August 06, 2026

The Laughter Of Letting Go

Since everything is but an apparition, perfect in being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter.

Longchenpa was the great fourteenth-century synthesizer of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection teachings of the Nyingma school, composing many of his major works while living in remote mountain retreats after fleeing political upheaval in central Tibet. In this passage he describes how every appearance, thought, and circumstance arises like an apparition: vivid and functional, yet without any fixed essence to grasp or reject. Because nothing is ultimately solid, he says the fitting response is not grim renunciation but spontaneous laughter, a lightness born from seeing clearly. Eastern wisdom traditions, from Dzogchen to early Buddhism, teach non-attachment not as indifference but as full engagement without the added burden of demanding that things be other than they are. The practice is to feel everything fully - plans, people, outcomes - while loosening the grip that insists on one particular result.

A principle of Eastern Wisdom: Non-Attachment →