Becoming Free

Attain complete emptiness,

Hold fast to stillness. 

Tao Te Ching, #16

When I was young, I dreamed about becoming enlightened, liberated, like Buddha. It seemed that if I “worked hard enough” I would become free. But it was not clear what one would “become free of”. So there was a deep problem. Perhaps, doing more meditation, or living through all the binding non-liberating possibilities, or finding the right teacher, or reading the right book – something would liberate me, then I would be happy and not suffer at all.

The years passed, it become apparent that becoming enlightened is not an event. Some people have spontaneous enlightenment experiences, glimpses that soon fade away. Enlightenment is not an experience. Call it wisdom. Not the wisdom found in books; but, a wisdom that slowly grows within the heart-mind until one day we awaken to a new way of being, living. We discover we where already free – but did not know it!

THE RIVER RUSHES

The river rushes,
The last rains of spring.

A rose bud in my hand
Opens;
Its petals fall to the ground.

This Moment—
A clod of earth
Between my fingers,
Crumbling to dust.

I brush it off,
And reach out
For the next touch.

Springtime
To summer sunlight.

I am that Light;
And I am the dust
Returning to the Earth.

                         Diane Shavelson (~1999)

Fields of dreams

Our lives are like fields of dreams within a luminous empty screen of pure consciousness. Within those dreams come a few thoughts, insights, and realities that are eternal – that are not dreams. Such thoughts are true comfort and wisdom within the uncertainties of life.