Tag: sleep

Five Pieces of Writing That Inspired Me: #6 Beginning

Posted in meditationTagged , , , , ,

“Sleep is the best meditation.” – Buddha

I set out to find my top five pieces of writing that inspired me and in doing so, found so many more. I thought this one didn’t make the list but then I had a restless night last night and I thought so much about the renewal that comes each night for me when my load feels especially heavy. So, I’m calling this the 6th selection in my top five. <wink>

The Truth about Morning

There is a vastness that quiets the soul. But sometimes we are so squarely in the midst of life’s foreces that we can’t see what we’re a part of. – Mark Nepo

The truth about morning is that it is the small light of the beginning breaking through, again and again. It is a wisdom so large and clear, one which carries us through our lives so quietly and completely that we seldom see it.

Day after day, we are covered with the dust and grit of what we go through. It tends to weigh us down, and then we think and scheme and problem solve. Then we worry if it will all really work, and if it is the right thing to do. It all makes us so dark and cluttered.

But despite our stubbornness of concern, we tire and must turn what has happened over to the hammock of night. This is a good thing. For no matter how unfinished we seem, the letting go into sleep is nothing short of a quiet miracle.

This letting go into sleep is an innate, reflexive form of meditation, no different than a fly rubbing its face or a doe licking its fawn. Sooner or later, without discipline or devotion, despite our resolutions and mistakes, we each much sleep. We must surrender to the quieting of all intent and regret, so that the small light of the beginning can rise in us, again and again.

There is no escaping this profound simplicity: what happens covers us like dirt. It covers our hearts and minds, till, at the shore we call exhaustion, we slip into the waters of sleep in a daily sort of baptism, so we can begin again.

So whenever you feel urgent or overwhelmed, whenever you feel pressed to figure things out or to rethink the unthinkable…rest…so that the endless beginning – which some call the voice of God – might break through what has happened. And you will wake feeling like dawn.

The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo

The Magic of Sleep

Posted in meditation, ParenthoodTagged , , , , , , ,

“We are like someone in a very dark night over whom lightning flashes again and again.” – Maimonides

I overslept! Instead of waking two hours before my kids get up as I do almost every other day of the year, I woke up 30 minutes after. I had been awake in the middle of the night worrying about how to keep my kids entertained and cool in the heat wave that is enveloping the Pacific NW and then I went to back to sleep for hours.

There’s a Buddha quote – “sleep is the best meditation.” In this phase of life with young children, I understand that more than ever. I go to bed feeling all the grime of the day and awaken feeling all the possibility. I go to bed with worries and doubts and awaken with faith that I can tackle them. I go to bed struggling to understand what I’ve learned and awaken with one more page of my story written.

When I finally woke up this morning, no one was crying or upset and instead we were all rested. Maybe the best proof that there is God helping us through this life is experienced when my eyes are closed and my brain is quiet. I lose the certainty of it every day, only to discover it again each night.