Sunday, December 19, 2010

true freedom


December 19, 2010; Tricycle Daily Dharma; http://www.tricycle.com/  

What is True Freedom?

"When I look for freedom today I find it not in fantasy or in dreams, but in my sitting practice. What kind of freedom is it that exists in doing nothing? 

It is the freedom not to interfere or react. It is the freedom to merely observe. I don’t have to judge the trauma that arises in mind. I don’t have to get involved with the hundred narratives that might try to occupy my mind during the day. 

In not clinging to thoughts and ideas, wants and desires, hatreds and resentments, the bondages of my most negative thoughts and emotions have faded into a haze that still arises but no longer dominates my life. I have found freedom: it is the freedom of nonattachment, the freedom to not cling and to not resist. It is the freedom to allow myself to be with myself."

- Ananda Baltrunas, "A Prison of Desire"

2 comments:

dod clark said...

I have found a similarish freedom as a result of taking happy pills (Fluoxetine). Like Ananda I have found that “my most negative thoughts and emotions have faded into a haze that still arises but no longer dominates my life.” But perhaps some hazes are more wholesome than others!

second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day said...

I am in bondage. I yearn to be free. I am confused. At least I have taken action about it.