THE QUIET MULE COMPANION:

I wake up at 4 am from a dream. My bladder is filled slightly and my mouth is parched. I summon myself from the bed and walk through the hallway to the bathroom, flip on the disorienting light and piss and think "I am pissing." Then I hit the knob with my knuckle and wash my hands. Before I leave the bathroom I make a stupid face at myself in the mirror.

I stumble around into the kitchen and press the "light" button on the remote. The flickering lamp illuminates completely and I grab the glass cup on the table. I fill the glass halfway and drink. I think "I am drinking."

Two years ago I stumbled on an essay about how to become more aware of your activities during the day. Basically, it said that you think of the verb that describes the action you are carrying out. So when you wipe your hands you say to yourself, "Wiping," and when you wipe your ass you also say, "Wiping." So you become aware of your present place and present action in the universe.

I engaged in a similar activity by thinking to myself, "I am pissing." When I returned to bed, many thoughts began to rush to my head and prevent me from resting gently on my pillow and falling asleep. Yesterday I had researched and printed out the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism, and had been reading it over and over and contemplating it in my head.

These ruminations combined with the awareness exercises at 4 in the morning thrust me into some feelings of spiritual emptiness. I began to think about how there is "no separate self" and that "all things are impermanent" and started to feel some serious feelings of meaninglessness and subtle depression. And I tried evaluating these statements against my observations, and confirmed to my thinking mind, yes, these thoughts do not make up anyone, and yes, the world of no self is the only world that makes any plausible sense.

 So what is there if there is no self? Just the realization that perception is an illusion, and the continuation of the flux of the body. Out of which the question develops, is anything worth it? Saving the world from the soybean? Eating organic? Meditating? Trying to get laid? Doing anything?

I also began to think about how I once read a Buddhist master warn that there are a lot of ways to bring you into nothingness, but there are no ways to get out of it. The goal of Buddhism seems thus to be about realizing the illusion of selfish reality, but still retaining some semblance of a self in order to continue existing without (a.) festering in your own piss and semen until you starve to death, or (b.) being an emotionless zombie that takes no part in the joy of the world.

So, in the dead of night, not being able to fall asleep, I got up, baked an apple, ate it, and decided that I would give up serious spiritual pursuit until I was 25. Apparently in yogic tradition that's the age when the majority of your practice switches from physical exercises to breathing ones. Sounds good to me.

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