One of my revered meditation teachers, Tiger Singleton, talks about real freedom and our quest to find it. On the surface are all the things we think we want, things we are looking for and things we are afraid of losing. He says we get lost in the appearance of what we think we want and completely miss what we are actually looking for – freedom.
Real freedom is liberation from suffering. Liberation from the aspect that is bound to the world, to conflict, to drama, to that painful sense something is missing, to agitation that consistently finds itself afraid. If only I looked a certain way, I could be free. If only other people would act the way I want, I’d be free. If only I had what I think I need, I’d be free. Always looking outside ourselves for freedom, and in the wild search we are in, we find whatever we come across never satisfies our thirst.
Here is the truth that promises to set you free. If freedom is given from something outside of you then it is your master, and this is not freedom.
There is a real freedom – it doesn’t come from outside – we are so captured by the mind’s content and stories, we think that what we think is happening is real. In the most wild way, it is extraordinarily difficult to discern the difference from the story telling and what is actually happening. What we are seeing is a lie.
My therapist, Adam, is wont to say beauty lies in your truth.
What is true, what is real, is not a product of imagination or of mind (which produces imagination, produces images) – right now in this moment is what is real and in this moment there is a lot of content in the mind. We are fooled into believing our own thinking as if it were real, and here is where you find those chains, the suffering, the perceived prison cell that keeps you from being free – it is not out there in the world – it is being held captive by the mind and its stories.
I am chasing some story about myself, and it looks like I am chasing it in the world – it’s an idea or an imagination of myself. In fact, I am already free so I don’t need you to give me this or be this way, because I’m already free. In order to first be free, I have to let everyone else be free – because the moment I don’t let them be free, I am not free.
Once more for those in the back – the truth will set you free.
We can have a holy shit moment – I am not afraid of the content of my life, only the content in my mind. So much of our human experience is tossed around by fear with the assumption that we are afraid of something that is real. The invitation is to see something profound about the miracle of life you are swimming in – profound about reality – real is what is actually happening beyond what you imagine.
Freedom has a cost. Anytime we don’t feel free is a time we are unwilling to pay the price. In order to be with this freedom, which is the same as saying in order to be with what is real, you have to be willing to surrender and give up what is unreal. (Essentially giving up nothing because it’s unreal, it’s an imaginary cost, but the more you think it is real, the more painful it is to give up.)
You give authority to all the voices that tell you, you can’t be you. You think it is someone else telling you, but it’s not. Welcome to life – it’s called the unknown, and the unknown is what is true. Do you want to be liberated and come home to what is real and true? Or do you want the world to do what you want, so you can have what you want, and in this quest, you ultimately want what is real and true. We crave something real. We crave something present. We crave something loving. We crave something authentic. These are all reflections of what is true. If you pretend to be something someone wants you to be, it is control and power, your soul will starve and you are imprisoned.
We live in opposition to the truth trying to make the thing what we want them to be.
You want to try to organize the world to meet what you want? That’s wild. You think there is a mistake somewhere? Or are you obsessed with who you think you are and trying to get what you think you want in the world, not seeing how ephemeral it all is, not seeing that you already have everything that is real. You were born with it. You will take it with you until your last breath. You are not missing anything that is real.
