The Boundless Freedom of the True Self

Recorded and transcribed by Namo Amituofo’s disciple, Venerable HaiZe.

In the world, people often yearn for a life of absolute freedom, where they are unconstrained by any rules or boundaries. They believe that to live as one pleases is the ultimate goal of existence. However, for those who have not yet realised their true nature, this pursuit of unrestrained freedom is a dangerous path.

The Trap of the Ego

When you seek to live entirely according to your own whims and desires without any restraint, you are simultaneously creating a vast amount of negative karma. This is because the heart and the desires that drive such a life are rooted in the ego—the "I" that is trapped within the cycle of reincarnation. This "I" is a product of karma, a manifestation of impermanence, and a fragile entity that changes constantly based on the surrounding environment.

Under such conditions, if you act, speak, and think without any restraint, you are not merely reinforcing the "I" that is caught in the cycle of reincarnation. You are actively deepening and intensifying the weight of your actions. What you bring upon yourself in this pursuit is a harvest of endless, bitter, and evil consequences.

The Path of the Unrestrained

Consider the nature of demon crowds. They act without restraint, following their every desire to inflict intense suffering upon other beings. By creating such heavy causes, they are destined to receive extremely heavy retribution. Even if the consequences do not manifest immediately, you must remember this truth: Even after hundreds of thousands of kalpas, the karma created does not perish. When the conditions ripen, one must still bear the retribution oneself.

Therefore, it is essential that you engage in practice. You must take the Precepts as your teacher. By strictly observing the Precepts, you prevent the false self from acting on every whim and creating further evil.

Purifying the Self

Living under the protection of the Precepts allows you to refine your practice. It helps you to dismantle the "self" that has been constructed by your past experiences in the secular world. This false self is built upon many layers of conditioning:

• Deep-seated concepts and views:
• The various opinions and educational biases you have accumulated over a lifetime.Selfishness and discrimination:
• The tendency to compare yourself to others and to act out of self-interest.The Five Poisons:
• The persistent influence of greed, anger, delusion, arrogance, and doubt.The Five Desires:
• The constant craving for wealth, lust, fame, food, and sleep.The cycle of suffering: The attachment to the reality of birth, aging, sickness, and death.

As you practise, you must work to remove these layers. A practitioner with sharp faculties can immediately sever all attachments to this false self, washing away all pollution to reveal the true self—the original nature that we all possess, which has been covered by layers of confusion.

The Awakening of the True Self

Within this true self, there is no longer any selfishness or self-interest. The Five Poisons, the Five Desires, and the cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death no longer hold sway. One no longer lives in the world for the sake of the self. Instead, one remains in this world entirely for the sake of all beings, working tirelessly to deliver sentient beings. This is the heart and action of those who have realised their true nature.

Those who have realised their true nature are truly free. They are not limited by the ego, and they use various skillful means to teach and deliver beings. They operate within the realm of compassion and wisdom, and they flow naturally with the Dharma. They do not harm any beings; rather, they save them. This is what it truly means to be free.

Namo Amituofo