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Free at Last

July 13, 1958; May 11, 1957; October 12, 1957

When the heart is a slave to its moods and defilements—greed, aversion, and delusion—it ‘s like being a slave to poor people, troublemakers, and crooks, all of whom are people we shouldn’t be enslaved to. The ‘poor people’ here are greed: hunger, desire, never having enough. This feeling of ‘not enough’ is what it means to be poor.

As for aversion, this doesn’t necessarily mean out-and-out anger. It also means being grumpy or in a bad mood. If anyone annoys us or does something displeasing, we get irritated and resentful. This is called being a slave to troublemakers.

Delusion means seeing good as evil or evil as good, right as wrong or wrong as right, thinking you’re good when you’re evil, or evil when you’re good. This is called being a slave to crooks.

But if the mind becomes a slave to goodness, this is called being a slave to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, in which case we’re well-off because the Buddha is a kind person. He won’t make us work all hours of the day and instead will allow us time to rest and find peace of mind.

But still, as long as we’re slaves, we can’t say that it’s really good, because slaves have no freedom. They still have a price on their heads. Only when we gain release from slavery can we be fully free and happy. So for this reason, be diligent in your work: Meditate a lot every day. You’ll profit from it, get to buy yourself out of slavery to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, and gain Liberation. Don’t let there be anyone at all over you giving you orders. That’s when it’s really ideal.

*     *     *

Actually, the Buddha never meant for us to take as our mainstay anything or anyone else aside from ourselves. Even when we take refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, he never praised it as being really ideal. He wanted us to take ourselves as our refuge. ‘The self is its own mainstay:’ We don’t have to take our authority from anyone else. We can depend on ourselves and govern ourselves. We’re free and don’t have to fall back on anyone else. When we can reach this state, that ‘s when we’ll be released from slavery—and truly happy.

When we’re slaves to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, we’re told to be generous, to observe the precepts and to practice meditation—all of which are things that will give rise to inner worth within us. In being generous, we have to suffer and work because of the effort involved in finding wealth and material goods that we then give away as donations. In observing the precepts, we have to forgo the words and deeds we would ordinarily feel like saying or doing. Both of these activities are ways in which we benefit others more than ourselves. But when we practice meditation, we sacrifice inner objects—unskillful thoughts and mental states—and make our minds solid, sovereign, and pure.

This is called paying homage to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha through the practice—which the Buddha praised as better than paying homage with material objects. Even though the Buddha would have benefited personally from the homage shown with material objects, he never praised it as being better than homage shown through the practice, which gives all its benefits to the person who pays the homage. This was the sort of homage that pleased the Buddha, because the practice of training the heart to reach purity is the way by which a person can gain release from all suffering and stress. The Buddha had the kindness and compassion to want to help living beings gain freedom from all forms of suffering, which is why he taught us to meditate, so that we can free our hearts from their slavery to the defilements of the world.

When we become slaves to the religion—to the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha—we’re still not released from suffering as long as our minds still have worries and concerns. Being a slave to our concerns is like being in debt to them. When we’re in debt, we have no real freedom in our hearts. Only when we can find the money to pay off our debts can we be happy, free, and at ease. The more we pay off our debts, the more light-hearted we’ll feel. In the same way, if we can let go of our various worries and cares, peace will arise in our hearts. We’ll be released from our slavery to craving and defilement, and will find happiness because peace is what brings release from suffering. This is why the Buddha taught us to center our hearts in concentration so as to give rise to stillness, peace, and the inner wealth with which we’ll be able to pay off all of our debts. That’s when we’ll attain happiness and ease. All our burdens and sufferings will fall away from our hearts and we’ll enter full freedom.

*     *     *

The mind has two kinds of thoughts, skillful and unskillful. Unskillful thoughts are when the mind thinks in ways that are bad—with greed, anger or delusion—about things either past or future. When this happens, the mind is said to be a slave to defilement. As for skillful thoughts, they deal in good and worthwhile ways with things future or past. We have to try to let go of both these kinds of thoughts so that they don’t exist in the mind if we want to gain release from our slavery.

*     *     *

If we want to buy ourselves completely out of slavery, we have to farm our four acres so that they bear abundant fruit. In other words, we have to develop the body’s four properties—earth, water, fire, and wind—to a point of fullness by practicing meditation and using pure breath sensations to soothe and nourish every part of the body. When the mind is pure and the body soothed, it’s like our farm’s having plenty of rain and ground water to nourish our crops. I.e., our concentration is solid and enters the first stage of absorption, with its five factors: directed thought, evaluation, rapture, pleasure, and singleness-of-preoccupation. Directed thought is like harrowing our soil. Evaluation is like plowing and scattering the seed. Rapture is when our crops begin to bud, pleasure is when their flowers bloom, and singleness-of-preoccupation is when the fruits develop until they’re ripened and sweet—and at the same time, their seeds contain all their ancestry. What this means is that in each seed is another plant complete with branches, flowers and leaves. If anyone plants the seed, it will break out into another plant just like the one it came from.

In the same way, when we center the mind to the point of absorption, we can gain insight into our past—maybe even back through many lifetimes—good and bad, happy and sad. This insight will cause us to feel dismay and dispassion, and to lose taste for all states of being and birth. The mind will let go of its attachments to self, to mental and physical phenomena, and to all thoughts and concepts—past and future, good and bad. It will enter a state of neutral equanimity. If we then work at developing it further, we’ll be able to cut away more and more of our states of being and birth. When the mind gains change-of-lineage knowledge, which passes from the mundane over into the transcendent, it will see what dies and what doesn’t. It will blossom as buddho—the awareness that knows no cessation—bright in its seclusion from thoughts and burdens, from mental effluents and preoccupations. When we practice in this way, we’ll come to the reality of birthlessness and deathlessness—the highest happiness—and on into Liberation.

This is how we repay all our debts without the least bit remaining. As the texts say, ‘In release, there is the knowledge, “Released. Birth is no more, the holy life is fulfilled, the task done.”’

For this reason, we should be intent on cleansing and polishing our hearts so that they can gain release from their worries and preoccupations, which are the source of pain and discontent. Peace, coolness, and a bright happiness will arise within us, in the same way as when we unshackle ourselves from our encumbering burdens and debts. We’ll be free—beyond the reach of all suffering and stress.