Unexpected Freedom

Unexpected Freedomwe’re caught up in our thinking, caught up in the content of themind and the sensations we are experiencing, we can think thatour mindful moments were invalid and dismiss them asaccidents. But Ajahn Chah said, “Little by little, with consistenteffort, these moments become drip, drip, drip thendripdripdrip and then they become a stream.” With constanteffort, you enter a continuous stream of mindfulness. Themoments themselves are the same, but they’re uninterrupted.We forget, but the good news is that we can remember.We sit in formal meditation, gathering our heart and mindtogether, and we settle into stillness. We gain perspective, weremember. The mind wanders off. ‘If only I hadn’t donethat,’ we think; or, ‘Why did they say that?’ We wander intothe future, thinking, ‘Have I got my ticket for tomorrow?Where did I put it?’ We get caught up, we get lost, but then weremember because our hearts are committed toremembering. If we simply remember, that’s good, but if wecome in with some sort of judgement and say, ‘I shouldn’thave forgotten, my practice is hopeless,’ then we’ve lost itagain. Remembering is the point. We don’t need to dwell onour forgetting.Being CarefulAjahn Tate’s advice was, “All you’ve got to do is remembermore quickly.” I kept making an effort during that vassa and Iwas very diligent, although by this time I was in such a state ofdespair, occasional terror, distress and thoroughunpleasantness, that it was really just a question of survival.At the end of the vassa I wasn’t well at all. They decided Ineeded to go down to Bangkok for a medical check-up and torest. In fact I ended up in hospital. I saw Ajahn Tate before Ileft and he gave me a third significant and helpful teaching. He10