Many, including myself, have ached and begged for awakening, to be cast into wakefulness and out of the “cruel hell of delusion.” Ironically, this was when I was young, healthy, and the silencing of dreams had yet to disappoint: I had it all before me!

Reflecting on how, without separation (falling asleep), you literally cannot have awakening, it points to how there is no problem. You are designed to wake up. Concerns such as “waking up” are not what my dog worries about. You absolutely are here to and meant to wake up. And it can happen at any moment. Why not now?

Who really knows, “why not right now?” And that’s also not your problem. Your problem is what to do with all this sleep-time. And why am I calling it sleep? And comparing it that damn “awakening” I’ve heard so much about? Buddhism celebrates the recognition of sleeping and the possibility of waking up. It’s called “raising the Bodhi mind” and without this raising, we can’t begin to walk our path.

But really, what are you doing along the way? It’s very difficult to accept what is. Such as accepting that maybe I’m not awake. Or accepting that this is being awake. It becomes even more challenging when we recognize (are told?) that there’s something better and more clear and more awakened.

The universe births sleeping children. Sure, it may seem like when that little one comes out screaming that it sure is awake. But honestly, it’s not any better off than an ape. Without the language and meaning-making, we are essentially more like animals: living moment-to-moment, happily unaware of self, or the past and future. Or time. Or this versus that. No anticipation of death nor longing nostalgia, that bittersweet yearning for the past that is gone, gone, gone.

And from sleeping children yearning to see themselves, the universe birthed language.

First was the word. Conjuring a knowing of itself coming into being. And then we separate. And with that scalpel carving up the world into this and that, me and them, I invent new worlds of my choosing, my mind making meaning to tease and delight and terrify. Towards awakening. Always towards awakening.

To remember how I spawned myself, and now seeing myself, I wake up to myself, the full self, the complete self, the self that encompasses all time and space. And by all space I literally mean everything, everywhere. And at all times.

Birthing myself as a sleeping child, I get to wake up to my mother which is none other than me. And in doing so, I blast away any separation. I am not in my body—my body is within me. And this “biggest me,” upon seeing itself can only do one thing: awaken. Waking up isn’t your problem, it’s the journey in-between that you get to be mindful about. How will you spend your days? On what, will you focus your hours upon?