I can't sleep.Am I going to sit zazen in the middle of the night? No. I am going to practice asanas in the middle of the night? No. Am I going to blog in the middle of the night? Yes.
I am amazed at the silly moths outside my 2 A.M. window, desperate to get to the light in my room. The damn moths remind me all too much of me in certain phases of my life - desperate to get something that seemed important, and very much needed, and would save me from darkness. Eventually, and mostly by luck I think, I stopped acting like the moths outside my window, most of whom are dead at the bottom of the window come each morning.
But part of it had to do with learning to see in the dark.
When I turn out the lights at night, and crawl into bed, it's always alarming to me how dark it is and then, once my eyes have adjusted, always surprising just how light it is and how much I can see of the world that minutes before seemed impenetrable blackness.
The difference is of course the dilation of my pupils. Seeing in the dark is a lot like sitting on your zabuton. We sit on the cushion and slowly our lives open before us - dilate - until we see things that we could not, notice things we did not, understand what once only confounded. We start in darkness and end in light.
Sitting zazen can be a lot like insomnia - we'd really rather be asleep - but if we are willing to let our eyes adjust, we can see wonderful things.
Like the sunrise.
Like our own lives.
In gassho, namaste and om shanti ya'll!
TAGS:
buddha
zazen
zabuton
insomnia
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