GOSS: How to Let Go

Meditation always begins by developing a grounding or reference point from which you can develop both calm & insight.

Below is a simple instruction of how the GOSS Formula does this. 

GOSS Formula: How to Let Go.

1. Ground.
2. Observe.
3. Soften.
4. Smile.
5. Repeat if needed.

Ground = develop mindfulness of your body to create a reference point to the present.

Observe = notice whenever you become distracted from this reference point.

Soften = relax effort in your body and mind to let go of the distraction.

Smile = enjoy the pleasure of this relaxing/letting go of effort to reward your mind.

As you soften & let go mindfulness will naturally ground in your body again. GOSS is a circular process of insight & pleasure reward that gradually deconditions defensive unwholesome & unskillful patterns of mind & heart.

Developing the GOSS Formula:

The first Meditation Skills you will learn in the MIDL Insight Meditation Course will teach you how to let go using the GOSS Formula while seated in meditation and daily life.

• In Meditation 01: Body Relaxation & Meditation 02: Mind Relaxation you will learn how to let go physically and mentally. This relates to the Soften part of the GOSS Formula: Ground --> Observe --> Soften --> Smile.
• In Meditation 03: Mindful Presence you will learn how to be mindful of your body so that your awareness becomes grounded within it. This relates to the Ground part of the GOSS Formula: Ground --> Observe --> Soften --> Smile.
• In Meditation 04: Joyful Presence you will learn how to reward your mind by finding pleasure in being mindful of your body and in letting go of distraction. This relates to the Smile part of the GOSS Formula: Ground --> Observe --> Soften --> Smile.

You will then have all the tools you need to train your attention and to weaken hindrances such as thinking and habitual wandering.

Ground aligns with developing the first Enlightenment Factor: Mindfulness. When mindfulness of your body persists, it is known as mindful presence. An Enlightenment Factor is a mental quality that is present in a mind that is free from feelings of attraction or aversion. Ground means to be mindfully aware of your body as a reference point to your present experience (what is happening now). Having a reference point to your present experience is necessary for training your mind in the skills of calm and insight. Since your mind can travel between the past, present, and future, and your body's experience is always here and now, being mindful of your body grounds your awareness.

Try this meditation exercise:

Read and remember these simple instructions.

1. Sit comfortably and close your eyes.
2. Place your hands in your lap and touch your thumbs lightly together.
3. Become aware of:

• the warmth of your hands. 
• the pressure of your hands.
• The touch of your thumbs.

Notice how the simple act of being aware of these experiences keeps your mind present and temporarily withdraws it from thinking, planning, and remembering. When you first do this the gaps in thinking will be small, but with practice the stillness in the space in these gaps will grow.

Observing is aligned with developing the second Enlightenment Factor: curiosity. Observing means being curious about noticing whenever your attention wanders from being mindfully aware of your body.

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Seeing the Autonomous Nature.

It happened by itself! By observing your mind's wanderings and your relationship to distraction, you will begin to see the autonomous nature of those wanderings. By observing how many experiences within our body and mind happen autonomously, we can let go of identification and control of these experiences, which develops freedom in the heart and mind.

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Observing when Your Mind Wanders is Passive.

Strangely enough, noticing that your mind has wandered during meditation is also passive. Whenever you notice that you have been lost within a thought or fantasy, mindfulness returned by itself. Literally, your mind remembered itself. You can increase the speed at which mindfulness returns by finding pleasure in relaxing and letting. It is that simple.

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You can observe habitual wanderings of your mind when you notice:

1. That you have been distracted by thoughts or memories.
2. That you have been distracted by a sound or music.
3. That you have been distracted by an itch or pain in your body.
4. That you have been distracted by a reaction within your body.
5. When you notice how your mindfulness comes & goes by itself.

What is most important is not where your mind wandered to, but rather noticing that the wandering itself happened by itself. This is a strange yet freeing insight.

