. At its core, letting go is about finding freedom from desires and acknowledging that both relationships and material possessions are fleeting and transient.

In Buddhism, letting go, or non-attachment, is fundamental for achieving inner peace. The First Noble Truth acknowledges that life is filled with suffering, often rooted in our cravings and attachment to things. The Second Noble Truth teaches that by letting go of this craving, we can transcend the cycles of life and attain enlightenment.

Spiritually, Buddhism emphasises the impermanence of all things (annica). We tend to cling to people, experiences, and even our identities, but everything is fleeting. Recogniing this helps us appreciate the present moment and fosters compassion. Instead of allowing attachments to cloud our relationships, letting go encourages us to engage with others without judgment or expectation, fostering deeper connections.

Philosophically, Buddhism challenges the notion of a permanent self (anatta) that is often the focus of human attachment. It teaches that our identity is not a fixed entity but a collection of experiences and perceptions in constant flux. Understanding this can help us see the futility of clinging to desires and identities, paving the way for a liberated state of being built on wisdom cultivated through meditation and mindfulness.

From a psychological standpoint, letting go can significantly improve our emotional health and well-being. Attachment often breeds fear, anxiety, and stress, while non-attachment promotes resilience and adaptability. When we embrace the idea of impermanence, we become more capable of handling life’s challenges without being overwhelmed. Mindfulness—being present and accepting our emotions without judgment—allows us to process difficult feelings constructively, making it easier to let go of what we cannot control.

Letting go is also an essential concept in Christianity, which emphasises surrender and trust in God. Biblical teachings encourage believers to let go of worries and anxieties, placing their faith in divine providence. For instance, verses like Matthew 6:34 remind individuals not to be anxious about tomorrow, but to focus on the present. By surrendering our burdens to God, we find peace and freedom from the weight of excessive attachment.

Moreover, both traditions highlight the importance of community. In Buddhism, the sangha, or community of practitioners, supports individuals on their journeys toward non-attachment. Similarly, the Christian community encourages believers to lean on one another for support, fostering a sense of belonging and shared faith that helps mitigate the loneliness that comes with attachment.

Ultimately, the concept of letting go serves as a powerful antidote to suffering in both Buddhism and Christianity. By embracing impermanence, cultivating wisdom, and practising mindfulness or faith, individuals can experience profound liberation. In our chaotic world, the principles of letting go offer a clear path toward inner peace, fulfilment, and deeper connections with ourselves, others, and the divine.

Buddhism explores the profound concept of letting go, providing valuable insights into the human experience and pathways to alleviating suffering. Rooted in one of the world’s oldest spiritual traditions, Buddhism presents letting go as a transformative practice, distinct from mere disengagement or giving up. Instead, it encompasses liberation from the chains of attachment that hinder us from experiencing genuine peace and happiness. Christianity too explore this profound concept in its teachings

At the core of Buddhist philosophy lies the idea of non-attachment, which encourages individuals to free themselves from desires and possessions, ultimately leading to tranquility and enlightenment. Letting go is intertwined with an understanding of suffering, attachment, and the transient nature of existence. This philosophy instructs us to relinquish our grip on what we hold dear—whether relationships, material goods, or even our identities—recognising that these are impermanent.

Buddhism’s First Noble Truth acknowledges that life inherently involves suffering, often stemming from our cravings and attachments. The Second Noble Truth reveals that overcoming this craving is key to transcending the cycles of life and achieving enlightenment. Emphasising the impermanence of all things, Buddhism invites us to appreciate the present moment and fosters compassion by helping us detach from fixed identities and experiences. This awareness enriches our relationships, allowing us to connect with others free from judgment or expectation.

Philosophically, Buddhism challenges the notion of a static self (anatta), asserting that our identity is not a fixed concept but rather a fluid collection of experiences. Recognising this notion helps highlight the futility of clinging to desires and identities, opening the door to a liberated existence founded on wisdom cultivated through meditation and mindfulness practices.

From a psychological perspective, the act of letting go can significantly enhance emotional health and well-being. Attachment often fuels fear, anxiety, and stress, while embracing non-attachment cultivates resilience and adaptability. By accepting impermanence, we equip ourselves to face life’s challenges with greater ease. Practicing mindfulness—being present and accepting emotions without judgment—further facilitates the process of releasing what is beyond our control.

