Unexpected Freedom

Unexpected Freedom– what can come up, despite our right contemplation, is atremendous sense of fear. This often happens for people onmeditation retreats. We’ve just had a group of people stayingwith us for the last week on formal retreat. Strict silence wasmaintained and everybody was very committed to thepractice and saw genuine benefit from it. It wasn’t just a niceholiday. It was good hard work, and for some people thatgood hard work meant encountering the fear that comesup with the sense of loss of identity.Falling Away of the FalseAs we intensify attention and turn the light of awarenessinwards, the practice will dissolve that which is false. That’show it works. When the sun shines and the rain falls thereare seeds in the ground that will grow. Some of them arebeautiful and some of them are weeds. It is in their natureto grow given the appropriate conditions. I remember inThailand during the dry season the fields would be parched,with no visible plant or animal life. It all looked so dead – theearth cracked and hard. And then the rains would comeand the land start to turn green. The next thing you knewthere were so many plants and little creatures – even fishswimming in the puddles of water left by the rain. How didthese fish get there – without a river in sight that could haveflooded? When the sun comes after the rains have fallen, thecauses are there and life expresses itself. That is its nature.That’s just how it is. Whether we like it or not that’s how it is.So it is with the practice. If we exercise restraint andpractise mindfulness and concentration, the false things thatwe’ve been hanging onto will start to dissolve and begin tofall away. But we might start to feel afraid as we becomeconscious of a sense of insecurity and a certain loss of safety.174