 Soften is aligned with developing the third Enlightenment Factor: Balanced Effort. Soften means to notice held effort within your mind & body due to wanting or not wanting, and gently relaxing that effort while feeling the subtle pleasure and relief of letting go. This pleasure is important because it rewards your mind for letting go. By learning to feel the subtle pleasure of letting go and enjoying it, you will weaken the attraction or aversion within your mind.

• Softening is aligned with developing the third Enlightenment Factor: Balanced Effort.

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Finding your reset button.

Softening and releasing effort within your mind by relaxing it, can be considered a reset button for the mind because it relaxes the grip of your mind's attention. It is important to understand that habitual patterns within your mind are self-sustaining. Literally, your mind practices itself, practicing different aspects of your personality every day. 

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Softening & relaxing effort is active.

While being mindful of your body (ground) and noticing when your attention wanders from your body (observe) is passive, mentally and physically relaxing, the effort that supports that wandering (softening) is active and something that you do. When you notice that your mind has wandered during meditation (or in daily life), rejoice in that noticing, and with gentle breaths, soften/relax effort within your body and mind, feeling the pleasure of letting everything go. As you do this, you may notice that you become very aware and mindful of your body again. Awareness is once again grounded within your body to start again. See how simple this is?

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Softening effort does two things:

1. It creates a gap in your mind's ability to practice itself.
2. It rewards your mind with the pleasure of letting go found in that gap.

Softening the grip of your mind's focus on a particular feeling, thought, emotion etc. creates a temporary gap in the habitual cycle. Inclining your mind towards the available pleasure of that softening, of that letting go, increases the gap in the habitual pattern while at the same time rewarding your mind for letting go.

Smile means to smile with your eyes into the pleasurable experience of letting go, bringing it into your mind as the joy and happiness of letting go. Smile is aligned with developing the fourth Enlightenment Factor: Meditative Joy. The pleasure of letting go is always available whenever you soften/relax effort within your body & mind. The very act of softening/relaxing effort feels good within your body, breathing and mind. 

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Reward your mind with pleasure.

To reward your mind for letting go, gently smile into your eyes, then bring it to the pleasure of letting go and allowing it to enter your mind. Smiling with our eyes is something that we all do naturally when we are connecting with someone we care about. Smiling into our eyes in a relaxed way opens our hearts, making us more open to what we are experiencing and more likely to respond with acceptance, contentment, letting go, etc. 

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This pleasure of letting go is always available.

This pleasure is the pleasure of putting down a burden, of not having to do something anymore, as one meditator described: the pleasure of relief. Picture yourself walking around picking up rocks everywhere you go. Gradually, the weight of these rocks increases until you become exhausted from carrying them.

Imagine if someone told you that you no longer need to pick up or carry rocks. You can just cast them aside and not concern yourself with them anymore. Imagine the feeling of freedom and relief that comes from not having to do this anymore. As a meditator, you will begin to observe how your mind is constantly picking up rocks and desperately holding onto them, believing they actually have value. I am saying now, can't you feel the weight and effort it takes to carry your problems? Can you see that they have no value? Cast them aside and feel the pleasure and freedom available now. This is softening.

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Smiling and enjoying your experience is active.

As you relax, letting go of effort to think, to worry, and become more mindful of your body you will begin to notice that it has one important characteristic: it feels nice. It is this: "it feels nice to let go" that is most important here because this is what you use to reward your mind for letting go. Smile with your eyes into the pleasure of letting go to reward your mind.

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How to smile with your eyes

Smiling with your eyes means to relax the muscles around your eyes and to smile like you would towards a loved one. In the way you would when you want them to know how much you care. If you observe people smiling at a baby, their child or someone they really care about, a large part of their smile is made by relaxing the area around their eyes. 

Smiling with our eyes is intimate. It makes us vulnerable. It opens empathy within our minds and allows us to feel what the other person is feeling. With empathy and intimacy within your smile, your mind will take in the pleasure of letting go and fill it with the happiness and joy of letting go. This is experienced as an increasing of the light of awareness, as a warm and comforting blanket within the mind, as safety and contentment.

