Freedom

A teaching on Freedom for this Independence Day in the US:
"...the word freedom itself is a relative term: freedom from something [eg. impatience], otherwise there is no freedom. And since it is freedom from something, one must first create the right situation, which is patience. This kind of freedom cannot be created by an outsider or some superior authority. One must develop the ability to know the situation. In other words, one has to develop a paranomic awareness, an all-pervading awareness, knowing the situation at that very moment. It is a question of knowing the situation and opening one's eyes to that very moment of nowness, and this is not particularly a mystical experience or anything mysterious at all, but just direct, open and clear perception of what is now without being influenced by the past or any expectation of the future, but just seeing the very moment of now, then at that moment there is no barrier at all.
For a barrier could only arise from association with the past or expectation of the future. So the present moment has no barriers at all. And then he finds there is a tremendous energy in him, a tremendous strength to practice patience. He becomes like a warrior. When a warrior goes to [a spiritual; not physical] war [which he must participate] he does not think of the past or his previous experience of war, nor does he think of the consequences for the future; he just sails through it and fights, and that is the right way to be a warrior. Similarly, when there is a tremendous conflict going on, one has to develop this energy combined with patience. And this is known as right patience with the all-seeing eye, patience with clarity.
~ Chogyam Trungpa Meditation in Action

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