Here is a rather lengthy excerpt from his chapter on the
question of Freedom (If not now, maybe you can find some time later to read and
reflect on his wise counsel):
What is
freedom?
Is true
freedom possible?
How can I be
free?
Do I have
free will and freedom of choice?
Can there
be freedom without bondage?
Growing up
in American, we are constantly bombarded by the claim that American is the Land
of the Free. Here in America we proclaim the inalienable rights for “Freedom
from Tyranny,” “Freedom to Vote,” “Sexual Freedom,” “Freedom of the Press,”
“Freedom of the Marketplace,” “Freedom of Self Governance,” “Freedom of
Equality,” “Freedom of Religion,” and “Freedom to be Happy.” Of all these
Freedoms, the “Freedom to be Happy” has always been the most perplexing to me.
For amidst all the other Freedoms, the “Free to be Happy” was the most
illusive. While all the other Freedoms pertain to our external relationship
with others in society, this last one, “Freedom to be Happy” is uniquely
personal and internal.
When I was
young and separating from my Iowa home, one of the Freedoms I most valued was
the freedom to leave my home and travel the world. I was free to explore the
world’s cultures, ways of life, and religions. As a hitchhiker through Europe,
Africa, and Asia I was picked up by an extraordinary variety of people, rich
and poor, who took me to their homes so I could experience their lives. In my
brief stint with civil rights movement in Alabama and Mississippi I came in contact
with Freedom Fighters who struggled for political, economic, and social
equality. As a film-maker I documented the religions of Asia and the effects of
religion on the lives of ordinary people. As a photographer I documented the
war in Viet Nam. As a Buddhist scholar and practitioner, I lived in India among
the impoverished refugees from Tibet.
One of the
most striking conclusions of all these experiences is that there is no direct
correlation between external freedom and economic circumstance and internal
happiness. I have witnessed people in pain and poverty with no apparent
economic, political, and social freedom who have inner lives of peace,
contentment, and empathy. Happiness I discovered, is the result of inner
freedom from the causes that bind and imprison us. This fact doesn’t alleviate
the need and responsibility to struggle for the other external freedoms. But in
our struggles, we need to be cognizant that inner freedom and happiness does
not automatically arise just because we experience the external freedoms.
I first
heard this message from an unlikely source. It happened as I was headed to Viet
Nam to experience and document the war as a free-lance photographer.
Ironically, America’s rationale for the oppressive war was to liberate the
Vietnamese people from the threat of Communism. I had landed in Bangkok,
Thailand where I was waiting for a flight to Saigon the next day and free to
wander the streets and clubs that night.
It was in
one of these clubs that I met a couple of young Thai women who invited me to
join them on the dance floor and of course being a young red-blooded American
man I obliged. After about an hour, one of them asked me if I would like to go
home with her. I had heard about the rampant prostitution in Bangkok that was
so popular among tourists and soldiers and I frankly wasn’t interested in that.
But as I was about the decline her offer, she said, “I am not a prostitute. I
was married to an American soldier who was killed in Viet Nam and I would just
like your company.” With that I agreed and off we went to her apartment near
by.
In the
morning, after a lovely night together, she told me that her father was on his
way over for breakfast. With that I offered that it was time for me to go, but
she begged me to stay saying it is important for me to meet him. So we sat
together in the kitchen savoring a cup of tea waiting his arrival. Within a few
minutes, we heard a gentle knock at the door and in walked a diminutive
Buddhist monk who was her father that she wanted me to meet. He was so warm and
friendly that I was immediately at ease in his company. His questions to me
were translated by his daughter, and soon I was asking him questions about
Buddhism.
So it was
under these circumstances in that small Bangkok kitchen that I received my
first teachings on Buddhism about how we can achieve Freedom. He explained to
me that material things and sensual experiences cannot make me happy that my
happiness and freedom must come from within. “So long as we believe happiness
will come from outside, we will be unhappy,” he said. Then he told me about the
Four Noble Truths which encapsulate all the Buddha’s teachings. These are: (1)
All beings are in a state of suffering; (2) Our suffering is caused by our
ignorance, desire, and anger; (3) Freedom from suffering is possible; (4)
Buddhist practices can eliminate these internal causes of suffering and enable
us to be free.
I must
admit that as a healthy young man who had just enjoyed an unexpectedly
wonderful night with his daughter, that these teachings presented quite a
challenge. But I revered this simple monk and his wisdom. Somehow, deep inside
me I knew they were true, but I wasn’t quite ready to give up my illusion of
happiness. Over the following years, his wisdom continued to work within me and
once I learned enough from a plethora of material and sensual experiences that were
fun but not the source of happiness, I increasingly became drawn to the
Buddhist perspective. I began searching the world’s religions for my own inner
path to happiness.
