Waking and Sleeping

It's the middle of the night, the wee hours of Monday morning. I wake from a restless sleep, and decide to do some work. Judgment arises about sleeping and waking... I should go back to sleep while everyone else is sleeping, and when the sun rises, when everyone else is awake, I should wake up. Where did all these judgments arise? And if any of it is true, then why am I awake now?

It occurs to me that this is a metaphor for consciousness. We have so many judgments about what it means to be awake or asleep that we don't even notice we are nearly always asleep and awake simultaneously. Our normal waking consciousness on any given day is like a form of somnambulism, a forgetting that we take on in order to blend into the dream that is the world. There are moments when we wake up, and there is peace and a shining clarity. But then we feel like we should go back to sleep, since everyone else is. This shows up as the restless stories about work, relationships, and bodies... I should get back to work, I should take care of them or call them, I should eat or drink, I should go to the doctor, etc., etc., etc. There is of course nothing wrong with any of this. Unless I get lost in the dreaming of it and think it's who I am.

I choose to be awake now. I am choosing to sit propped in bed to write this at 2 a.m. What will I choose after that? I don't know. Maybe I'll go back to sleep. Or maybe I won't.

"The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you... don't go back to sleep." -- Rumi