Recently, I’ve taken up practices associated with a book I’ve long been interested in, Time Space Knowledge (Tarthang Tulku).

This happens every few years, that I begin with this book anew, excavating forgotten passageways between ‘my’ world and a sometimes less hidden place, which I can never do as an act of will, but only when a knock from the other side lets me know visitors may be arriving.

TSK is not what most would call an accessible book; the language is particular and rooted deeply in eastern wisdom traditions and histories not explained within the text, written in a rather philosophical western voice. This isn’t meant to exclude, but rather to allow in anyone who can ‘arrive without traveling’, whether they have studied contemplatively for decades, or not at all.

That the text draws one in at all means something about capacity to travel the course.

There’s an immediate expansiveness I encounter when even considering the book. Slight shifts of attention angle this way and that, opening vistas beyond what I ever imagine before entering. The phrase ‘focal settings’, which is used often in the text, has become less visual and more of an embodiment over time, as I try to grasp it less than I did at the beginning, let the book take the reins.

There is also the theme of levels, which is perhaps meant to help one recognize when they’re leaning on less or more effective sources of energy. One must drop agendas and receptively be… appreciatively, playfully, to have a chance at glimpsing… what. I can’t say. My suspicion is that this is about, as my title suggests, waking from the dream of time— not merely by experiencing more flow states, but actively inviting timeless ways of reality into the so-called every day. No waiting for the knock.