free·dom
–noun
1. the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint: He won his freedom after a retrial.
2. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
3. the power to determine action without restraint.
Freedom. Something that so many people search for and extraordinarily few actually find. I've been searching my mind for so long for true freedom. So far I've found that a free mind is an impossible one. I asked friends of mine.
"Do you ever think there will be a single moment in your life that you are able to completely quiet your mind? Complete peace?"
Their replies were skeptical, and simply put. "Life is everything...But peace."
A free mind can solve any problem, escape any situation and do anything due to its extreme and rare clarity. You can tell me that your mind is free, but I do not believe you. Your layers of thought betray you, because just this statement is proof your mind is not free.
"Siddhartha Gautama, founder of Buddhism, was born in India 500 years before Christ. He began life as a privileged prince, but in his late 20s gave up his royal existence in the pursuit of enlightenment and spiritual awakening."
I suppose the Buddhists are on the right track. Their religion is all about finding mental clarity and peace with yourself. In an ideal world, they're awesome. Sadly, our world is nothing close to ideal. Also, Siddhartha must've been pretty close if any. He was able to give up royalty and an easier life for this quest. Regardless, I'm no advocate of religion.
Moving on.
"To work with changes now, in life: That is the real way to prepare for death. Life may be full of pain, suffering, and difficulty, but all of these are opportunities handed to us to help us move toward an emotional acceptance of death. It is only when we believe things to be permanent that we shut off the possibility of learning from change."
---Sogyal Rinpoche
Is death the only doorway to peace?
Or is peace the only doorway to death?
Or is peace the only true doorway to happiness?
Peace = Freedom. A simple equation.
When you've got nothing to lose or gain. You're free.
I don't think I'll ever find freedom.
And I don't think I care.
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1 comment:
"It is only when we believe things to be permanent that we shut off the possibility of learning from change."
i really like that. thank you.
and uh, to answer your pondering rhetorical questions...
i don't think death is the doorway to peace. it's the doorway to nothingness. nothingness certainly isn't peace, in my humble opinion.
i don't know about peace being the doorway to death.
you can be truly happy without being at peace. when a sweet little chemical known as serotonin triggers your neurons, you become happy. and, if you're lucky, this happiness, this peaking joy, brings to you such intense sunlight that everything else gets blocked out. sun floods your ears and focuses your eyes on just one bright thing, on something you love. and so you feel peaceful. it rarely lasts. being that i view happiness as an emotion and peace as a state of being, with states of being ranked slightly above emotions on the scale of accessibility, i'd say that happiness leads to peace, and not the other way around. and then peace can generate more happiness. and then it cycles. amen.
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