In Christianity, the theme of letting go is also prominent, emphasizing surrender and trust in God. Scripture encourages believers to release their worries and anxieties by placing their faith in divine providence. For example, Matthew 6:34 advises individuals to focus on the present rather than fret over the future. By surrendering our burdens to God, we can experience relief from the weight of excessive attachment.

Both traditions underscore the significance of community in supporting the journey of letting go. In Buddhism, the sangha, or community of practitioners, encourages the pursuit of non-attachment. Likewise, Christian fellowship fosters belonging and shared faith, helping believers lean on one another for strength and mitigating the loneliness that can arise from attachment.

Ultimately, the concept of letting go serves as a powerful antidote to suffering in both Buddhism and Christianity. Embracing impermanence, nurturing wisdom, and practising mindfulness or trust can lead individuals toward profound liberation. In an increasingly chaotic world, the principles of letting go illuminate a pathway to inner peace, fulfilment, and deeper connections with ourselves, others, and the divine. By understanding and embodying this philosophy, we can navigate life’s complexities with grace and openness.////Buddhism delves into the profound concept of letting go, offering valuable insights into the human experience and pathways to alleviating suffering. As one of the world’s oldest spiritual traditions, Buddhism presents letting go as a transformative practice that goes beyond mere disengagement or resignation. It represents liberation from the chains of attachment that prevent us from experiencing true peace and happiness. Similarly, Christianity explores this profound concept in its teachings.

At the heart of Buddhist philosophy is the idea of non-attachment, which encourages individuals to free themselves from desires and possessions, ultimately leading to tranquility and enlightenment. Letting go is closely related to an understanding of suffering, attachment, and the impermanent nature of existence. This philosophy guides us to loosen our hold on what we cherish—be it relationships, material possessions, or even our own identities—recognizing that everything is transient. Through this understanding, we can cultivate a deeper sense of peace and fulfillment in our lives.

BY Dr. Justice Chandradasa Nanayakkara

Rear Admiral Udaya Bandara, VSV, USP (retired)

This incident happened in 2006 when I was the Director Naval Operations, Special Forces and Maritime Surveillance under then Commander of the Navy Vice Admiral Wasantha Karannagoda. Udaya (fondly known as Bandi) was a trusted Naval Assistant (NA) to the Commander.

We were going through a very hard time fighting the LTTE Sea Tigers’ explosive-laden suicide boats that our Fast Attack Craft (s) and elite SBS’ Arrow Boats encountered in our littoral sea battles.

Brilliant Marine Engineer Commander (then) Chaminda Dissanayake, who was known for his “out of the box” thinking and superior technical skills on research and development, met me at my office at Naval Headquarters and showed me a blueprint of an explosive- laden remotely controlled small boat.

Udaya’s Naval Assistant’s office was next to mine, the Director Naval Operations office. Both places are very close to the Navy Commander’s office. I walked into Bandi’s office with Commander Dissa and showed this blueprint a brilliant idea. Being a Marine Engineer “par excellence”, Bandi immediately understood the great design. I urged him to brief the Commander of the Navy with Commander Dissa.

My burden was over! Bandi took over the project and within a few weeks we tested our first prototype “Explosive-laden Remotely Controlled arrow boat “at sea off Coral Cove in the Naval Base Trincomalee. It was a complete success.

This remotely controlled boats went out to sea with our SBS arrow boats fleet and had devastating effects against LTTE suicide boats and their small boats fleet. Thanks, Bandi, for your contribution. The present-day Admiral of the Fleet used to tell us during those days “you cannot buy a Navy – you have to build one”!

We built our own small boats squadrons at our boat yards in Welisara and Trincomalee to bring LTTE Sea Tigers. The Special Boats Squadron (SBS) and rapid action boats squadron (RABS) being so useful with remotely controlled explosive-laden arrow boats to win sea battles convincingly.

Bandi used to say, “Navy is a technical service and we should give ALL SRI LANKA NAVY OFFICERS FIRST A TECHNICAL DEGREE AT OUR ACADEMY (BTec degree).” That idea did not receive much attention here, but the Indian Navy—Bandi graduated as a Marine Engineer- at Indian Navy Engineering College SLNS Shivaji in Lonavala, Pune, India— understood this idea well over two decades ago. Indian Navy Commissioned their new Naval Academy at Ezhimala (in Kerala State) which is the largest Naval Academy in Asia (Campus covers area of 2,452 acres) starts its Naval officers training with a BTech degree, regardless of what branch of the navy one joined.

