The Bliss Of Liberation

The other day I was talking with a new co-worker about drugs. I got around to telling some of the story of my old days, when a lid went for $15, and a couple guys could roll a joint and get high. It wasn't the one-toke wonder hybrid stuff of these days where an ounce cost $300.
I told him the story of my attendance at a J. Geils band concert where I had consumed a Quaalude. I recall it was a big monster of a pill, and it took me and three other guys with jackhammers to make it ingestible. Basically, it made me rubber. I could hear just fine, but my muscles didn't want to work. So I flopped over in my seat and literally listened to the show, since I couldn't hold my head up and hence had nothing of a view except the floor. I never bothered with Quaalude again, nor downers in general.
But it got me to thinking about how many guys just around where I live get stoned during lunch. I have to think that they need this disconnect, because supposedly pot is non-addictive. Are they that unable or unhappy in their current states of their lives that they need an artificial state of mind by noon?
And that took me to what an alternative is: the bliss of liberation. So let's look at just what that is.

Obviously, bliss is the outcome of liberation. But liberation from what? Liberation in this case is the liberation from the obscurations of the mind, those ignorance's which keep us from understanding our true nature and the nature of true reality, those ingrained habituation's that keep us suffering. That's what we are liberated from.
In the Short Meditation On The Graduated Path To Enlightenment, found in Kathleen MacDonald's book titled How To Meditate, there is a stanza that makes this same opposition:

"Please grant me blessings to understand
that there is no satisfaction in
enjoying samsaric (the state of non-liberation) pleasures
and that their shortcoming is that they cannot be trusted.
May I (instead) strive intently for the bliss of liberation.
Please bless me to cultivate this wish."
I added the parenthetical statements to clarify.
Moving On! So instead of seeking that buzz, that escape from my own pain and/or feelings, I can strive intently for the bliss of liberation. So how is this accomplished, and just what is this bliss?
If one finishes the above mentioned piece in MacDonald's rather good book, you will find that liberation is accomplished, or at least begun, in the act of sitting meditation, and more formally the beginning of tranquility and insight meditation. Other activities like reading sutras and texts, and then ruminating on their meanings are helpful as well. But without the actual practice of sitting meditation, no liberation or bliss will occur. That's my take on it anyway, for the time being.
And this sitting practice brings results in steps, as one actually responds to what is discovered in meditation. So the bliss that results is relative to the liberation that happens. However, it does happen. But what is it? How do you know if you have it?
First, let's dispel the illusion that it's instant ecstasy, or euphoria. It's rarely instant at all, and hardly ever until it reaches the completion stage is it ecstasy. Rather, to begin with, it's a growing sense of happiness with who you are, and with your life in general. Also it's a sense of contentment. That's an important realization. Being content doesn't mean you don't dream anymore, or have ambition. It's more, at least in my experience, of a letting go of ego satisfaction, of detachment from needing material things and their possible meaning to the value of my life. In other words, I've discovered that all my answers about me are already in me. I don't need anything outside of me to find that, to define me. In fact, my dreams are inside me, my detached ambitions are inside me, and all the answers to what and who I am are inside me. The more I look in, the more I respond to the uncovering of ingrained habituations that trap me, also known as "kleshas," or as Pema Chodron might say, the garbage or shit in my mind, the more I will be liberated, and content, happy, and peaceful.
Interestingly, the etymology of bliss has to do with an old term(P.Gmc) that means "gentle, kind." I consider this a valuable insight. As I uncover klesha in my mind, I have two ways to react. Shame is one, and disgust, and then hiding the klesha under the rug. Pema Chodron's advice has been to make friends with it. Be gentle and kind to it, and that transforms the klesha into virtue. Maybe we could use the analogy of compost, turning garbage into something useful. By that act of being kind to an ugly part of myself, I begin to live in a state of gentleness, of kindness, and perhaps that really is what bliss is all about.

Bliss, this state of contented, happy, gentle, peacefulness is the outcome of an active and responsible practice of sitting meditation. As the text states, it is the adverse of the trusting of the enjoyment of sense pleasures as the source of happiness, which has been compared to drinking salt water.Our option is to exert ourselves with vigor with the intention of achieving this bliss. Then we'll really know what it means to be high.

