By: Jim Taylor

My favorite time of the day is those few precious moments when I am almost asleep or almost awake.
             Some days, I don't get to enjoy those moments. My head hits the pillow at night and I'm asleep. In the morning, the alarm clock - or a pouncing cat - shocks my eyes wide open. But when that happens, I feel cheated.
             Ideally, I slip asleep in stages. At first, I'm still connected to the real world. I can feel gravity pressing me against the bed. Even with my eyes closed, I know where I am.
             And then, as suddenly as snapping my fingers but much more gently, I slip into a different sort of space. I don't feel the bed or the blankets any more. My imagination soars freely beyond things around me. The images that flit behind my eyelids can be anywhere. I'm still aware of the dog snuffling in the closet, the cars grumbling up the lane, the furnace humming downstairs. but they no longer limit my perceptions.
             My mind floats free - until I fall asleep.
             Waking, of course, reverses the process.
             In that momentary in-between state, I have no desires, no wants, no needs - just a gentle emptiness that's open, receptive, non-judgmental. Time becomes almost irrelevant. Just being is good enough.
             My description sounds a bit like the Buddhist concept of nirvana. Western minds have trouble comprehending nirvana. It's not paradise, where every need is filled. Rather, it's an absence of needs, desires, or wants. It's not about having but about not having; not about filling but about emptying.
             But how did the Buddha know what he was looking for, when he started searching for enlightenment? You can't find something unless you know what you're looking for.
             Singers and musicians, for example, first have to hear a note in their heads. Then they can match that note with their voices or instruments.
             I've occasionally judged competitions for photographs or news stories. I have realized, as I riffled through the prints, the clippings, the pages, that I was measuring each entry against my preconceptions. I expect sharp focus in photos. I expect headlines to grab my attention. I expect writing that has some passion. Deliberately fuzzy photos, flat headlines, or tedious writing - even if the writer or photographer intended that effect - quickly get eliminated.
             According to legend, Siddhartha Gautama, the prince who became the Buddha, spent six years seeking enlightenment. Then, on his 35th birthday, he sat down under a pipal tree vowing he would not move until he found what he was looking for. He sat there all night, refusing to fall asleep, thinking, meditating. By dawn, he had his answer.
             And I can't help wondering. In the darkness of the night, after years of self-denial and sacrifice, emptied of ambition and adrenalin, did he drift in and out of wakefulness? And did he recognize, in that disassociated trance-like state between sleeping and waking, a state of mind that could lead to inner peace?
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Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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