The Buddha saw suffering and shed tears of compassion. Seeing the genuine possibility of freedom for every single being, he taught that the heart can be free and loving in any and every circumstance. This is the Third Noble Truth – that there is an end to suffering–freedom– and it must be realized. This liberation is sometimes called Nibbana. Nibbana isn’t somewhere else like Burma or Tibet or at the end of your life. Nibbana is freedom in the midst of the 10,000 joys and the 10,000 sorrows that make up our life.

What is the definition for Nibbana? It is the end of greed, hatred and delusion–the putting out or cooling of the fires that rage in our hearts from clinging and grasping. Seeing the world for what it is–pleasure and pain, light and dark, gain and loss, praise and blame, all appearing for a time and changing from its own karmic momentum. We see: my thoughts are appearing and disappearing, my feelings change, my body transforms, shifts, moves. We say “Oh, this is how it is–no solid self, nothing we can say is permanent, irretrievably, unchageably me or mine.” This understanding points to the way of not clinging inwardly or outwardly, a letting go, freedom.

It is important that the notion of Nibbana not be made some kind of thing that one gets to at some point. If you’ve “got it,” it’s not Nibbana. Because, at that point, there’s it, and you, and clinging. Disconnection, not freedom.

True liberation is simply profound opening in any moment. Just to be fully where we are with how it is. Liberation — the sole purpose of the teachings and practice. Just as the great oceans of the world have but one taste, the taste of salt, so the purpose of all the words, all the teachings, all the practices, is freedom– what is sometimes called in the texts, ” the sure heart’s release.” In any moment we can know this freedom, right now. This is the essence of the Third Noble Truth–the profound realization that freedom is possible. In the words of Martin Luther King, “Let freedom ring.”