Bandi’s technical expertise was not limited to SLN. He was the pioneer of “Mini – Hydro Power projects” in Sri Lanka. When I was a young officer, he urged me to invest some money in one of these projects and advised me “Sir! as long as water flows through turbines, you will get money from the CEB, which is always short of electricity”. I regret that I did not heed  Bandi’s advice.

When he worked under me when I was Commander Southern Naval Area, as my senior Technical Officer, I observed pencil marks on walls of his chalet and I inquired from him what they were. He said it was the result of his “pencil shooting training”, a drill Practical Pistol Firers do to improve their skills. He used to practice “draw and fire” drills and pencil shooting drills late into nights to be a good Practical Pistol firer in Sri Lanka Navy team. He didn’t stop at that. He represented Sri Lanka National Practical Pistol Firing team and won International Championships.

As the Officer in charge of Technical Training in the Navy, he worked as Training Commander to train Royal Oman Navy Engineering Artificers in Sri Lanka, especially on Fast Attack Craft Main Engine Overhauls. The Royal Oman Navy Commander was so impressed with the knowledge acquired by Artificers that he donated money for the construction of a four-storey accommodation building for Sri Lanka Navy Naval and Maritime Academy, Trincomalee now known as “Oman Building”. The credit for this project should go to Bandi.

Bandi’s wife was a senior Judge of Kegalle High Court, and she retired a few years ago. Their only child, a son studied at the British School, Colombo and followed in his mother’s footsteps became a lawyer. Bandi was so much attached to his family and very proud of his son’s accomplishments.

When Bandi was due to retire in 2016 as a Rear Admiral and Director General Training, after distinguished service of 34 years, and reaching retirement age of 55 years, I requested him to serve for some more years after mobilising him into our Naval Reserve Force. He had other plans. He wanted to take his mini-Hydro Power projects to East African countries.

His demise after a very brief illness at age of 64 years was a shock to his family and friends. His funeral was held on Feb. 27 with Full Military Honors befitting a Rear Admiral at his home town Aranayake.

Dear Bandi, the beautiful Sri Lanka Navy, Naval and Maritime Academy in Trincomalee, which was built with your efforts will serve for Sri Lanka Navy Officer Trainees and sailors for a very long time and remember you forever.

May dear Bandi attain the supreme bliss of Nirvana!

Naval and Maritime Academy, Trincomalee

By Admiral Ravindra C Wijegunaratne
WV, RWP and Bar, RSP, VSV, USP, NI (M) (Pakistan), ndc, psn, Bsc
(Hons) (War Studies) (Karachi) MPhil (Madras)
Former Navy Commander and Former Chief of Defence Staff
Former Chairman, Trincomalee Petroleum Terminals Ltd,
Former Managing Director Ceylon Petroleum Corporation,
Former High Commissioner to Pakistan

Religion, perhaps, is the most important invention of the human mind. It is said that there are more religions in the world than spoken languages! According to Ethnologue, a website considered to be an authoritative catalogue of languages, there are around 7,170 living languages, grouped into about 142 language families, the Indo-European family having the most speakers. English is the most widely spoken language and around 40% of languages are considered endangered as there are less than 1,000 speakers each. Depending on the way ‘religion’ is defined, the number of religions in the world range anywhere from 4000 to 10,000, though the top four make up for 76%: Christianity 30%, Islam 25%, Hinduism 15% and Buddhism 6%.

However, religion is far from being the greatest invention of the human mind. Though many religions advocate all that is good including tolerance, compassion and kindness, in practice religion has become very divisive, led to many wars and spread discord. On the other hand, though language can be used to spread hatred, an ever-increasing phenomenon associated with the advent of social media, overall, human culture and civilization has been built on the foundation of language. It is hard to imagine human civilization without language though one can well imagine a civilization thriving without religion. Has religion which was meant to be the ‘Rose’ of civilization become a ‘Thorn’?

