Unexpected Freedom

More than our Feelingsexquisite creative fantasy that is just emerging, then it will dieand we will lose our wonderful idea forever. We’ll lose ourintelligence and the consequences of that could mean losingour self-esteem and dignity. We’ll lose our potential, we’lllose our superior ability to think profound thoughts. This istraditionally understood as Mara coming in, threatening us,and saying, ‘Whatever you do, don’t practise restraint.’We shouldn’t ignore Mara. The Buddha didn’t ignoreMara; he just said, ‘This is Mara.’ In our case we can call suchthoughts Mara, or we can say, ‘There is a fear that I will losemy creativity if I inhibit this tendency to follow this fantasy,but I don’t really know.’ We don’t blindly or forcefully returnto focusing on our meditation object. We carefully restrainour mind, attending to it with patience and return to themeditation object. We learn to say ‘no’ to distractingimpulses so that we’re in the centre of our lives. This practicemeans that we can choose to offer attention to the heart; wecan give ourselves into something without the mind beingcompulsively distracted this way and that.Later we may discover that suddenly, without ourexpecting it, there is a complex problem that arises in everydaylife – a challenging conversation or a difficult decisionthat needs to be made – but we’re really right there. There isa strength of mind there that has come directly andproportionately from our good practice. We may not haveseen that strength building up in the moment of restrainingour attention from following its habitual tendencies, but allthat effort we have made to restrain the mind – over andover again coming back to the meditation object – hasgenerated real strength of presence, strength ofmindfulness, sati. When we need that strength, itspontaneously and selflessly manifests.In this way, we become inspired and encouraged to keep43