Unexpected Freedom

So often we are trying to follow the Buddha’s teaching with the idea of becoming free from something – free from our desires, our personality, our anger, our suffering. It might then come as quite a surprise, when suddenly, in the middle of our striving to attain or get rid of something, we find our heart opening like a window, revealing to us the spacious vista of an unexpected kind of the freedom to fully meet ourselves as we are right now; the freedom to fully experience all the situations and emotions that seem to be obstacles to our happiness, without having to believe in or follow their apparent messages. What allows us to abide in that unexpected freedom, finding stillness and clarity in the eye of the storm, is a spacious, embracing awareness of the present moment, which for its liberating qualities lies at the heart of the Buddha’s teaching. This collection of talks is formed around the theme of this potentially limitless awareness.