Love Neverending

The Last Knit-Lesson of “Letting Go”

I would like to share with you a remarkable short film – “The Last Knit.”
It was produced in Finland in 2005. Even though there is no dialogue in the film, it carries a deep and profound message. I call it the lesson of “letting go.”

The film starts with a woman who appears to be at a comfortable stage in her life.  The woman sits down on a chair and starts to knit a beautiful, colorful scarf. The scarf represents the power, fame and money that she is determined to achieve in life. As time passes, the more she accomplishes, the more ambitious she becomes. It would be easy for her to pick up her scissors to cut the string and stop knitting, but she pushes the scissors away from her. Being blinded by her obsession for achieving more, she continues to knit. By now, the scarf is so long that it has gone over the edge of a cliff. But the woman fails to realize that she herself is in danger of falling off that cliff because she is “attached” to the scarf.

As she races to knit more and more, she ends up running out of material. Still, she is reluctant to let go.  She risks her life by substituting her own hair for the yarn. Unable to stop knitting, she falls off the cliff. She finally realizes that she has to stop and let go so that she can survive. She then saves herself by using her own teeth to cut herself off from the scarf and free herself from this fatal situation.

Once she learns this valuable lesson, she quickly lets go of her knitting sticks and begins to treasure scissors. She understands that by using scissors wisely to cut off and let go of greed, she can have a new and better life.

Indeed, we can stop suffering by learning the lesson of letting go. By letting go, we can free ourselves from bondage and restriction. Our life can then be like a kite that flies high into the sky once it is released.