A Bumper Sticker
The 1991 Suburu that i had driven for over 18 gave out on me a couple of months ago. It had two bumper stickers which had both been on for a long time. The newer one advertised that i am the grandparent of an (name) elementary school student; that student is now in the university. The other was a yellow sticker worn to ilegibility which had once shown a snow leopard, a Tibetan flag, and the slogan "Free Tibet."
I bought the sticker to make a political statement, to say that i thought that Tibet should be made free from domination by China,
that Tibetans should have their own autonomous state returned to them. For a long time that's all i thought about when i thought about the sticker. Then one day about five years ago it occurred to me that that two word phrase might have many different meanings. one of them being a statement that, contrary to appearances, "Tibet is free." I could not wrap my mind around that idea until tonight when i read the following passage in Rohr's The Naked Now.
(Writing about "Awareness" and Non-dualistic thinking and how these subdue the ego ) "I can then begin to enjoy all things in themselves, and not in terms of their usefulness or importance or threat to me. This "I", this "little ole me" stops being the significant reference point for anything. (Nothing else deserves to be called freedom except this foundational freedom from the self which is why even imprisoned people and physically limited people can be utterly free.)
I have been told that at the time China occupied Tibet in the 1950s, ten percent of the population had achieved Buddhist enlightenment. Tibet may not only be free, it may be the most free place in the world!
I bought the sticker to make a political statement, to say that i thought that Tibet should be made free from domination by China,
that Tibetans should have their own autonomous state returned to them. For a long time that's all i thought about when i thought about the sticker. Then one day about five years ago it occurred to me that that two word phrase might have many different meanings. one of them being a statement that, contrary to appearances, "Tibet is free." I could not wrap my mind around that idea until tonight when i read the following passage in Rohr's The Naked Now.
(Writing about "Awareness" and Non-dualistic thinking and how these subdue the ego ) "I can then begin to enjoy all things in themselves, and not in terms of their usefulness or importance or threat to me. This "I", this "little ole me" stops being the significant reference point for anything. (Nothing else deserves to be called freedom except this foundational freedom from the self which is why even imprisoned people and physically limited people can be utterly free.)
I have been told that at the time China occupied Tibet in the 1950s, ten percent of the population had achieved Buddhist enlightenment. Tibet may not only be free, it may be the most free place in the world!