"What makes us miserable, what causes us to be in conflict with one another, is our insistence on our particular view of things: our view of what we deserve or want, our view of right and wrong, our view of self, our view of other, our view of life, our view of death. But views are just views. They are not ultimate truth. There is no way to eliminate views, nor would we want to. As long as we are alive and aware there will be views. Views are colorful and interesting and life-enhancing—as long as we know they are views. The Chinese Zen masters are asking us to know a view as a view, and not to mistake it for something else. If you know a view as a view, you can be free of that view. If you know a thought as a thought, you can be free of that thought.

Going beyond language through language is something we can practice and develop through meditation, study, and awareness in daily life. In meditation we can learn to pay attention not only to sensation but also to emotion and thinking. Learning to let thinking come and go, we can eventually understand a thought as a thought and a word as a word, and with this understanding we can find a measure of freedom from thoughts and words."

Beyond language: finding freedom through thoughts and words - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review - Summer 2011

"We are creatures who react as we come into contact with the world through our senses.

Such reactions are entirely natural. They are neither good nor bad. Strictly speaking, they are not even "ours". They are simply what happens when an organism interacts with its environment. They are what arises.

The person who lets go of reactivity does not shun involvement with the world but moves nimbly and lightly through it.

Gotama recognized that human beings spend an inordinate amount of time absorbed in the amplifications and proliferations of reactivity.

Letting go of reactivity is a consequence of comprehending reactivity.

The practitioner sees the tricksterish wiles of reactivity for what they are: the seductive, infantile play of an organism that is primarily - and, for the most part, redundantly - preoccupied with its biological survival.

Nirvana [is] to be understood in one of two senses: either as the ceasing of reactivity or as freedom and independence from reactivity.

To behold and thus become aware of nirvana means consciously to affirm and valorize those moments when you see for yourself that you are free to think, speak and act in ways that are not determined by reactivity.

Nirvana is clearly visible the moment reactivity stops." 

After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a secular age

"When desire is replaced by equanimity, and awareness of all phenomena thus unfolds without reference to self, we gain the freedom to move along with change rather than setting ourselves against it."

Self as a verb - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review - Summer 2005

"Cada momento de consciência plena, de presença tranquila e alerta, cada momento em que a mente não está às voltas com alguma coisa de que ela julga precisar, ou tentando livrar-se de alguma coisa que ela julga não querer é um momento de liberdade."

Não faça nada, só fique sentado - p. 84

"What is freedom? It is the moment-by-moment experience of not being run by one’s own reactive mechanisms."

Freedom and choice - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review - Winter 2012

"Equanimity here does not mean disconnection or neutral feeling, but a much more profound state that allows one to remain imperturbable in the face of even the strongest feelings. When one realizes that the arising feeling is one thing, while the attitude generated in response to it is something else entirely, the chain of compulsive causation is broken and a moment of freedom is born."

Unlimiting mind - p.79

"We are used to thinking of freedom as being free to do what we want, but the Buddha sees real freedom as being free from wanting."

Unlimiting mind - p. 93

"Nothing in the world is absolute. Everything is conditioned, relative and interdependent. This is the Buddhist theory of relativity.

There can be nothing absolutely free, physical or mental, as everything is interdependent and relative."

What the Buddha taught - p.53-54