The Dream Goes On

When I say this is all a dream, I mean everything — the entire universe, all of history, everything known and unknown, the rapidly approaching end of life as we know it as it’s absorbed by artificial intelligence — not just the rise and fall of my own brief experience measured out in days and nights, breaths and heartbeats, acts of kindness and thoughtless habits. The flesh falls away, the bones crumble to dust, leaving the consciousness free that once inhabited them and for a time was caught up in and blinded by their limitations, calling them pain, calling them knowledge, calling them William — free as the space in this room, not differing a bit from the space between stars, having no beginning and no end, infinite. The dream is everything that exists, in all of its inexhaustible variety; it’s the play, the game, the apparent common ground, the mutual agreement that keeps us clinging and keeps us bound, prisoners of our own beliefs and explanations, sacred and profane. Waking up from this dream is as easy as the infinite Yes of a baby’s smile. The dream goes on, but we’re safe in our mother’s arms. Waking is surrender.

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