“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don’t go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don’t go back to sleep.” Rumi
There is a story in Buddhist lore about how rare it is to be born a human being. Imagine that the entire planet consisted of oceans - and that in the depths swam a lone turtle. Somewhere on the planet is a ring floating on the surface. The odds of being born a human are akin to the odds of that turtle coming up to the surface and poking its head through the ring.
Once your head is through the ring - have the courage the look around. Bask in the radiance of the air and the sunlight. After coming up for air - don’t take solace in the depths of the ocean anymore. Don’t go back to sleep. Have the confidence to really abide in the present condition of being illuminated.
“Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?”-Khalil Gibran
Of course the turtle is blinded by the light - of course it wishes to return to the comfortable depths. Of course when you come up out of Plato’s cave - for a moment you can’t see because the world is more radiant than you ever imagined. But let your eyes adjust.
“In our lives we all know how life should be. The Buddha’s teachings point us to the way it is. [The fact that] experience in our conscious form is like this.” Ajahn Sumedho
We are experts in knowing how our life narrative should play out. We’ve been in the depths for so long that it’s all planned out - every next step has been conceptualized and ruminated over. But once you resolve not to go back to sleep - it’s important to notice the actual state of reality.
To notice how the world is without telling any stories about it. I notice this tendency to latch onto labels while teaching young children. It is apparent that curiosity ends when labelling begins. When you reach a definite answer like: that’s a butterfly, because of gravity, that’s called the water cycle - all wondering ceases. We do the same with our experience. We label our thoughts and emotions and immediately lose all curiosity in them. What is it really like to have a body? That thing you labelled pain, where is it really? Is it constant? Is it precisely located? Why not investigate and discern its qualities? Why not watch it arise, abide for a while, and then pass away?
“One doesn’t become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious” Carl Jung
Those emotions that are arising, that you don’t really enjoy - what are they really? Bring to light everything you once hid from and take a close look. The whole narrative dissolves when you abide here and now.
“When we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey” Wendell Berry
When you don’t go back to sleep, when you rest in awakening, how could you know what’s next? To be awake is to be present with uncertainty and change, and open to the flow, and willing to move along, and open to letting go.
When we are lucky enough to find moments of awareness and clarity - it is almost a given that they will fade. But in these rare instances, always resolve to remain awake. One day you won’t go back to sleep.
It is as it is.
Sasha
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Shasha, this is raw wisdom. It’s hard to convey such powerful concepts and just a few words. Bravo with blessings, Alain