Monat: März 2015

9

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/buch/babybuddha/978-3-446-25239-4/

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A sudden fear: the baby doesn’t belong to me (us). It belongs to no one. The baby liberates me (us) from possessiveness by its own irrevocable existence. As far as itself is concerned, it wants me (you) possessionless, dispossessed. That which is cannot possibly be possessed. Which does not mean that what is cannot, itself, own or possess. After all, we belong to the baby! A Question: Is it easier or harder to take care of something (or someone) that (who) does not belong to you, than to take care of something (someone) who belongs to you? The answer: the baby’s face, asleep.

8

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/buch/babybuddha/978-3-446-25239-4/

oder über den Online-Buchhandel

We want to be good. To be good quickly. To be good right away. To be good all the time. The baby prods our ambition. And our ambition allows us to hope: That we will reach our goal; that our child will thrive. But our haste rests upon a misunderstanding. It could lead us to miss what is most essential. The baby knows what we need now. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.

7

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/buch/babybuddha/978-3-446-25239-4/

oder über den Online-Buchhandel

The inversion. It is not we who are the caretakers. Rather, we are being cared for. The baby’s greatest care is for our attention. We are habitually inattentive. The baby has found us in order to bring that to our attention. It demands our undivided attention, it wants us awake and not sleepy. And it wants this precisely now that it has so thoroughly disordered our sleep. We obey the baby and an unaccustomed tiredness seizes hold of us. We understand (for the time being): What we used to consider our waking state was an extension of sleep.

6

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/buch/babybuddha/978-3-446-25239-4/

oder über den Online-Buchhandel

Everyday life. The baby rules. It would be pointless to object. Not only because there is no choice in the matter. We want to obey the baby and the slightest resistance arising within us reminds us of that willingness. Not to seek nor to find a way out of the daily chores – a practice we have long done without. Their repetition shows us the way. Waking up at night, getting up early. Nursing, undressing, wrapping, dressing, silently watching and listening. Again and again: holding the baby with a care that is as selfevident as breathing.

5

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/buch/babybuddha/978-3-446-25239-4/

oder über den Online-Buchhandel

Home. Something clears up when the baby moves in. It takes up more space than the space of its little body. It is present throughout the apartment. The whole house. The street in front of the house. The district. The town. The country. (Everywhere where we are.) It can do that because it does not occupy space. There is nothing belligerent about it. It doesn’t care about boundaries. It comes from water. Being is liquid. In this way the baby teaches me (us) something: how to grow beyond oneself in one’s own body. We remember. This is touch.

4

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/buch/babybuddha/978-3-446-25239-4/

oder über den Online-Buchhandel

From now on the baby rules and exerts our obedience. The decision one makes has already fallen. A teacher was born unto me (us). What good fortune to meet a teacher who is impatient from the start. And who knows nothing, on top of it. There is no bargaining with such a teacher. There is much to be learned, and the lessons brook no postponement. They begin right away. To the baby, everything (myself, us) is of intense and serious interest. It smells good.

2

Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

http://www.hanser-literaturverlage.de/buch/babybuddha/978-3-446-25239-4/

oder über den Online-Buchhandel

Just a moment ago it wasn’t here yet. (What was here a moment ago, no longer is. But it’s not gone either. The moment without the baby hasn’t turned into a moment with the baby.) Now it is here. It is here. The baby is here. A tremendous presence, even though the baby is anything but tremendous. Overwhelming emotion. Tears of exhaustion, joy. A ceaseless gravity, a bath in which you are submerged well over your head. The gravity of relief. There it lies, the truth, and wants to be touched.