A Dhamma talk by Stephen Procter on the GOSS Formula is available to watch on YouTube:

• How to Develop Skill in Letting Go: GOSS 

Question: I am on meditation 01, retraining breathing...

Stephen: I think some of the confusion is in regard to the purpose of Meditation Skill 01. Breathing pattern retraining is a prerequisite before beginning Meditation 01 if the meditator is experiencing anxiety. In this case retraining their stress breathing patterns will improve their ability to relax physically and mentally.

Question: Do I have to do Goss before doing the diaphragm breathing?

Stephen: You do not need to do GOSS before doing diaphragmatic breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing in Meditation 01 is actually training to learn how to do GOSS.

Question: If yes, for how long I should do GOSS before beginning the belly breath

GOSS is not used for diaphragmatic breathing but rather as a skillful way of working with distractions or hindrances in meditation that rewards your mind for letting go of them. If there are no distractions, you do not need to follow the GOSS Formula. In Meditations 01 - 04, you learn the skills necessary for the GOSS Formula. GOSS is not used in Meditations 01 or 02 and begins in Meditation 03: Mindful Presence.

Meditations 01-04 & the GOSS Formula

• Meditation 01: Body Relaxation is concerned with learning how to physically relax and enjoy the pleasure of it. This is an introduction to the third part of GOSS: Ground > observe > soften > smile.

• Meditation 02: Mind Relaxation is concerned with learning how to mentally relax and enjoy the pleasure of it. This is also an introduction to the third part of GOSS: Ground > observe > soften > smile.

• Meditation 03: Mindful Presence is the maturity of Meditations 01 & 02 where we become very mindful of our body. This is an introduction to the first & second part of GOSS: Ground > observe > soften > smile. Now that you are mindful of your body (grounded) you can use your skills learnt in Meditations 01 & 02 to soften/relax any time that you observe that your attention wanders from your body.

• Meditation 04: Joyful Presence is the maturity of Meditations 01-03 where you begin to enjoy and find happiness in the developing mindful presence of your body. This is an introduction to the fourth part of GOSS: Ground > observe > soften > smile and uses the pleasure of relaxing/letting go to reward your mind for coming back to being aware of your body, when your attention wanders.

Question: I've been reading some of the lessons on the website. I'm having trouble with the "smile" part of GOSS. I don't really know how to smile with my eyes and I feel like I have to exert effort to do so. Could you help with this?

Stephen: Smiling with your eyes cannot be forced, it has to be based on letting go of and relaxing effort. It needs to come from your heart, not from your intellect.

Let's smile with our eyes now.

First allow your eyelids to relax like you are falling asleep, and then relax the muscles underneath your eyes. Allow your awareness to rest within that relaxation, to relax into the feeling of it, gently surrounding it with slightly raised cheeks.

When we do this the area of our face relaxes and a happy feeling comes from the inside and radiates out. You can see this in others when you look into their eyes, and they are smiling back.

With practice the feeling of happiness grows that is created by smiling with our eyes. This is experienced as an increasing light within the mind between the eyes, accompanied by a warm happy feeling.

When directed at the pleasure of letting go, the mind absorbs the pleasure of letting go through empathy and converts it from happiness to the joy of letting go.

It is important to note that you cannot make this smile happen, it has to come from the place of letting someone know that you want to connect with them; letting them know that you really care.

When we smile with our eyes in meditation, we do so offering gentleness, kindness and love to our present experience.

It has to come from a place of love, gentleness and letting go.

If the smile is not accessible to you that is ok, keep investigating what it means to feel the pleasure of relaxing, of softening, of letting go in your body and mind.

Applying the first S in the GOSS Formula is enough at this time.

As the pleasure of relaxing/letting go develops you may find that the smile naturally occurs by itself.