Sleep Like A Baby

What is it about a sleeping baby that makes it such a delightful image of peace? What's different about the way we sleep as grownups? This consideration leads to a deep understanding of the mind, thinking, and how calming these down leads to that blissful rest we so desire.

[Photo by Benjamin Voros on Unsplash]

Transcript

Why is that phrase, I slept like a baby, So common? What is it that's special about the way babies sleep? Well, When we look upon a sleeping baby, We see something that looks peaceful. And peaceful sleep is indeed desirable, Especially for any of us who struggle. So if indeed a baby's sleep is peaceful, Why is it? Well, What is it about our sleep as grown-ups that's lacking? What is it that makes us restless when we'd rather be resting? Well, Aside from some kind of pathology, We can sum it up in one word, Thinking. It's thinking that gets in the way of our peaceful sleep. Newborn babies don't think, At least not in the kind of way that gets in the way of our sleep. A baby doesn't worry, A baby doesn't ruminate, A baby doesn't experience guilt, Shame, Remorse. We could say that it has the potential to, And we will typically see infants grow into these kinds of mental behaviors as they age and are socialized. We could think of this as analogous to installing software. We install the software of socialization onto the hardware of our children's brains. That's when we will see children begin to worry. Am I behaving correctly? Did I please Mummy and Daddy? We'll see them begin to want things beyond food. And that can keep us up at night, Wanting things. A newborn baby doesn't want in the way that we want, Doesn't experience desire in the same way. And so, Assuming it's fed and it's warm and it's comfortable, A baby will sleep very soundly. Until it becomes hungry again. But when a baby is peaceful, Boy is it peaceful. That software of worry, Anxiety, Guilt, Remorse isn't running yet. A baby isn't considering the way it behaved throughout the day. It's not considering its responsibilities for tomorrow. Baby doesn't have responsibilities. Our responsibilities will often keep us up at night, Or at least. That's a way of speaking. The responsibilities themselves don't have the power to keep us up. It's our thinking about them that keeps us awake in anxiety. So how can we sleep like a baby? Well, We need to learn to change our relationship to our thoughts. If it is possible to stop thinking or lessen the amount of thinking that goes on, It's not something that we can achieve directly. If you're listening to this talk, You're probably a grown-up. That means there's too much momentum behind the complex of thinking that goes on in the mindstream. Too much conditioning. Too much old karma. Broadly there are two ways of working with this to move in the direction of peace. One is samatha practice. Samatha translates to calm abiding. And we're all familiar with this in the form of techniques like breath meditation. We train the mind to pay attention to something that's going on in the present moment. And through this training, We spend less time thinking about the past, Thinking about the future, Which is of course where our worries and anxieties reside. This is all a manner of speaking. We can point to real results of such training. And they're great results. I highly recommend samatha practice for all. There is a second way of changing our relationship to our thoughts. That is to see that in fact they are all occurring in the present moment. Arising from nothing. Abiding in nothing. Resolving into nothing. Empty of inherent existence. Transient fleeting. With no identity of their own. There is no demand from anywhere or anything that one think. And so the game is to see thoughts and emotions like the weather. You have little more direct control over thinking than you do over not thinking. Most things that we think pop up out of nowhere. Now we can point to trails of causes and effects. Where did the causes and effects come from? Why did they happen? Why turns out to be a pointless question. If you keep asking why long enough you'll end up at the beginning of the universe and that's something for which we only have theories. No concrete answer as to where all of this came from. Much less why it came. So in fact any why question is baseless. That doesn't mean entirely useless. Sometimes looking at cause and effect is useful. But indeed our thoughts and feelings are much more like the weather than we tend to admit. Just coming along and then passing away, Sometimes bright and sometimes dark. Can we see the beauty in the dark clouds? If and when we can, We're free. No longer terrorized by thoughts or feelings that we would label negative. Indeed the flower needs the dark cloud. And in fact any separation between the two is self-created, Fabricated, An imaginary boundary. The flower is the rain. The rain is the cloud. In the same way you would not know a happy thought but for a sad thought. It's by contrast that we label things. Drop your resistance. Rest in the rain. Rest in equalness. And sleep like a baby.

Reviews

No one is forcing me to think, worry, ponder, calculate, assess or judge. The habit formation, the current of thinking is strong. To step out of it and “let it go” is a practice itself.