Convention and Liberation.
reflections on gaining understanding and working our way to freedom….
A topic which I have found myself musing on recently is ‘convention and liberation’, which is fascinating but also quite difficult to fully understand.
“THE THINGS OF THIS WORLD are merely conventions of our own making. Having established them we get lost in them, and refuse to let go, giving rise to clinging to personal views and opinions. Now, if we know conventional reality then we’ll know liberation.” — Ajahn Chah
(i) Convention.
Conventions are things which we create for convenience ie. we give each other and material things ‘names’ so that we can can talk about them. These are labels — we are all labelled. We then cling to these names and notions as though our lives depend upon them, which they don’t, and we get hung up and distraught when others don’t revere them in the same way we do.
(ii) Liberation.
We practice to attain liberation from suffering in our daily life, this is the foundation of our practice. Liberation from the cycle of birth and death, freeing ourselves into ‘enlightenment’ and Nirvana is the ultimate goal.
There is clearly much joy to be found in freeing ourselves, there can be no doubt about that. I often say that monks are cheerful and smiling because they know and truly believe that there is nothing worth worrying about in this life. Why can’t we be more like them? We might argue that our lives are more complicated, but who is to blame for that in reality and, if you stated that as your argument to them, they would simply tell you to give it all up, to relinquish but we can’t can we? We simply can’t let go. We cling to what we believe to be right and what we think we need. This is how we continue to make our own lives more complicated instead of simplifying, taking the opportunity to set down some of the burden. We then proceed to moan about it all to anyone who will listen all the while refusing to do anything which will change it for the better.
(iii) Working our Way to Freedom.
What can we do right now to start the process?
- We can refuse to allow conventions to rule our life
- We can work to better understand the benefits of liberation
- We can practice Dharma in order to overcome the bonds of convention and free ourselves from suffering
May this teaching lead you to happiness; may it help you grow in truth. May you be freed from the suffering of birth and death.
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