#reflection *What my newborn daughter taught me about the Dharmakaya* It’s been 15 days since my daughter Raina was born. These past two weeks have been both a spiritual awakening and abrupt identity shift for me. I have a lot to integrate, as the revelations unfold on me like waves in a psychedelic journey. Parenthood is already rebooting my views on family, community, and spirituality in ways I am only just beginning to process - and will have plenty of time to do so. I want to allow this process to unfold gradually, but I also want to encourage it by taking the time to write, draw, and record my thoughts. Writing has always enabled me to dive into my inner world to express and understand myself better. I don’t think writing gets enough credit as a *creative outlet* as much as it does for being a deeply *therapeutic tool.* Art in general has always helped me process matters of the heart that are too feral to make sense of without being creatively expressed. And witnessing Raina's home birth might have been my most feral experience to date. *“The child is the father of the man.” - William Wordsworth* Seeing Raina’s eyes for the first time, I felt like I was gazing into the agelessness of the universe—into a pure, unadulterated sentience. Her aliveness was already so complete, real, and spontaneous—entirely free from self-consciousness or the capacity to overthink. I remember her stark pupils searching the room, while the back of her mouth trembled like a rattle, as she cried on top of mama when she first arrived. I was amazed by her raw and natural energy. She was just this invisible notion inside of Laura's belly for nine months, and now she is her own small flesh-sack, with an audible power that commands the room. Although we may be very different ages, the spirit within her feels undeniably familiar. Something about the light in her eyes was bringing me back to my own spiritual nature. In Buddhism, the term 'dharmakāya' is often translated as the “truth body” or the ultimate nature of a Buddha. It refers to that which is beyond form and concept. It is **the unconditioned awareness that pervades all things.** In the light of Raina’s eyes, I was acquainted with the dharmakāya. Her unconditioned awareness, so evident in her infancy, had jolted me awake to an ageless quality of life I never felt so strongly before. The dharmakāya is not born and does not die. It has no age and does not operate in time. It’s what we already are when stripped of the attachments and aversions we use to define ourselves. As I hold Raina, I feel connected to my own spiritual nature because of the truth I see in her. She is not torn by comparison, ruled by ambition or critical of herself or others. She is just guided by pure instinct - free from the discrepancy of intention. Gazing at her sleepy eyelids, I am again in awe of how ancient she feels. I lean in closer to absorb whatever forgotten wisdom I can... I can’t help but wonder if my own parents were just as bewildered by the wild and ageless presence of their once newborn. This ageless presence is within each of us and it is the invisible thread that weaves us all together. It can be both our refuge from suffering and our foundation for presence. This is what the yogis' mean when they say *Namaste*: *"the light in me recognizes and greets the light in you." It is a quiet reminder to meet each encounter with compassion and grace because we are not as separate as we may appear.