Unexpected Freedom

Unexpected Freedomto do is walk to work as normal but prepare yourselfbeforehand, both in the evening and the morning beforeyou begin your walk. As you take your walk follow theprocess step-by-step and watch what is going on in your bodyand mind.”It is understood in our practice that disturbances of mindcome to us with differing degrees of intensity and that weneed to respond appropriately in each case. This particularphenomenon was of the sort where what was called for wasthe need to prepare oneself beforehand. What is necessary insuch a situation is to slow down and to see what is happeningas it’s happening and just see it, just know it, not being fooledby the way things appear to be, believing one won’t be happyuntil one gets the pastry.This student was fooled regularly by the thought, ‘I willnot be happy until I get a pastry.’ So, following her teacher’sadvice she prepared herself beforehand. The next morningshe walked to work as normal, taking the route past thepatisserie. She approached the shop remaining fully aware ofher feelings and thoughts. Soon she was outside, standingthere, fully conscious and knowing, ‘I want to go in and get apastry.’ It was quite clear she wasn’t kidding herself – shewasn’t trying to convince herself that this was the case, shesimply recognised with an interested awareness that shewanted to go in and buy a pastry. As she stood there it startedto get a little easier to feel the wanting, until she was justobserving and knowing the raw energy of wanting. Soonenough the wanting disappeared and she experienced amomentary ending of suffering.Because of her patience and right effort this student hadan insight into the truth that this second line of the versepoints to. Getting more, in her case, was diminishing thequality of her life, although those pastries looked as though186