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.