RAYMUND FERNANDEZ
From time to time, he has a problem sleeping.
It does not bother him as much as it used to.
He has grown used to it, grown used to its consequences for the next day — which, of course, will be busy as always. And he will be tired. No rest for the weary. In their sleepless state, his thoughts conjure clichés. And then he knows they are preamble apropos to the dream.
I have watched this man grow from childhood to senior age. I know him to be a good person worthy of being listened to, or read, as the case may be.
He is a person of sound mind.
The body? I am not so sure.
He needs a checkup.
But he is too busy for that.
He is troubled by the times.
And I must not blame him for that.
He listens to too much news — the war in Marawi, in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, US politics, Donald Trump, Philippine politics, global warming, flooding in China.
All commentary seem now apropos to nothing. How can anyone help it? I tell him, “You must be able to soften the sadness of these realities for yourself.”
Go with the Buddha.
Would a more perfect world make you happier?
These troubles are inevitable.
They are Maya.
They are illusion, the same way every river is illusion.
It is there in front of you, but it is never the same river.
The rushing water you saw a while ago is not the same water you are seeing now.
And yet the river is still there.
The point, perhaps, is to get to the other side, to see the river from an opposite perspective.
And then see: The river itself is not as important as that you have crossed it.
And all these are inevitable, whether or not you cross the river and understand.
But oh.
That is only my perspective.
And I have not yet crossed this river. I am only trying to.
And the abject nature of my state is that I am trying to understand life, perchance to cross this river, by watching CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and ABS-CBN.
No desert for me to fast in, to be lost into for 40 days like Siddharta Gautama and Jesus Christ.
I do have a technique for sleeping that, once, I learned from a devotee of Ananda Marga.
First, tense the muscles of your toes as hard as you can.
Then relax them, as slowly as you can.
The slowness is essential.
Do the same thing with the rest of your feet.
Then your legs.
Then the rest of your muscles moving upwards up to your face.
After this, do the same thing in reverse order starting from head to toe.
And then back again. Become like waves landing on a beach, I was told.
I don’t always do this.
Most nights, all I need to do is to feel the soft cold of my pillows and contrast this to the warm body beside me on the bed.
She is breathing heavily so I can almost hear her dreams.
But there are nights when I do not sleep until the cocks crow.
And then I think, I should have taken that Melatonin.
But it’s too late now.
But in time, this thought: To be at peace, be at peace with your being despite its imperfection.
Imperfection is part of this universe — integral, essential, inevitable.
Be at peace with that. I do not remember if Christ or the Buddha said this, or in this way.
But this much I learned from reading after them.
And then sleep comes. And then the dream.
First, of death — of dying and everything he and I fear most in life.
A second dream. I am reborn finding myself sitting inside a mild and gentle darkness.
There is a campfire between us.
We are as many as a patrol of Boys Scouts.
And there, sitting next to me is my oldest son.
We are the same age.
I am one of them laying out a plan for our future together.
This is what I say: Let us not be evil.
But let us not also be so good we will not have fun.
Bliss.
But only as tenuous as a dream.
Nothing withstands the act of waking.
Still, I watch him carry a memory of it for the rest of the next day.