Joriki Revisited II

I've been mentally revolving around this issue of the difference between freedom and liberation. To me, liberation is the noun form of a verb--to liberate, to free. Besides the sense of motion here--that freedom may be still or always existent while liberation happens--there seems to be a difference concerning ineffability and intangibility. You can access this conundrum by asking, "If my meditation-mind is always present, why do I not feel it always?"

From a perspective that sees that not-always-feeling-free as wrong, there are many reasons. It's like asking why you got skin cancer. There's over-exposure, genetic predispositions, free radicals, immune malfunction, etc., etc. But compare those reasons to the feeling of being warmed by the sun, ahhhh. The sun isn't so much good or bad, just as cancer is not so much good or bad. But I'm not so far gone into my sense of peace that I'd say it's fine to have cancer. Given a choice, I'll pass. Given cancer, I'll try to handle it well (and get rid of it if I can). I've never been satisfied with the instruction in some spiritual traditions to just passively accept anything and everything. I'd rather be dissatisfied in many situations--especially the ones I can change for the better.

But is not-always-feeling-free wrong? It certainly seems natural enough; it's quite common at least. I'm dissatisfied with the explanations about how we're motivated by powerful subconscious forces or that we're originally sinful or that we simply have not achieved a high enough consciousness. Bullshit to that. Those explanations usually have something to add, but they tend to over-complicate the picture. The people who offer those explanations, then, present themselves as the ones to uncomplicate it, and they feel they can do so because they are motivated by conscious forces, they are "saved", they have achieved a higher consciousness, etc. It's circular, emotional reasoning at its best. Unconvincing to me.

Freedom is simply there. Like space. Like love. Like the sun warms your skin. But liberation has as many feelings as there are individuals and moments. The feeling of liberation depends somewhat on the previous moment of awareness. Sunlight liberates me from chilliness. Love liberates me from isolation and anger, etc. Awareness of freedom does not liberate me from a lack of awareness. That's impossible. Awareness of freedom liberates me from awareness of something else, like awareness of injustice.

Freedom does not dominate anything. It does not trump not-always-feeling-free like some people speak of "higher consciousness" trumping "monkey mind" or "ego". Freedom is free because it isn't in that game. Lao Tzu talked about water in this way, saying that water is the most powerful because it is humblest. It goes to the lowest spot, and nothing comes to fight against it for that spot. Freedom is simple, like space. Space does not change whether it is full of one type of particles, another type of particles, or very few particles. The space in your living room is not conquered when you put a sofa in it. There is simply a sofa within that space. Freedom is similar. Awareness is similar.

Liberation is different.

Liberation needs an object, an experiencer, someone to feel liberated. Without someone to say what liberation is, there is no liberation. Liberation is a movement, a process, an experience. Freedom just seems to be, but we feel liberation. It's possible (from what i hear) to experience formless freedom, but we usually first feel liberation. So I can feel liberated from the job (or "should") of clenching onto a pencil in my fist. I can also feel liberated from the clenching itself. If I don't mind tensing my muscles, I can even keep gripping the pencil without feeling any psychological distress or strain from continuing to flex.

While freedom may either be ineffable or be something one must be enlightened to speak about well, we all have something to add to the conversation and experience of liberation. I find that to be at least as interesting as nirvana. So this nonattachment comes around again. I can nonattach from gripping a pencil, nonattach from feeling I should be holding it or that I should be letting it go, I can nonattach from "letting go" and from "holding on", and whatever else I am capable of noticing.

Joriki, concentration-power, is simply the act of noticing. It takes joriki to notice something I should be doing and it also takes joriki to notice letting go. The more we are aware of joriki and what we are doing with it, the more able we become at apprehending and releasing things in our consciousness, the more aware and able we become with liberation, and the more likely we seem to develop more consistent awareness of freedom. Sometimes I find this to be very interesting, and at other times, I don't pay any attention to it at all.