Freedom in Harness

The sun shines today. The day is hazy and warm. People slowly recover back to the working schedule after a weekend of drizzle. I recall the car I had witnessed on the Lakeshore that had struck a pole on the weekend. It reminds me that I don’t know when my time on this earth is done. I can never tell the completion of the action.

In the last few blog entries, I described the value of humility. I am not sure today why I got onto this concept, but I am reminded of Frost’s words, “you have the freedom when you’re easy in your harness”. I recall hearing this line for the first time from my High School English teacher, who had taught me creative writing. I take the line to mean that one has to regulate one’s mind tightly in order to feel liberation. I am reminded of yet another line from Albert Camus, “fidelity to his limits”. I am trying to say that too much confidence can limit a person.  For example, if I am thinking that tomorrow is going to be the same as today, I will mistakenly think that I only need apply a simple principle to achieve the same result tomorrow. In fact, do I know what will happen tomorrow? Even if the mind is limitless, human being still have to face their responsibilities. But ironically, these same responsibilities become conditions for humans to practice using their minds and knowing true mind. Without those things that ground us, it is hard (albeit not impossible) to inquire into mind.

The other point I feel compelled to make is that sometimes things really do feel bad, and it doesn’t seem useful to try to cover up bad feelings by referring to abstract concepts. Krishnamurti describes the process of fully being in our loneliness rather than trying to conceptualize it, or any other state of being, as a concept that is distant from experience. When we encounter a rock or a pressure, we should really know the magnitude of that pressure rather than trying to flower it over with concepts, such as void or emptiness. This isn’t to say that those concepts don’t describe realities. It is to say that they co-exist with the magnitude of concrete experience. In that sense, rather than trying to avoid or  step around the concrete (or deny its existence), the notion of emptiness can help me to better get through and be with the concretes  of life, and feel those concretes deeply.

The other thing I do notice is close to Carl Rogers’ and Krishnamurti’s viewpoints: namely, that emotions need to be accepted and fully acknowledged if I am to process them and continue on the journey. Anything else simply pushes it into the background and suppresses that emotion. I think that one way to look at it is to enjoy the emotion but with a sense of resignation to it. It is still my rock and my burden, but because I fully acknowledge it, I don’t push it away and I can become intimate with its serrated edges. This also releases the fear that comes from potentially not being able to successfully avoid the emotions themselves. Compassion seems to arise when I recognize how hard it is to do this practice, and it’s that ironic detachment that counts. I am able to behold that this is not a part of me  (I am a witness to it) but it really is a deep part of me (I cannot separate from the reality of it). The temporal weight of flesh always meets the eternal non-being.