An Opportunity for Freedom

Whenever I think of July 4th, I think of freedom. When I got up this morning I read a bit from Mary Pipher’s excellent new book, “Seeking Peace: Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World”. I was powerfully moved by this sentence: “Religions are metaphorical systems that give us bigger containers in which to hold our lives.” Although I meditate and have read many books on Buddhism, I’m not officially a Buddhist. However, Buddhism has allowed me to explore the idea and the experience of freedom in a way that I hadn’t previously encountered.

True freedom for me is freedom from my obsessive self-castigating thoughts. My mind produces thousands of these thoughts each day. Mindfulness is the larger container that allows me to notice them and not become one with any single one of them. I’m not often successful in remaining unattached to individual thoughts. They are so inviting, with their magnetic pull toward a seemingly stable identity of me as an insufficient, narcissistic and selfish person. In those moments of ego identification with those thoughts I’m steadfastly not cognizant of any of my altruistic and generous thoughts or actions. I hate myself for not living up to my own ideals and even worse for hurting others by my own insistence on any thought or action that could relate to my own well being.

As I wrote that sentence I became aware yet again that I have a mistaken belief that my own well being necessarily hurts others. When I am attached to that thought I am neither free nor operating in a reasonable reality. We all have crazy thoughts like this or others that seem real and reasonable to us in the moment which upon further reflection become ridiculous and extreme. Freedom is dependent upon awareness. Awareness is necessary in order to make choices. When we are not aware of our automatic thoughts and actions we give up a measure of freedom. When we have a bigger container in which to hold our thoughts awareness, at least for me, becomes a bit easier.

Although July 4th and the Declaration of Independence is celebrated here in the United States to commemorate our independence from England 233 years ago, today I am using it as a structure to remind me that who I am is independent of any thought (whether good or bad) that my ego submits to identify me with something that seems to be myself. It is scary to have nothing to hold on to. And yet, somewhere deep in a place beyond words, I can experience a quality of ecstasy knowing that I am nothing (no thing). I am a bigger container than any one thing. And if I can expand my awareness to encompass the biggest container possible, I am everything.

And so I have arrived back at my favorite place: the inherent paradox of life. I am no-thing and every-thing. I am independent, dependent and most assuredly interdependent. I am celebrating my own personal freedom today by consciously choosing “a bigger container.” This container is big enough for me and you and all who live and breathe on this planet. It’s not easy. My thoughts often take up more space than I like but when I live in my heart I know that there is room enough for us all. Happy July 4th!

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This entry was written by Judith Cohen, MCC, CPCC and posted on July 4, 2009 at 12:59 pm and filed under Buddhism, Religion. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.

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