A Freedom That Print Cannot Touch
November 4th, 2006
Of course the easy freedom to talk about is the type absent in countries like North Korea or Burma or for blacks living in the Southern US before 1970.
The more elusive type doesn’t lend itself to being so easily pinned-down, like trying to hit a mosquito with an arrow.
This type of freedom seems as much as part of existence as my thoughts, the veins in my hand, the white hairs corkscrewing from my ears, the earth turning under me, the space in which I move. I am a diabetic but that has little to do with my freedom. Bury me in a coffin, I am still free. Death probably doesn’t touch freedom.
It is amazing how I attempt to deny this freedom.
I curse my cat for bugging me. I am terrified at the mere prospect of becoming disabled. Bury me 6 feet under and I won’t give a shit about anything except clawing out. I attempt to blind myself to freedom by trying to make myself stupid in countless ways: mindless entertainment, wearisome relationships, stale work, other habits, etc.
I recently returned from Nepal with the realization that my life/enlightenment/happiness rests fully on my shoulders. No sangha, no teacher, no book, no practice, no material object, no particular feeling or thought will ever get me there. Freedom cannot be earned like frequent file miles.
I think freedom, love and responsibility all point to existence that ‘print cannot touch.’
Writing about them reminds me of a Whitman poem:
“When I undertake to tell the best I find I cannot,
My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots,
My breath will not be obedient to its organs,
I become a dumb man.”
by Russell Read
Northern California, USA