The
process for internal freedom begins with knowledge that our “self” is not a
permanent independent unit that is separate from others. This “selfless”
knowledge is both understood intellectually and experienced meditatively. It is
the truth of our inter-dependence with all other beings and the environment in
which we live. It is the truth of universal reciprocity between all forms of
life. It is a genuine empathy for others, knowing that our well-being is
intertwined with
theirs.
If our
sensual and materialistic activities are tempered by this knowledge and
experience of inter-dependence and empathy, then we don’t engage in the objects
of our desire with the expectation that they will cause our lasting happiness.
This knowledge in turn lessens our desire, craving, grasping, and dependence on
external stimulation for internal well-being. For the external causes of
happiness are fleeting and impermanent. If our happiness is imprisoned by
these, we can never be free.
I have
found meditation to be an important tool in the happiness process and I have
adapted a classical Buddhist technique for this purpose. The underlying
assumption, of course, is that our minds have the natural capacity to be in a
state of peace, tranquility, and equanimity when the causes of unhappiness have
been healed and removed. Sometimes, my meditation on emptiness and inter-dependence
focuses on the actual unhappy emotion I am feeling. Through this meditation,
the negative emotion is transformed into feeling of equanimity and contentment.
This meditation can be practiced at any time and in any place.
I begin by
simply being mindful of the unhappy feeling. I objectively observe it without
passing judgment on it. Rather than allowing it to compound and grow, I observe
how this emotion is effecting my body through my stomach, head, neck, or back
and notice how this single unhappy emotion can set off a chain of reactions
including pain, stress, anger, and depression. Then I put this unhappy emotion
under my mental microscope to discover what it is made up of and what caused
it. For example, it might arise from my fear of too little money to support me
in my old age. It might be the result of my unfulfilled desire for a female
partner, a soul mate, to accompany me through the next phase in my life. It
might arise from my worry about my children and other family members. Without
judging or rejecting this emotion I examine what caused it and I realize that
it is my unrealistic expectation that financial security, a relationship, or
the well-being of my family will be the sole cause of my happiness.
Then, in
the case of a desire for relationship, I realize that this hope it clouded by
my own past relations with other women, including my mother. Because of these,
I projecting my ideals of a perfect soul mate onto a woman whose body and
personality resonate with an archetypal “soul mate image” in my own
subconscious mind. Then I remember that my projected archetypal image of that
person will come into conflict with the actual personality of any woman that I
meet. When I fail to meet someone who matches this archetypal image, or when a
particular woman fails to fulfill my projections, I will become unhappy and
might treat that person unkindly. I then realize how this whole chain of
unhappy emotional and physiological events started with my false assumption
that a relationship with someone could be the cause of my happiness. I conclude
that a relationship in and of itself cannot be the caused of my happiness,
especially if it is solely predicated on my own selfish needs and projections.
From a
Buddhist perspective, I meditate on the impermanence of relationships and how
they are empty of the inherent capacity to create happiness. I empty myself of
the false projections I have unconsciously formed about potential partners. I
remind myself of the inter-dependence of all things and that my well-being is
dependent on the well-being of others with whom I am in relationship.
To recap,
my antidote to an negative emotion is the following: 1. Objectively and
dispassionately observe the negative emotion. 2. Focus my attention on my
breathing to pacify the secondary mental and physiological effects of this
emotion. The breathing will create a gap between the stimulus of desire and my
response to it. It is in this gap that I can… 3. Examine the cause of the
unhappy emotion and see that it is my own unrealistic expectation that another
person can make me happy. 4. Remind myself that no external thing, sensation,
or relationship can cause me to be happy. 5. Focus on the impermanence and
emptiness of my desires, projections, and the unhappiness they create. This,
along with the breathing, and allows the effects of emotion to dissipate. 6.
Experience the mental equanimity that arises from gentle breathing and from
pacifying a desire based on false expectations. 7. Allow the natural state of
equanimity, contentment, peace and happiness to rise up and enjoyed that
feeling within me. 8. Remind myself that even this equanimity is
inter-dependent and refrain from attachment to it. 9. Replace the unhappy
emotion with a compassionate intention for the happiness of the person on whom
I projected false expectations.
In this
way, every unhappy emotion can become an object of meditation and can be healed
thus allowing our natural state of happiness to emerge. Gradually, Buddhist
meditations can replace external desire with internal contentment. This
meditation does not negate the importance for compassionate engagement with
each and every person. But it quells the self-centered projections that create
unhappiness when others fail to live up to our false expectations.
This type
of meditation can be practiced on all negative emotions like greed, jealousy, anger,
hatred, that arise from unhealthy desire and attachment for money, possessions,
and relationships. When we apply this meditation successfully, our mind is
released from the suffering of desire and can reside in a natural state of
happiness and internal freedom from the vicissitudes of unrealistic and
unhealthy desires.
