'In the West, there's a myth that freedom means free expression - that to follow all desires wherever they take one is true freedom.  In fact, as one observes the mind, one sees that following desires, attractions, repulsions is not at all freedom, but is a kind of bondage.  A mind filled with desires and graspings inevitably entails great suffering.  Freedom is not to be gained through the ability to perform certain external actions.  True freedom is an inward state of being.  Once it is attained, no situation in the world can bind one or limit one's freedoms.'

(From Jack Kornfield's Living Dharma)

Have we in this country really come to think of freedom as an unfetterdness, an ability to do whatever we want, to say whatever we want, whenever we want?  If we look at it like that, we are always going to be bound.  Always.  True freedom for all will never happen.  There is always going to be someone, somewhere, who's freedom will be infringed upon by someone else's freedoms and who will object.  I know I've done it.  People have pissed me off with their words and I have wanted to shut them up, to not allow them to say what it was that upset me so.  More than that, we have become slaves to ourselves by subscribing to the 'bigger, better, faster, more' culture.  We have been conditioned, and have even conditioned ourselves, to want the newest and the biggest and the best.  As long as we have that desire to get get get, we will always be in bondage.

When will we ever be free?

I know I want to free myself.