"How are you?" I asked her as I moved up. I am old enough to know that asking anybody, especially middle-aged women, why they look tired might not be the best way to start a conversation.
"Tired and sleepy."
"I have not been able to sleep" she added. "I think I have slept for a long time when I wake up and it turns out that it has been only two hours. And then I simply lie there thinking, and not being able to go back to sleep."
Scientists haven't quite cracked what functions sleep serves. All we know for certain is that our physical and mental health is affected when we don't get enough sleep.
"Yes, sleep is extremely important" I replied.
"Do you get enough sleep?" she asked.
I do. I suppose I am lucky in that.
I heard her ask me "do you medicate?" I told her that I am on Claritin for the grass seed pollen season. The puzzled expression on her face made me rethink my response, and then rethink her question.
"Oh, you asked me whether I meditate? I heard it as medicate! No wonder you were wondering why I was talking about Claritin ..."
"If you mean whether I shut the lights and sound off and sit quietly for a while, nope. To me everything that I do is meditation. The cooking, the cleaning, the reading, the writing ..."
She didn't seem satisfied with that response. Maybe for once I have let her down with my reply. But, hey, spend enough time with me and I am bound to offer responses that won't always please you. My thoughts on atheism might not please some, while others might find my criticisms of Modi to be off-putting. Or, my intellectual inquiries about shit and sex work. All these work for me; my blood pressure is normal and I sleep well ;)
Yesterday, when talking with the parents, father updated me on the problems that a few extended family members were dealing with. "I think I am the only one with problems. But, everybody has problems, and many of those problems are more troublesome than mine" he said.
I agreed with him. Problems are in plenty. Who doesn't have them! Further, as my daughter advised me years ago, each person's pain is that person's pain and we can't dismiss that by comparison.
"Observing problems makes one a philosopher" father continued. "That's how Siddhartha became Buddha."
I wanted to add there that the world will be better off if every one of us spent some time every day understanding our own problems, and those that our neighbors or friends or family go through. But, I didn't.
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| With the Buddha, at one of the Ajanta caves |
3 comments:
Nice post Sriram, and strangely i didnt sleep well last night, but not tired :). May be some of us need only a couple of hours' sleep once in a while. Most people are'nt as involved as you with life that they need to meditate separately. If only more people could do every single act like meditation..... The world would be a much better place!
We all have our own battles to fight - sometimes certain battles can only be won when one sleeps, in ones dreams, sometimes the nightmares in real life force us to lose sleep :(
Blessed are those who can sleep at the drop of a hat without worrying :)
Long time no see, Indu ... I suppose you were catching up on your sleep and now you are awake ;)
Yes, I am convinced that there is no need for any special meditation time ... but, I suppose to each their own.
Yes, sometimes the real life haunts us in the night hours and life seems like a walking nightmare, Mahesh ... if only one could be a steady-Eddy through that, right?
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