If the idea of total freedom captures your imagination, then the difficulties in your mind right now start looming smaller and smaller as you stick with the path.

"Total freedom. Indescribable and undefined. That’s what this practice is all about. If the idea of total freedom captures your imagination, then the difficulties get smaller and smaller. Even though they may be large in your mind right now, they start looming smaller and smaller as you stick with the path.

The Buddha once said that if you could make a deal that every day for 100 years you’d be speared with 100 spears in the morning, 100 spears at noon, 100 spears in the evening — 300 spear-wounds every day — but with a guarantee that in 100 years you’d gain full Awakening, that would be a deal worth taking. When the Awakening came, you wouldn’t consider that it had been gained with difficulty.

It’s up to you to decide whether you find that passage intriguing. Then again, you can look at the alternative: what life is like if you don’t."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Freedom Undefined" (Meditations3)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You treat the world knowing it will die, but the quality of your mind as something that doesn't die

"This path does offer a way out. In the meantime, you’re not harming anybody and you’re providing yourself with definite wealth, definite strength, definite treasures — as we often say in Thailand — that last beyond death. In other words, you treat the world around you in full knowledge that it’s going to die, but you treat the quality of your mind as something that doesn’t die. That’s what gives honor to what you’re doing. It’s what makes this a noble path." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Living Honorably" (Meditations8)
Read more

Think about the Buddha and his quest for awakening. His teachers taught him the dimension of nothingness and the dimension of neither perception or non-perception — very refined attainments. But he had a clear idea of where he wanted to go. He wanted the deathless.

"Again, think about the Buddha and his quest for awakening. His teachers taught him the dimension of nothingness and the dimension of neither perception or non-perception — very refined attainments. But he had a clear idea of where he wanted to go. He wanted the deathless, and he could see that neither of these were deathless. When he saw that these weren’t what he wanted, he moved on. If he hadn’t been clear about his goal, he might have been waylaid. After all, they offered him the position of teacher, but he didn’t want to teach unless he had something that was really of value to teach, something outside of the ordinary. So he was clear about his intention, and as a result he was able to succeed in the path. That’s how he got to the point where he didn’t have to be anybody and didn’t have to go anywhere. But you get to that point by being somebody and going someplace. So as long as you’re on the path, remember that this is a path, it’s not a place to lie down. If you lie down o...
Read more

Wise about Pleasure (extract)

"The Buddha was not down on pleasure, it’s simply that he was a real connoisseur. He said, "Why settle for second best when there’s best? And it’s available.” Now, we may decide that it seems awfully far away, and that we’re going to starve in the meantime unless we get the pleasures we want. But that’s taking the wrong attitude toward your pleasures. You can ask yourself, “Which pleasures are conducive to getting to the ultimate, and which ones are going to get in the way?” You focus on encouraging the ones that are conducive, letting go of the ones that’ll get in the way. That’s the real sign of wisdom. After all, the quest for wisdom begins with that question, "What when I do it will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” This applies to how you deal with pleasures, how you deal with pains: pleasures of the senses and pleasures of the practice; pains of the senses, pains of the practice. So you want to be wise about pleasure, wise about your feelings. That way,...
Read more