Awake/ asleep…contracted/ spacious.
Hal’s evening caregiver leaves at 10PM, and one returns at 9 AM. I take care of him through the night, while he’s in bed, asleep in theory but not always in actuality. I had a workshop to lead on Saturday and hoped for a good night sleep, got myself to bed by 11:30, read a while, asleep at 12.. About 2AM my vibrating disc Hal-alarm (it goes under my pillow, accompanied by a strobe light on my night table) went off, waking me from a very sound sleep. I approached his bed; he smiled at me and went back to sleep, clutching the alarm button. I removed the button from his grasp (but within his easy reach) pulled up his blankets, kissed his forehead, and went back to bed but it took me a long while to get back to sleep.

The whole thing repeated at 4:30. Again, he seemed comfortable, not in pain. Again, he went right back to sleep. Maybe a bad dream, maybe noise like thunder (it was raining). Sometimes there is pain and I need to reposition him in bed; or blankets have slipped and he’s cold. Other times, there’s no apparent reason for his waking.
I lay in bed, eyes closed but tense, awake, grasping at sleep! There was anger at his awakening me for “no reason.” Of course, that anger was the tension that kept me awake. Otherwise, I would have gone right back to sleep, as Hal did.

I can’t turn my emotions on and off; I can’t simply fall back to sleep because I want to sleep. Aaron reminds us, “that which is aware of grasping is not grasping,” but I can’t force myself into that awareness. I lay there at 5:00 AM grasping for a while, quietly breathing in; breathing out….still no sleep though. Still lying in bed, I began to meditate, just focused on the breath. Finally, I watched tension in my body with curiosity and gentleness; “I can watch it, just ask what is this tension telling me?” It spoke of anger; it spoke of sorrow; it spoke of fear; it spoke of feeling alone; most especially it spoke of resistance to all of these things. “ I do not want this!”

Presence with things just as they are is such a basic precept of the Dharma and perhaps one of the hardest to uncover. Our world is chaotic; it’s very uncomfortable. People are dying! Bombs are dropping; We are at war! I have no control over the externals. And I want control! I want to feel safe within that control. But I’ll never be in control! Hal will wake when he does; bombs will drop far away from my direct field of influence. Presence – loving, spacious presence, is my only power. In that deep, loving presence, finally, I sleep in peace.