The Freedom of Being: At Ease With What Is

The Freedom of Being: At Ease With What Is

by Jan Frazier

Weiser Books, Newburyport, Massachusetts  © 2012   288 pp.

In the kindest - yet most ruthless - way, Jan Frazier asks us to face our secret strategies of resistance to freedom, pointing out how it is WE who hold ourselves prisoners to delusion. She notes how it might be possible to loosen our lock-grip on the bars of the prison cell so that the door can just swing open. The freedom she speaks of is the same as that spoken of by the Buddha, by Ramana Maharshi, by Jesus and Mohammed -- yet she brings it home in a personal way, illuminating the very fear and evasion buried in our psyches, the techniques we use to remain in bondage.

In one particular chapter (Ch.10), she provides practical tips for experiencing inner surrender and acceptance of difficult life situations (illness, chronic physical pain, death of a loved one, unresolved past traumas, etc.).  The practice of being aware of present moment reality is key, and helps one get beyond the resistance to (and reifying of) thoughts and feelings about the experience.

This book is direct and pithy, yet delivered with the loving-kindness of motherlove. Highly recommended.

-- reviewed by Mora Fields and Mona Bronson