Wishing

I wonder if Buddhists, at least American Buddhists who likely come into Buddhism having emerged from a religion previously experienced, carry into it a form of asceticism. That form of fake humility that thinks sacrifice is noble. Not that sacrifice isn't, but not all of it is.

I was ruminating this morning, as I am wont to do, on some verses in the Heart Sutra. I ran across this line:

"Wishing: in gladness and safety, may all beings be at ease."

That one word "wishing" say a lot. It means to long for, to desire. Which I think is something that people might tend to think we shouldn't be doing. I'll get to the text in a minute, but i want to focus on this word, because we need to be free in regards to it. We need to allow our desire and longing to be free.

I have been taking in the content of The Secret lately. I have also been reading Wayne Dyer's materials on intention. Both of them require that one desires. Particularly in The Secret, they emphasize worldly possessions as something to be desired. Meaning, we are free to do so. I think that most Buddhists of the American stripe might say that these types of desires would lead one into materialism, and they might, regardless of the religious system or beliefs one holds.

I also make it a habit to read my schools supplication to it's masters. One of those verses says the following:

"Revulsion is the foot of meditation, as is taught.
To this meditator who is not attached to food and wealth,
who cuts the ties to this life,
grant your blessings so I have no desire for honor and gain.

It seems like I have already contradicted myself, but I don't think I have, and I'll tell you why. Note the overall context that the last line appears in. The two important words are "attached," and "ties." That is the crux of the problem when it comes to functioning in the material world, the apparent reality. So the term desire has to be seen in that context of attachment and ties. So does that mean that if there is no attachment or tie, that there is no desire? I don't believe so. How else would one explain the works of various monks like Thich Nhat Hanh, Sogyal Rinpoche, and Trungpa Rinpoche who open retreat centers and other kinds of facilities the world over? What drives their vision? A lack of desire? I don't think so. I think it's an unattached desire.
Think about it, and we'll move on to the rest of our text.

Now the text I have has a colon after the word "wishing." I'm not certain that is in any original text, though i wouldn't bet against that. I have great respect for the accuracy that Buddhists maintain in transmitting their teaching, and translating them from their original languages into English. Even so, what I am trying to point out is this: look at he the first phrase as if the colon wasn't there. "Wishing in gladness and safety...."

That means to me that the wisher needs to be in a state of gladness and safety. Or maybe I should say, that is an option to strongly consider. Why? Because it is obvious if you spend any time pursuing the teaching of the Buddha, that it is apparent that you cannot give something to someone you don't have yourself. Which means that if I want others to be glad and safe, I must see to it that I am that way first, so I can show them how it is done. It brings us back to the old proverb, "Give a man a fish, and he eats a meal. Teach him to fish, and he eats for a lifetime." What is necessary is that I know how to fish to teach another person how to do it. Which returns us to wishing. I need to wish for that gladness and safety, and learn to live in that state.

"...may all beings be at ease." Ah, the fruit of our wishing. This also lets us know if that gladness and safety we think we have is genuine or not. If we aren't at ease, it isn't. The opposite of ease, is of course, dis-ease. No pun intended either. Most Buddhists would affirm that dis-ease in the body came from dis-ease in the mind first. Which is the crux of The Secret. "As a man thinks, so he is." I like the scope of this verse: "all beings."

The rest of the sutra pretty much describes what that means, so i won't elaborate that here. I'll just say that if we want a real exercise in where we are at in our path, just start with your family members and co-workers. Do you want, really long for,and desire, that all your family and colleagues be at ease? or are there some you don't care about either way? Maybe even some you think should pay some form of penalty or suffering for their weird dysfunctions which you and I of course don't share? Well, then obviously we aren't totally in a place of gladness are we? Or safety, because we are harboring to some degree, dis-ease in our mind. Don't be down though, because we all go through this. Realizing this is evidence that the wheel of the dharma is turning inside you. And that is very good.

So let's recap. It's okay to wish. We want to wish free from attachment, which also means detaching from family and co-workers. We should investigate our own gladness and safety, and as we gradually establish ourselves in it, we can then extend that wish to others, with the result that we all are at ease.