Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Sound asleep to semi-lucid – that’s how I might describe myself for the past 45 years or so. Some of us are sound asleep. We are hard sleepers. But the Buddha put it plainly, “I am awake.” Those of us who are sound asleep have had rude awakenings, jolting us into reality. But soon thereafter, we are fast asleep. And we are awakened rudely, once again. Who’s there? What’s that? In a daze, we snooze again.
After several rude awakenings, I began to sense something was up. But this time, it whispered. The alarm goes off, but we don’t understand what it means. It might take several alarming occurrences before we bounce to recovery. Waking from a deep slumber takes some doing and lots of time. It may take multiple awakenings, rude as they seem. But the rudeness turns to admonishment and love begins to waft in gentle whispers, “Arise, now. The time for singing has come.”
And like a gentle trickle, love enters, not suspiciously, but surreptitiously. Into the dark separation, light shines in between the lines. Consider it subversive intrusion. It fills in the cracks of misunderstanding. It seeps into the crevices of the hardened criminal. It oozes into the ignorance of the ego-maniac. The paranoid are healed. The paralyzed dance, naked, unafraid.
Arise love, come into the bliss of here and now. Fill me in. Fill me in with what I’ve missed whilst sleeping! Awaken child, your time has come. That which was sleeping is that which never slumbers nor sleeps, so why fear? That which arises is that which always was and always will be, but in some mystifying way has simply forgotten the Sleepless One.
How many rude awakenings does it take? As many as it takes for the beloved to arise and to come away without snoozing, without making a fuss.