April 25, 2025
There is a beautiful exercise if one is alert; not quite awake, but alert. If you walk out of this room and go into the open, inevitably you must cross a threshold. That is the analogy. Here I am awake. Where was I thirty minutes ago? Asleep. Asleep was like being in the room and awake like being outside. At what moment, and how did I cross the threshold and what is that threshold like? How does it feel to be just entering the wakeful state or the sleep state?
It applies both ways. You can do it at bedtime and watch what it is like to fall asleep, or in the morning watch what it is you cross in order to come out of the sleep into the waking state. The biggest snag is that I asked the question only after waking up.
So I use all the other tricks: I watch my breath, repeat the mantra etc. and if I have just woken up the mind will be fresh, without too much agitation. That is the right condition.