The purpose of the teachings and practice is freedom, the sure heart’s release, right now. Knowing the genuine possibility of freedom for every being, the Buddha taught that the heart can be free and loving in every circumstance. And he assured us that if it were not possible, he would not teach it. This is the Third Noble Truth–suffering can cease and that cessation, sometimes called the “sure heart’s release,” must be realized: freedom, not elsewhere but in the midst of the 10,000 joys and the 10,000 sorrows that comprise our life.

It is the putting out or cooling of the fires of greed hatred and delusion that rage in our hearts. By seeing the inevitability of pleasure and pain, light and dark, gain and loss, praise and blame, all appearing for a time and changing from their own karmic momentum, we understand everything is in process–our thoughts are appearing and disappearing, our feelings change, our bodies transform, shift, move. This is how it is–no solid self, nothing permanent, irretrievably, unchangeably me or mine. This understanding points the way to not clinging inwardly or outwardly, letting go.

It is important that the notion of liberation not be made a thing or place that one gets or gets to at some point. It’s not in Burma, Tibet or elsewhere. And if you think you’ve “got it,” there’s it, separate from you, and clinging, disconnection.

Inexorable and inevitable freedom is the essence of the Third Noble Truth. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Let freedom ring.”