Unexpected Freedom

One-Pointedness of MindUnexpected FreedomI received a final teaching from Ajahn Tate on the occasion ofvisiting him with the group from Bung Wai in 1993. Only afew months later he passed away, at the age of ninety-four.We sat close to him so he didn’t have to speak loudly. I feltalmost too ashamed to attempt to engage him in talk since heseemed so frail and tired; just to be near him was enough. Yetwith visibly keen interest and with great kindness heresponded to the questions he was asked. All the othervisitors of the day had departed; only our small groupremained. As I recall, one of the young monks asked AjahnTate if he could identify the essence of Buddhist teaching.“Buddhism, you want a definition of Buddhism?” he said.Buddhism means dwelling in profound one-pointedness -“ekaggata”. A lot has been written and said about Buddhism,and that such a great being should give such a clear and simplepresentation of the path was a precious gift.For those who don’t yet have a foundation in practice itwould be understandable if Ajahn Tate’s definition ofBuddhism didn’t make sense. Even for those who do, for themost part we don’t yet know how to abide clearly, consciouslyand mindfully in a state of one-pointedness. If we do have anappreciation of one-pointedness, even to a small degree, thenwe will know that a mind that is distracted and fragmented isa mind that is confused and which misperceives-- the waythings are. In this condition the natural well-being that we feelwhen there is one-pointedness is obstructed.Many of us went through years of our early lives beingchronically obstructed. We were trying to sort out the rightphilosophy, the right political statement, the right lifestyle, theright type of relationship, the right social arrangement, so thatwe would feel good about life. It wasn’t until my first12