Unexpected Freedom

Truly Comfortablemeditation tracks in the walled garden and, instead ofpicking up the sickle by the handle, heedlessly picking it upby the blade; we’d cut our hand. Not only will we haveincreased our suffering, but also now we won’t be able to cutthe grass.The Buddha’s metaphor for picking up the training onrestraint rightly applies especially to the training in celibacy.Making the choice to renounce intentional sexual activity isnot a recipe for an easy life. Buddhist scriptures and ourown European monastic records are filled with stories oftragic misadventure on this path. So our training is alwaysemphasising mindfulness in our efforts to be restrained.Feelings of sexual interest are not to be blindly controlledwith will, nor are they to be dismissed with habitualjudgement as ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ as the case may be. Ratherthey are to be fully received with awareness and sensitivity,as they manifest. They are simply to be known but notfollowed. In this way restraint of the untamed passions isexercised, energy is contained and made available for theprocess of purifying the heart of greed, aversion anddelusion. We are going against our conditioned superficialpreferences, but in a way that leads to freedom, notmore stress.Another Type of ComfortSo the tools of spiritual discipline must be picked up in theright way. The challenges to our preferences need to begrasped with right understanding. If we always cultivatefeeling comfortable, if we always give ourselves what wewant when we want it, then the chances are that we willnever get to see preferences as preferences. We will neverget to see our likes and dislikes as merely conditioned109