The RAFT to Freedom

Changing the direction of your life

Index of quotations

Setting out (00-05)

Ch 00 – Setting out with the workbook

Opening

No one can do it for you – you must do it for yourself.

  • Speaker/Author: Luangpor Charoen Panchan (Parnchand)
  • Source: Abbot, Wat Thamkrabok Monastery, Thailand (personal transmission to the author; contemporary, not a published text)

Ch 01 – An introduction to The RAFT to Freedom

Opening

Suppose there was a person traveling along the road. They’d see a large deluge, whose near shore was dubious and perilous, while the far shore was a sanctuary free of peril. But there was no ferryboat or bridge for crossing over. They’d think, ‘Why don’t I gather grass, sticks, branches, and leaves and make a raft? Riding on the raft, and paddling with my hands and feet, I can safely reach the far shore.’

  • Speaker/Author: Gotama
  • Source: Alagaddūpama Sutta (the raft simile), MN 22, trans. Bhikkhu Sujato

Closing

For me, there is no happiness without freedom, and freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves.

  • Speaker/Author: Thich Nhat Hanh
  • Source: Be Free Where You Are (Parallax Press)

Ch 02 – Gotama’s Intoxications

Opening

Violence gives birth to fear. Just look at people and their quarrels. I shall describe the sense of urgency in the way it was experienced by me. When I saw people thrashing about, like fish in a small puddle turning on one another, fear entered my heart. I saw nothing stable in the world. Everywhere, all things are changing. Wanting a place for myself, I saw that every spot was already taken. I was distressed by conflict everywhere. Then I saw an arrow here, so very hard to see, embedded in the heart.

  • Speaker/Author: Gotama
  • Source: Attadaṇḍa Sutta, Sn 4.15 (author-composed composite rendering, D89)

Closing

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.

  • Speaker/Author: Carl Rogers
  • Source: On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy (1961)

Ch 03 – Generosity – the gift of open hands

Opening

If beings knew, as I know, the results of giving and sharing, they would not eat without having given, nor would the stain of miserliness overcome their minds.

  • Speaker/Author: Gotama (the Buddha)
  • Source: Dāna Sutta, Iti 26

Closing

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

  • Speaker/Author: Simone Weil
  • Source: Letter to Joë Bousquet, 13 April 1942 (widely published in Gravity and Grace)

Ch 04 – The Five Gifts

Opening

Now, there are these five gifts, five great gifts – original, long-standing, traditional, ancient, unadulterated, unadulterated from the beginning – that are not open to suspicion, will never be open to suspicion, and are unfaulted by knowledgeable contemplatives and brahmans.

  • Speaker/Author: Gotama (the Buddha)
  • Source: Abhisanda Sutta, AN 8.39

Closing

We do good because it frees the heart. It opens us to a wellspring of happiness.

  • Speaker/Author: Sharon Salzberg
  • Source: Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness (Shambhala, 1995)

Ch 05 – Māra – I know you: meeting the inner saboteur

Opening

Forms and sounds, tastes and odours, tactile objects that delight the mind: I offer them right back to you, for I, O Māra, do not need them.

  • Speaker/Author: Vijayā Therī (addressing Māra)
  • Source: Vijayā Sutta, SN 5.4, trans. Bhikkhu Bodhi

Closing

Seeing really clearly what we get when we get caught up in our behaviors, becoming disenchanted on a visceral level and from this disenchanted stance, naturally letting go.

  • Speaker/Author: Dr Judson Brewer
  • Source: TED talk, A simple way to break a bad habit (TEDMED 2015)

Recognise (06-24)

Not yet sourced – quotes for these chapters are added incrementally as each reaches its own Stage 2 quote-sourcing session (D43). Placeholder rows below will fill in as chapters are completed.

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Abandon (25-33)

Not yet sourced – quotes for these chapters are added incrementally as each reaches its own Stage 2 quote-sourcing session (D43). Placeholder rows below will fill in as chapters are completed.

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Feel (34-50)

Not yet sourced – quotes for these chapters are added incrementally as each reaches its own Stage 2 quote-sourcing session (D43). Placeholder rows below will fill in as chapters are completed.

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Train (51-65)

Not yet sourced – quotes for these chapters are added incrementally as each reaches its own Stage 2 quote-sourcing session (D43). Placeholder rows below will fill in as chapters are completed.

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The safe shore (66)

Not yet sourced – quotes for these chapters are added incrementally as each reaches its own Stage 2 quote-sourcing session (D43). Placeholder rows below will fill in as chapters are completed.

Ch 66 – pending