Nepo - The book of awakening: having the life you want by being present to the life you have

Mark Nepo is an astonishing poet and teacher. He generously comforts us while guiding us toward the deep, quiet river of wisdom that saturates each and every day of our lives.

WAYNE MULLER, founder and president of Bread for the Journey and author of How, Then, Shall We Live? and Sabbath

A true treasure chest of practices, reflections, and poetry to remember the splendor, beauty, and magnitude of the human spirit.

ANGELES ARRIEN, PH.D., cultural anthropologist, author of The Four-Fold Way and Signs of Life

Mark Nepo's work is as gentle and reliable as the tides, and he is as courageous as anyone I've known in looking deeply into the mysteries of the self.

MICHAEL J. MAHONEY, professor of clinical psychology at the University of North Texas and Distinguished Adjunct Faculty at the Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center; author of Human Change Processes and Constructive Psychotherapy

Mark Nepo is one of the finest spiritual guides of our time, and The Book of Awakening is one of the finest fruits of his spirit. His poetic gift shows through on every page, and his own courageous journey from near-death to new life breathes truth into every word he writes. This book is a gift of love. Open the giftand open yourself to itand you, like I, will be filled with gratitude and graced with renewal.

PARKER J. PALMER, author of Let Your Life Speak and The Courage to Teach

Non-Fiction

As Far As the Heart Can See

Finding Inner Courage

Unlearning Back to God

The Exquisite Risk

Poetry

Surviving Has Made Me Crazy

Suite for the Living

Inhabiting Wonder

Acre of Light

Fire Without Witness

God, the Maker of the Bed, and the Painter

Editor

Deepening the American Dream

Recordings

Staying Awake

Holding Nothing Back

As Far As the Heart Can See

The Book of Awakening

Finding Inner Courage

Finding Our Way in the World

Inside the Miracle

This gift edition first published in 2011 by Conari Press,

an imprint of Red Wheel / Weiser, LLC

With offices at:

665 Third Street, Suite 400

San Francisco, CA 94107

www.redwheelweiser.com

Copyright 2000 by Mark Nepo. Introduction to gift edition 2011 by Mark Nepo. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Red Wheel / Weiser, LLC. Reviewers may quote brief passages. Originally published in 2000 by Conari Press, ISBN: 978-1-57324-117-5.

ISBN: 978-1-57324-538-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available upon request

Cover design: Jim Warner

Cover photography: Image Bank, Paul Trummer, Water Lily, Austria

Printed in the United States of America

MAL

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Wisdom is a living stream, not an icon preserved in a museum. Only when we find the spring of wisdom in our own life can it flow to future generations.

THICH NHAT HANH

L ike most gifts, it is the passing of something meaningful between people that awakens us to our potential. Coming upon the possibility of writing this book fourteen years ago was such a gift for me. Freshly on the other side of cancer, I was gentle and raw and eager to bottle light for those suffering in darkness the way I had been. It took two years to discover these small passages and to shape them into this book. Ever since, it's been my teacher as it has made its way from reader to reader for more than a decade.

While writing a few entries at a time, I was asked by an old friend if I could share them through email. That slowly led to a weekly sharing that went quietly for years all over the world, from London to India to South Africa. In 2000, the book began its journey in print. Almost two years ago, the book was kindly given to Oprah Winfrey as a birthday present, another appearance of gifting, and her deep connection and kind support has jettisoned the book into twenty languages and over two dozen printings.

One of the foreign editions is in Russian, and I can't help but think of my grandmother who came to America from a small town outside of Kiev almost a century ago, who learned English slowly in Brooklyn thirty-seven years before I was born, who held my hands as a boy and said to me in broken English, These are the oldest things you own. Across oceans and centuries, the mysterious cycle of giving and receiving is very humbling.

I am often told that different passages of this book speak as if I knew exactly what a reader was going through. I confess I am not that smart. But such a convergence is a testament to the luminous fact that the soul drinks from the same lake at center. And somehow when one of us bows our head toward that lake, the center is opened for us all. This is one of the quietest gifts.

So more than the pages that follow, it is the living center that each page points to that I continue to be amazed by. This is the timeless gift I hope you receive, the one that will free you and shape you as it passes through.

Mark

September 2011

T his book is meant to be of use, to be a companion, a soul friend. It is a book of awakenings. To write this I've had to live it. It's given me a chance to gather and share the quiet teachers I've met throughout my life. The journey of unearthing and shaping these entries has helped me bring my inner and outer life more closely together. It has helped me know and use my heart. It has made me more whole. I hope it can be such a tool for you.

Gathering the insights for this book has been like finding bits of stone that glistened on the path. I paused to reflect on them, to learn from them, then tucked them away and continued. After two years, I'm astonished to dump my bag of broken stones to see what I've found. The bits that have glistened along the way are what make up this book.

Essentially, they all speak about spirit and friendship, about our ongoing need to stay vital and in love with this life, no matter the hardships we encounter. From many traditions, from many experiences, from many beautiful and honest voices, the songs herein all sing of pain and wonder and the mystery of love.

I was drawn to this form because as a poet, I was longing for a manner of expression that could be as useful as a spoon, and as a cancer survivor, daybooks have become inner food. In truth, over the last twenty-five years, the daybook has been answering a collective need and has become a spiritual sonnet of our age, a sturdy container for small doses of what matters.

All I can ask of this work is that it comes over you the way the ocean covers a stone stuck in the open, that it surprises and refreshes, that it makes you or me glisten, and leaves us scoured as we are, just softer for the moment and more clear.

It is my profound hope that something in these pages will surprise and refresh you, will make you glisten, will help you live, love, and find your way to joy.