Unexpected Freedom

Truly ComfortableIf I had an uninformed ignorant relationship to mypreferences, and an anagarika came into my kuti in themorning to bring me nice toast for breakfast, then I might getlost in my pleasure. I might pay the anagarika compliments,telling him what a fine anagarika he was and how well he wasdoing. And I would encourage him to bring such toast againthe next morning. Then, if the next day he brought mefermented fish for breakfast, I might well fly off the handleand say something hurtful. My uninspected preferences beingfrustrated would lead to my being upset. If ‘I’ habitually getwhat ‘I’ want, ‘I’ can get caught up in my preferences. That’san ignorant relationship to preferences.In the breakfast situation, were I to remain true to mycommitment to going beyond attachment to my preferences,practice would stimulate the willingness to simply feel whatit feels like to be disappointed when I don’t get what I want.Then we see that such willingness to receive pain leads toincreased presence and clarity in the context of pleasure. Wefind we are not getting so lost in pleasure and pain.Encountering our preferences is a way to strengthencultivation of mindfulness, not merely a strategy of drivingout unsuitable desires.If there is a wise and informed relationship to preferenceswe will be willing to inhibit our tendency to believe in theway things appear for long enough to be able to see throughthem. We will see that desire is a movement in the mind. Itarises, it appears, it can be felt, it can be received intoawareness without judgement, and it will disappear, like apiece of dust floating through space. The space doesn’tinterfere with the dust nor is it disturbed by the dust floatingthrough it. A wave rippling across the ocean doesn’t changethe nature of the ocean; it’s natural for an ocean to havewaves moving across it. But the wave doesn’t define the115