waiting for freedom

I need to cultivate an attitude of waiting--not postponement, but active waiting. When I wait with hope (not expectation of any particular outcome, but hope in a religious sense of knowing all will be well) I clear away some room in my being for insight, a seeing inside that is not done with the mind and if I even register it consciously it is more like a bodily awareness of change, of deep relaxation and renewed energy. I know I can lie to myself even about this though, and slip into idle introspection or a lazy stupor (though in my heart I know the difference).

So what was my insight while I waited last night? First of all I remembered that I haven't been waiting properly lately, I've been waiting with my mind not my being. See, I had got to this place where I really enjoyed waiting but then lost it because...well I won't get into all that right now. And it wasn't first of all either because insight doesn't happen in any linear way but sort of all at once, and it may or may not ever make it to the mind (or any communicable form--although art sometimes works when words don't). The insight had to do with the incredible passive strength of unconditional love. I was thinking of Jesus and how completely he loved Judas, and everybody else that would betray him. I listened to a Buddhist monk speak once about the simple choice of a bhodissatva--to love all beings without distinction or discrimination. A simple creative, original decision that gets dismissed by the ego as naive and impossible (or even somehow unethical, as if by not choosing to love one person and hate another we are complicit in whatever bad things the offending person has done). Not simply to tolerate or endure but to love. It's a decision to be joyful in all situations and free to make decisions with clarity. Such a powerful decision that our whole lives we get told in different ways how to avoid making it, how to avoid pain at all costs and seek pleasure, how to judge others and justify ourselves. Cultural conditioning. I ask myself why am I still vacillating and slipping into that weak and gutless state when I know better? The conditioning runs deep. But I don't have to run on a hamster wheel. I can wait.