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Albert Camus walks into a bar and sits at the only empty stool. He says hello to the interesting looking man to his right, Siddhartha Gautama. The bar is full of revelers. It’s smoky and noisy. The bartender changes channels in search of sports. She suddenly stops at the Evening News. She is transfixed. Everyone in the bar quiets down.

After 15 minutes which seemed, both, like an eternity and flash, some people in the bar start to cry and wail, bemoaning their hopelessness and despair. Others start to cry for joy and drop to their knees, proclaiming that they’ll soon be released.

With a Galois cigarette hanging out of his mouth, Camus turns to Siddhartha and says:

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

Siddhartha takes a swallow of Bourbon and retorts:

I agree with you 100% Albert. It took a lot of work, but I have found a Way to actually be absolutely free.

Tune in on Sunday December 15, 2024 at 3:00 p.m. ET to find out what happened next.

About Julia

Dr. Julia Sagebien became a student of the Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in 1973. She subsequently studied with the Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche, as well as other respected teachers such Dzongsar Khyetnse Rinpoche and Tsoknyi Rinpoche. Her Buddhist training has included both an academic component (M.A Naropa University) and an extensive religious/contemplative component. Julia has been a Shambhala Training Director since the inception of the program and has taught Buddhism at several Vajradhatu Seminaries. Online, she has been an active contributor to the Chronicles of CTR project and has more recently hosted several large online programs via Shambhala Online. Julia also worked closely with Spanish-speaking dharma centers worldwide and helped pioneer Queer Dharma. As a founding Governor of the Council of Warriors, she assisted with the preservation of the temporal/secular teachings of the Kingdom of Shambhala. 

Dr. Sagebien was born in Cuba and now resides in Halifax, Chicago, and San Juan. She is a retired university professor and a widely published international scholar. She was Senior Fellow for the Canadian Foundation of the Americas and her development projects/conferences have been generously funded by the Ford Foundation and other international foundations. She completed her doctoral work at the London School of Economics.