Wake Up the Child
Despierta al Niño
Drop what you think you know and meet this moment with a child's curiosity, exploring whatever arises with openness and care.
Wake Up the Child
This is not a practice.
We're not here to have something happen.
You don't meditate to achieve something,
nor to create a change.
Let's forget about all our previous experiences.
Forget about everything you've heard and read.
Forget about the ideas of the next moment, the future.
To sit, to sit and meditate,
is just to be curious,
just to take time with curiosity.
Take a moment and look at what's really here.
What is the nature of what's happening?
What is the nature of this reality?
Uncomfortable, sad, in pain,
whatever's happening right now,
what is the nature of it all?
And the curiosity is a loving curiosity,
a childlike curiosity,
playful, defiant.
The curiosity that does not settle with anything the mind says.
Discover reality: a very loving quest.
There's distraction, discomfort,
the usual habits of distraction into thought,
the focus into the mind.
Invoking the child
Wake up the child.
Drop the grown-up, drop the adult,
and invoke the child.
Before there were any beliefs, there was curiosity,
passion: alive, full of life, curiosity.
A deep desire to know, to taste, to experience, to explore.
This infinite moment is your playground.
The child asks questions like:
What is this?
Who am I?
What am I?
Getting close to discomfort
Notice any sense of dissatisfaction, anguish, deep discomfort,
and be very curious about its nature.
Get very close to it.
Is it made of thoughts, sensations?
Are there beliefs happening?
A belief would be an assumption,
some notion of what reality is, some notion of what is happening,
made of thoughts,
thoughts about I, myself, my past,
the nature of what I am,
the tendencies, where I am,
the suchness of what this life is, what this experience is.
Questioning beliefs
No assumption, no thought can be absolutely true;
all are just interpretations and assumptions.
I am a human being born on this earth.
Are you sure that's fundamentally what you are?
Is there any evidence that we have not reincarnated?
Is there any evidence of what you are just prior to having been born?
The fear of pain, the fear of death, the fear of change.
Or do you know there is death?
Are you sure?
The body ends.
But are you so sure that you end?
What if there is no end to what we are?
Endless: not the body, but what you truly are.
What would it take for you to drop all beliefs, all assumptions,
to see the absolute and total uncertainty of reality, the mystery?
To know fully, without a doubt: I am.
What I am is absolute mystery.
I am not contained, no beginnings or ends.
All experience, all of time, all of space,
all worlds and universes begin and end inside.
The heart arises in me.
Love is the acceptance and knowing of everything that appears.
And it is already so.
Pure knowing
What I am is empty,
pure knowing,
pure knowing without mind,
pure knowing without thoughts,
pure seeing without eyes,
pure tasting.
The tasting of fears, pains, and pleasures as they come and go.
This childlike curiosity, this essence, is our divine nature.
It is love. It is wisdom.
It is life.
It is deep caring.
Joy and celebration, radical, vital.
It is all here right now.
At times soft and gentle, quiet.
At times erupting with great force.
Savoring this moment
More and more, our childlike nature enjoys nothing more
than savoring this moment,
exploring the intimacy of sensations,
thoughts, feelings,
the textures of colors and shapes and sounds.
The only satisfaction is love,
love of what is:
the miraculous sensation of the skin, the breath,
the beauty of the infinite shapes and forms of thought.