"While you here do snoring lie, open-eyed conspiracy his time doth take. If of life you keep a care, shake off slumber and beware. Awake, Awake!" Tempest (Act I, Scene II).
Shak was no Buddhist (as far as we can tell) but this basic notion of awakening, consciously and purposefully is embedded deep in the 4 Noble Truths.
A distant cousin who I gingering ignore in family functions comes close to death after a serious bout of food poisoning, a neighbour whose seemingly happy marriage suddenly falls apart, a parent or child is taken ill. Out of from nowhere springs a natural and authentic torrent of compassion.
The tenderness we share, all that love and caring is buried (snoring) deep inside of us all this time. Is it necessary for personal loss and tragedy to awaken our compassion for others? Do we really need to feel the hurt to shake off our slumber and awaken?
Whether it is a tragedy of global proportions (such as 9/11, Auschwitz or the Tsunami) or personal grief in our own backyard, how is it that we find the capacity to love and show compassion to total strangers when these tragic events occur in our lives?
Why do we hit the love snooze button the rest of the time? Is love all just too much for us to take? Can we only take small doses at a time, handing out bite size chunks on a need basis? Are we really that busy in our 'day job? Is that kind of love only only permitted during puberty and in poems or movies?
This surely is the one point at which every spiritual and religious order intersects. Love is our waking existence, the rest of the time we are just - the living dead.
"Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide. Do not extort thy reasons from this clause, For that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause, But rather reason thus with reason fetter, Love sought is good, but given unsought better" Twelfth Night (Act III, Scene I).
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