Jan.2: Waking Up in the New Year

WAKING UP
Is what life is all about. That and love. It’s possible to love without waking up, but not likely to last. In the “falling in love,” we are flooded with moments of being in reality, of listening to and looking at and thinking about the beloved as an object of wonder and delight. As I said earlier, we see the newly Beloved the way we would see a sunset or an ocean, as wondrous and delightful in their own right.

Later, we revert to our sleep and our selfishness and want the partner to be more flattering to us, or more attentive, or more ass-kissing, if truth be told. At first, we drop our me-me-me preoccupation and are thrilled to perceive another human being. Then the crapola begins to fill our minds, and we slip back into humanity’s greatest illusion: that other people were sent to this Earth to make our lives easier and more happy.

No, other people are asleep and are obsessed with getting More of some undefined something, of which there is never enough. Call it money, or love, or attention, or recognition, it is more a sense of not enough, not enough that drives us in our sleeping state.

And when we wake?

Then to breathe and know we are breathing is a big thrill. To walk on this wonderful Earth and feel or feet each time they touch ground is the delight and miracle that it really is.

Doubt me? Make a clay figure of a human, putting the feet on as the size that they would be in proportion to the rest of the body. See if you can get it to stand. You can’t. Under-stand this: to stand, to walk, is a miracle, almost. To be a being that can know it is standing and walking when it is standing and walking , this truly is a miracle.

This is our possibility : to wake up to the moment.

What is the easiest way? To follow the breathing, or to follow movement, as in Feldenkrais, or yoga. To move with attention and awareness. To slow down our moving can help become more aware. Sometimes speeding it up and making it bigger, as in dance, can help, though dance can get lost in the watch the me, me, me trip. But dance with real attention in the moving, that is a sweet and wonderful state, as is singing with awareness in the moment.

What’s the hardest times to be aware?

You discover for yourself. Set out to be conscious all day and notice when you fall into the sleep of not knowing what you are doing in the moment. This is one of the most important tasks in life, to set out to be awake, and to discover when and where we fall asleep.

Be encouraged every time you discover something about yourself, even if you discover that you have been asleep to the moment for hours. At least in that moment of discovering, you are awake.

Every moment counts.

Every moment in awareness counts times a thousand.

Go for it.