Wake Up Now Read Online Free PDF Page A

finally did come home once and for all, I realized that I had never been apart from it even for an instant. As one of my teachers liked to say, it’s your nearest, your home ground, the silent presence gazing through these eyes, giving rise to these thoughts, animating these arms and legs. Not the me you take yourself to be, but the one you really are—the mysterious, ungraspable subject of all objects, the “I am” prior to all characteristics. Yet somehow my true home, apparently as near as breath itself, had remained completely invisible to me, even though my teachers kept pointing toward it (as I’m doing now). As a result, I ended up searching for more than twenty years, sitting longhours in meditation, listening to countless teachings, reading innumerable books, before I found myself where I had always been.
----
    Breathe and Reflect
    Close your eyes, and imagine yourself abiding in your true home, wherever that may be. Take a few moments to experience this home in all your senses—the sights, the sounds, the smells. How do you feel? Where do you feel it? Are you surprised in any way by the feelings and images that the word
home
evokes?
----
    In our heart of hearts, don’t we all yearn to return home, not to the family of our childhood, but to the place where we feel completely free to be ourselves—a place of total contentment, relaxation, and ease? You may never have experienced such a home on this earthly plane, yet you may have glimpsed the possibility from time to time. Perhaps you’ve had such intimations walking on the beach, listening to music, or lying entwined in the arms of a beloved—a fleeting few moments of indescribable peace and love, when time seemed to stop, space opened up, and you encountered something indescribably sacred and profound. But such experiences inevitably come and go, and you may have been left believing that you could never experience such peace consistently from moment to moment. Or you may have been so enthralled by the encounter that you spent years trying to re-create it through spiritual teachings and practices.
    This paradox of the home we’ve never left but must somehow rediscover is expressed throughout the world’sspiritual traditions by the universal parable of the prodigal son. Wandering off from his father’s home in search of some distant treasure, the prodigal forgets who he is and inadvertently stumbles home years later, where he is found by his father, welcomed back, and offered his original inheritance and birthright. In one version of the story, he finds a treasure map that leads him back home to the jewel buried beneath his own hearth. In another, the prodigal, who has been reduced to poverty, discovers a precious diamond that was hidden in his pocket all along.
    These versions of the parable acknowledge the mystery of the spiritual journey: there’s no place to go but here, yet the going is often inevitable because it wears us out, humbles us, and prepares us to receive the treasure with a gratitude and appreciation we might not otherwise have experienced. By looking to externals for answers and coming up empty again and again, we discover everything we’re not—pleasurable experiences, material possessions, spiritual accomplishments, blissful mind-states, anything that comes and goes—and become more open to recognizing what we really are, the indestructible jewel of true nature, which as Jesus said is beyond rust and decay.
ENCOUNTERING THE GATELESS GATE
    This paradoxical dance of seeking and finding wears different costumes in different traditions. In Zen, it’s usually known as the “gateless gate.” Until you crack the combination and pass through, you can’t fully understand the meaning of the great Zen teachings, but all your mental effort inevitablyproves fruitless before this enigmatic and impenetrable barrier. You need to bring your whole being to the process, not just your mind, and allow the paradox to transform you from inside. Many