Im täglichen Zusammensein mit dem Baby nicht das Bewusstsein zu verlieren, ist ein Wunder. Ist doch die Unwissenheit des Babys unvorstellbar größer als das, was wir unser Wissen, unsere Erkenntnis und Erfahrung nennen. Der Kontakt mit dem Baby müsste uns eigentlich ruinieren. Und tatsächlich hat unser Bewusstsein mit seinem Untergang begonnen. Ein friedlicher und langsamer Vorgang, der von allen (allen!) Seiten zugleich wirksam ist. Glitzernder Schaum steigt um uns auf, der – das ist jetzt das Wunder – mit jedem Tag mehr von uns enthüllt (heute haben wir das Baby gebadet; schwimmend auf unserer Hand, schien es uns verblüfft).

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Infancy is not eternal. Not an urgent question for us at this time, but we ask it anyway. Why? The baby urges questions upon us, then immediately obstructs the possibility of an answer by suggesting an opposite question. Infancy is eternal. A state that persists in us, overgrown though it is with the passing years. That is why our love for our baby is so unique: because he is so pure. Because ambiguity is so pure in him. Because that which is unclear does not fill us with concern. Because our single concern is our baby.

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The baby does not wait. What it wants and needs, it wants and needs right away. How different the flow of time must be in his universe! In which we appear as those who fulfill his wishes with astonishing speed. The baby’s impatience surprises us all the more as, again and again, he looks at us as if he were the most patient creature in the world. Naturally we think: If our own wishes were fulfilled that promptly, how relaxed and content we would be. All the vexations of life are due to the fact that wishes are not met immediately. But this evidence now seems dubious to us. Our own ability to wait could be the expression of a fundamental inability to say what we want (do we even know what it is?). Or is it rather that when we wait, we aren’t actually waiting? That our patience isn’t patience at all? Since we can’t be certain of any of this, the best thing will be to wait for the right understanding.

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Drinking and gurgling with joy: What the baby wants he gets, what he gets he wants. Life in the beginning is very simple. No resistance from any side gets in its way. It ripples and flows as it ought to. Our eyes are open, our mind is awake, our heart pure. What we do right doesn’t first have to make sense. Success lies in the palm of our hand: in this way, fate has no say and no chance. And yet we are exposed to temptations. Small, subtle temptations that approach us imperceptibly. Suddenly we feel ourselves forced to intervene. We imagine the baby saying: You’re just imagining this made me look sad. 

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Das erste Jahr Babybuddha jetzt auf:

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After turning off the light. We remain in the darkness, listening silently. The baby is asleep. He is breathing (weaving us a spell of airy joy with the fineness of his breath). Then his breath becomes inaudible. We know it has not disappeared. We believe it has dissolved into the night (having lost our unbelief, we will not turn on the light to check). Without effort we try to advance in sleep, with sleep, in darkness, with darkness as far as the baby does, but we do not succeed: We are already asleep.

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Now we are certain: We have glimpsed the baby’s secret. He revealed it for a tiny instant. And now we realize: All along we thought the secret was something entirely within his possession. Hidden within it and yet unfindable, even if we were able to exhaust all conceivable and inconceivable ways of seeking it out. Good that we didn’t go astray (we congratulate ourselves), that was what we glimpsed at that tiny moment: The baby has no secret. We do.

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Loneliness is stubborn: once it shows up, it wants to stay. Once you get to know it, you won’t forget it. When loneliness wants its pleasure, it doesn’t torment us too much. When it wants its greatest pleasure, it torments us a great deal. Everyone knows it, no one believes it. What is loneliness if not I? (But don’t we feel most comfortable when we are utterly at one with ourselves, utterly at home in the here and now with all that this entails?) What is missing when nothing is missing? It is only with the baby that I don’t (and you don’t) feel alone. For the baby is a silent robber.

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You are so beautiful, little baby (your beauty corresponds to your littleness. A baby our size is unimaginable, just as we cannot measure up to your beauty. There is no possible comparison. Everything about you – your roundness, softness, smoothness – bespeaks the same subtle power. We wouldn’t call ourselves rough or hard-edged, we just want to remember ourselves in you: That is the essence of beauty. Which is not to say that we, or our beauty, are gone)!

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