What Are Liberation and Freedom?

The purpose of cultivating all dharmas is to see through the emptiness (śūnyatā), illusory nature, and middle-way nature of all dharmas, thereby allowing one's own mind to gain wisdom, so that toward all states and realms the mind is empty and unobstructed, obtaining the beneficial fruition of merit, and thus becoming liberated from worldly afflictions.

Someone may ask: What is liberation for? Liberation has no use; liberation is simply being free from bondage and at ease. Liberation is without suffering—like a bird freed from its cage, soaring freely; like a fierce tiger escaped from a trap, hunting at will on the mountains and below; like a wild horse freed from its reins, galloping freely across the vast open land. Then someone may ask again: What is being at ease for? Being at ease also has no use; it is merely a feeling of being free from the bondage of self—indeed, not even a feeling at all, for if there is a feeling, one is not truly at ease. So having no use is best—what would one use it for? What is use for? Anything useful is a burden and a bondage, all of it suffering.

To attain liberation—a self without suffering—one should ask oneself every day: What do I eat for? Then answer: Eating is for the existence of the physical body. Ask again: What is the existence of the physical body for? Answer: The existence of the physical body is for staying alive. Ask again: What is staying alive for?... Dig down to the roots, question to the very bottom like smashing a pot to get to the sand, and never let yourself off easily. After that, the wise will see wisdom and the benevolent will see benevolence—each states their own views, the various states of realization manifest distinctly, thoughts leap vividly onto the page, and the differences naturally appear. By introspecting and reflecting, one will gradually enter upon cultivating the Path. Ask yourself this every day, and one day you will awaken, no longer greedy or attached, at ease, free, and liberated, without vexation or affliction; in the end you will transcend the world of things, transcendent and unfettered.