Feedom is an Individual Choice

I recently attended a wedding reception of someone I barely know from a philosophical circle I was once involved in.

I'm glad I attended. 

I felt uncomfortable while I was there for no reason obvious to me. I had conversations with people. But my wife and I soon left and she made a comment that made sense out of how I was feeling. 

"You just tried to reenter your corpse."

She was right. She was referencing a retreat I recently did where I studied the Tibetan Book of the Dead (TBOTD). Reentering the corpse was her graphic way of telling me I was reliving the past. A literal read of the TBOTD is obviously about dying and what happens next. However, an interpretative read brings this very moment into focus as the source of liberation. The bardo is a choice point: run away and hide from our lives or embrace who we fundamentally are. We have this choice all the time. Even as I write this and whenever the future moment is that you read this, which would be right now for you. 

Reentering your corpse is when we're not pushing back as life pushes us. It's when we're not responsible for what we're doing and look outside ourselves for an object to blame. It is when we give up freedom, freshness, and transition for safety and security as a blatant act of denying what we all know to be our ultimate physical

Chose freedom and chose life. Say good-bye to who you were yesterday.