Engagement & Fluidity
I talked with someone a couple of days ago about our shared (or at least similar) experience of engagement and fluidity, of being engaged through the preferences of our human self and fluid through the "groundless ground", the formless awareness within which all this happens.
She mentioned the freedom in it, and I can relate that to my own experience.
Although for me, I often experience it more as a freedom through fluidity. I can't neccesarily choose freely in terms of changing the content (whatever is happening in the world of form, including for this human self). But there is a freedom in the fluidity of change, in not being stuck in one particular view, experience, tendency, etc. Something is triggered in my human self, and finding myself as "ground" as well allows for a fluidity here. It allows it to shift into something else.
When I am exclusively identified with/as my human self, and this segment of the world of form, I naturally attach to whatever comes up. I either want to keep it there (if it is pleasant or aligns with what my human self sees as desireable) or I want to push it away (if it is unpleasant or seen as undesireable).
But when I also find this groundless ground, this ground beyond and including all polarities and the whole world of form, there is a natural relaxation and - yes - sense of freedom. Freedom from being blindly attached whatever happens to manifest in the world of form in the present. Freedom from the sense of struggle which comes with this attachment and blind involvement. There is a freedom to allow it all to come and go as guests, as it does anyway, without struggling with it so much.
So there is not so much a freedom in terms of choice, but a freedom to allow it to come and go on its own. A freedom to allow the content to live its own life, as it does anyway.
Of course, from this there may also be a sense of freedom of choice - in how to relate to the situation, if and how to engage with whatever comes up (from inside/outside of this human self), etc. This is indeed another layer of this freedom.
One is the freedom of fluidity. The other the freedom of overview, spaciousness and sense of choice.