Unexpected Freedom

Unexpected Freedomrolled out over the polished concrete floor. We chanted inthe same way as every other day, with the samemosquitoes biting and my knees hurting as they usuallydid. Suddenly, without warning, I found myselfexperiencing the most wonderful clarity – unlike anythingI had ever known before. I experienced an utterly naturalyet at the same time extraordinary sense of well-being. Itseemed as though this perspective on things should nowlast forever, because, in reality, things had always been thatway, only I hadn’t noticed it. When puja finished I felt soelevated that I mentioned it to one of the other monks, andhe said, “Let’s go and speak to Ajahn Tate about it.”There was a tradition in the monastery that eight or tenmonks would go and see Ajahn Tate after evening chantingand massage him, all at the same time. Thai massage isgruesome. You dig your elbows in as deeply as you can.Those Thai monks would really get to work on Ajahn Tate.Somebody would be on his foot, someone else on his leg,someone else on an arm, all digging away. He’d go throughthis every night. On this particular evening, as we talkedabout what had happened to me, he stopped the massage,sat up and said, “I want to hear more about this.” So Iexplained what I had experienced. That evening he gaveme what I consider the second most helpful piece of advicethat I’ve ever received on practice.He said, “These moments of clarity, this mindfulnessand presence that you have experienced, are very good.From now on what you have to do in your practice is justto remember like this more quickly.” We were talkingthrough a translator, which wasn’t easy. If we had beenspeaking directly, he might have said, “Keep exercisingmindfulness in the moment and learn to come backsooner to this clear way of seeing. It’s that simple – make8