“Be free,” is a pure expression of loving-kindness, but it has to be more than just an idea. It’s not, “Be free,” and then in fine print, “as long as what you do with your freedom agrees with my own beliefs about what freedom is.”
By Johnathon Lee
Who doesn’t like free stuff?
Grocery stores are littered with vendors handing out free samples. Passionate populists hit all caps and chant, “Free speech!” when someone triggers them. Some people pay for YouTube to be free of ads, and free spirits smoke DMT to meet aliens and free their minds.
We’re obsessed with freedom in the West. Our cultures were built on the notion, and we’ll go to great lengths to ensure that our idea of it reigns supreme.
There’s a blaring pair of ducks in this—er, a glaring paradox. When I want something to be free, then me wanting it to be that way binds it. Let’s say I’m tossing a die that has the word ‘free’ on one side, and I command: “Lo, tiny cube! You shall only roll free and nothing else! So mote it be, amen!” By insisting that it be free, I’m restricting it from being anything else.
Prison takes away a lot of freedoms, but when someone serves their sentence, they’re booted back out into society. They’re not free to stay.
Buddhadharma solves this problem by pointing out the oblivious: that’s not freedom.
Even though the die has six sides, I want it land on only one. When someone’s in prison, they want to get out. When they get out, they often want to be back in (if they’ve been in for a long time).
We can’t be free and want to be free at the same time. For us to truly be free, we even have to accept our binds, free to be bound and unbound.
Because to be is to be bound. Each thing—whether it’s an atom, a person, or the galaxy—is defined by its limitations. A limitless thing can’t exist. I exist because of what I’m not. Without that ‘not,’ I’d be infinite, there would be nothing outside of me.
That’s impossible.
What really happens is that, when I lose my limits, I dissolve. Like an ice sculpture at a drunken summer cookout.
“I want it to be this way, and not that way,” is me trying to limit nature, which doesn’t work because nature is the limiting. We’re not free to choose our natural limits, and we can find a lot of peace by figuring out what those limits are.
When we do, we can honor them and adapt to them.
It’s often a humiliating process, and we can adapt to by developing humility, which is the source of all of the best human virtues, including loving-kindness.
When we accept our limits, we suddenly see how everyone is pushing theirs. They’re exhausting themselves to transcend themselves, seeking their own ideas of freedom. They also push other’s limits, crossing boundaries to get what they want.
This surges up as a sea of suffering, a tempest trampling all. As hard as it is, and it’s incredibly hard, we need to let that sea be free too. Free to storm, to settle, to pull us down and hoist us up.
“Be free,” is a pure expression of loving-kindness, but it has to be more than just an idea. It’s not, “Be free,” and then in fine print, “as long as what you do with your freedom agrees with my own beliefs about what freedom is.”
No, it’s just, “Be free.” Full stop.
We can even get uptight about this in Buddhism.
Sometimes, when you’re doing Metta meditation, it’ll be hard to feel the warmth of loving-kindness. You might even feel some anger or sadness, and then you’ll want to push that away and achieve a certain prescribed result. That sort of thing prevents metta from taking root.
For loving-kindness to be universal—which is the point—then that means offering metta to thoughts, feelings, successes, failures, and pain as well. We’re wishing everything well.
This practice can change you for the better, and this will change the situations you’re in. It’ll impact your relationships, even with strangers and yourself. However, don’t try to fart rainbows. It’s easy to put on a Buddha mask, you can even buy them online.
That’s the opposite of the point. Despite all of the metta in the world, you still might be a pessimistic misanthrope, but it’ll be different than before. It’ll be open. Free to be or not be without anything to do with you.
Metta softens sharp corners edges. A black square can become a black circle, but it’s still black. Some Buddhists might disagree, but from what I’ve seen, the ones who disagree with this the most are often the ones who wind up harming others when they can’t repress their shadow any more.
Everyone’s light and dark. No amount of practice can, or should, change that. The darkness in you helps you offer metta to the darkness in others. Oftentimes, that darkness is love without an outlet. It’s love that’s been hurt and neglected.
No one is free from this, but we can free that fact from ignorance and see each other for the first time. This isn’t to say that you should tolerate another’s darkness. It means that you see it, accept it, and adapt to it. Sometimes that means leaving. But with metta, you can leave the right way.
“I wish you well.”
Photo: Pixabay
Editor: Dana Gornall
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