Unexpected Freedom

A Question of Identityour lives, we remain locked in endless struggle and becomedrained of vitality. Perhaps we were never taught and hence itdoesn’t occur to us that we can do something about ourpredicament. Or perhaps our fear of facing up to what wereally are feels too threatening. Sadly, the potential ofauthentic being remains clouded by our habits of self-disempowerment.But when we arrive at wakefulness we realise thatwe don’t have to be afraid of fear. When we are awake, fear canteach us. It teaches us to be present, to be careful. Fear doesnot necessarily mean that something is going wrong; we oftenthink that way out of habit. We can choose to patiently receivethe fear of loss of security, loss of our precious identity, and wecan witness the passing away of such fear. What remains is amore conscious appreciation of awareness.The more we live our lives from awakeness the morereadily we remember our ability to be aware. Everythingteaches us – even confusion. Being confused but aware of itreminds us how not to become limited. If we forget to beawake, if we grasp, then we are born into limited self-identityand we become confused. This process is always one of ouroptions, but it’s less painful to opt for remembering to beaware and not to assume some detached, limited identity asa confused victim.The wife of the American ambassador in Korea oncewent to visit a famous meditation master there. I heard thisstory in the 1970s. Apparently the woman asked the masterto explain the essential teachings to her, and he told her thatBuddhist meditation was about becoming one witheverything. She was unimpressed, and asked what goodsuch teaching would do for people if an atomic bomb wasdropped. The master replied that, if the bomb was dropped,she would become one with everything anyway, so she mayas well prepare herself.147