A vast majority of Buddhists are content with the concept of Buddhism being a religion, continuing their practices with emphasis on the ritual, but ‘thinking’ Buddhists rightly question whether more harm than good has been done to the teachings of the Buddha by the envelope of religion. Going by the widely accepted definitions of religion such as “the belief in and the worship of superhuman power or powers, especially a god or gods” or “a particular system of faith or worship” or “a pursuit of interest followed with great devotion”, perhaps, it is only the third that may be used, though loosely, to categorise Buddhism as a religion, as in Buddhism there is no belief in a supernatural power and there is no place for acceptance based purely on faith.

Maybe, the Buddha Dhamma is better classified as a philosophy, and it can be argued that the teachings of the Buddha may have had wider recognition and acceptance had the Buddha been born in the West than in India and recognised more as a philosopher than a religious leader. Going by the definitions of philosophy “the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence, especially when considered as an academic discipline” or “a theory or attitude that acts as a guiding principle for behaviour” it is obvious that Buddhism is much more than that.

Perhaps, the recognition of Buddhism as a religion rather than a philosophy was advantageous, in a way. As a religion, an art and culture around Buddhism developed with myriads of religious artefacts dotting around the world, especially in the East. However, it may be argued that this is not what the Buddha would have wished for. Notwithstanding, among the many monuments that are a testimony to the creative genius of our ancestors, standing tall are Ruwanmeliseya, built in 140 BCE by King Dutugemunu and Jetavanaramaya, built by King Mahasena and completed around 301 CE, which are among the ten tallest structures in the ancient world. Jetavanaramaya, built with over 93 million bricks to a height of 400 feet, was the third largest man-made structure on earth, second only to the two Great Pyramids in Giza and still holds the Guinness record for the tallest stupa ever built. It is a great shame that so little is talked about this engineering marvel of the ancient world.

The Buddha commands my respect more as a scientist; as the pioneer who laid the foundation for the modern scientific method. Kalama Sutta laid the foundation for scientific thought, verification before acceptance. Whereas other religious leaders were representatives of a higher power and their word must be accepted on faith, the Buddha encouraged his followers to question before conviction. The Four Noble Truths forms the basis on which scientific questions are addressed even today. Buddha’s concepts of cause and effect, impermanence which is dynamic flux are very scientific. The Middle Path is shown to be a cornerstone of political science.

Mindfulness, a concept the Buddha introduced, is fast gathering momentum as a therapeutic modality and Mindfulness Meditation has spread across the world thanks to the efforts of Satya Narayan Goenka. His Holiness Dalai Lama’s dynamism has stimulated many scientists to prove Buddhist concepts by modern scientific methods. When Richard J Davidson, Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who had done research on the effects of meditation on the brain at the behest of the Dalai lama, invited him to participate in the “Neuroscience and Society” programme of the Society for Neuroscience meeting in 2005, over 500 researchers signed a petition in protest. They alleged that his closeness to the Dalai Lama may influence the results, but the controversy subsided as most of the scientists who attended the meeting valued the presentation by the Dalai Lama. It later turned out that many of the scientists who protested were Chinese. Even science is not spared by politics!

Robert Wright, an American writer with an interest in evolutionary psychology, has written a New York Times bestseller, titled “Why Buddhism Is True”, with the subtitle “The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment” commented in Wikipedia as follows:

“In Why Buddhism is True”,

Wright investigates a secular, Westernised form of Buddhism focusing on the practice of mindfulness meditation and stripped of the element of reincarnation. He believes Buddhism’s diagnosis of the causes of human suffering is largely vindicated by evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology, justifying his book’s title. He further argues that the modern psychological idea of the modularity of mind resonates with the Buddhist teaching of no-self (anatman)”

The Buddha’s analysis of the mind and thought processes remains unsurpassed. His analysis of sensory perceptions seems far superior to scientific explanations. Although modern science recognises only five senses, the Buddha considered the mind as the sixth sense. Scientific observations confirm that what we see is what we want to see and what we hear is what we want to hear etc. It looks as if the mind acts as a modifier sense. Further, Out-of-Body Experiences, described in detail by some who have had Near Death Experiences, makes one wonder whether the mind can see without the eye and hear without the ear. Mindfulness, through meditation, seems the best way of controlling the mind.

Buddhism, in addition to many other things, is the Science of the Mind.

by Dr Upul Wijayawardhana