Part 1 – The Incident
About a month ago, someone I know posted on Facebook about
an accident she had falling off the back of a motorcycle. She mentioned that through previous moments
of bodily trauma in her life, she had always rushed on too quickly, neglecting
to pay proper attention the actual experience her body was having. She said that this time, after she fell, she
sat on the ground and became aware of her body, her surroundings, her
sensations. Mindful of her presence in
the road, she moved to the side of the road and sat down, giving more attention
to the injuries and shock her body and mind had just sustained. Sitting with those and honoring them. This past Saturday, when I swerved to avoid a
car who was crossing over the double yellow lines separating the carpool lane
from the rest of the highway, when I squeezed my brake as hard as I could to
avoid slamming into the car in the next lane over and hit it anyway, when I sat
on the asphalt of the 405 aware that I had just had my first motorcycle
accident and I was both conscious and alive, this was the first thing that came
into my mind – this woman’s post on Facebook.
And I thought, don’t move yet. Just
sit for a moment. How are you in your
body? Sit with that. Be present.
And so I was. And I realized I
was okay. I was alive and sitting on the
road by my bike. I could see, breathe,
stand up... I was alive. Then I realized
I was sitting on the 405, and there was probably a host of people around in
their cars wondering if I was “okay” (I’ve come to realize in the past 4 days
that there is no objective gauge for what this word “okay” means). I waved to the car in front of me to signal I
was not dead or dying. I stood up. The car that had necessitated my swerve was
gone already. The car I hit had not
moved. I walked up to the woman driving
and said “I’m okay, but there’s damage to your back bumper. Do you want to pull off to the shoulder and
exchange information?”
“What?”
I repeated.
“Okay.”
I lifted my bike, got back on it, started it (!) and began
to slowly creep across five lanes of traffic to the shoulder, with this other
driver following me, her mom in the passenger’s seat. I was aware that my wrist was not happy to be
operating the throttle and brake, but it was not very far. I got to the shoulder and kickstanded/turned
off my bike. The young lady got out of
her car with her mom and they both came back to me “are you okay?” Yes, I assured them. I was okay.
I looked down and saw that my jeans had been torn from about the knee to
about the hip. There was an abrasion on
my left thigh. Nothing major – the type
of thing you get from taking a spill playing basketball or falling off your
bicycle. And my wrist was hurting. We called an officer to fill out a
report. The woman and her mother invited
me to sit in the back of their car rather than standing on the side of the
highway. I accepted the invitation,
gratefully. The logistics of information
exchange, speaking with the very kind, helpful, and supportive police officer
all happened amid the loud noises of freeway traffic. The lady I hit and her mom were incredibly
kind. They eventually left and I waited
with the CHP officer for the tow truck to arrive. After the truck arrived for my bike (which
was in surprisingly good shape!), I said goodbye to the officer (who, sadly,
wasn’t willing to take a picture of me in the back seat of his police car so I
could send it to my mom). I got in the
tow truck and we began the 45 minute drive to northeast LA. When I got home, I had to check in with my
body again. How was I feeling? What was I experiencing? What do I do about the fact that I have four
massage clients scheduled in the next two days, and I just had my first
motorcycle accident? I am so grateful to
the seeds planted in my consciousness by my dear sister on Facebook. The encouragement to stop and be
present. To hold my body in love and
tenderness and awareness. To truly be
there and to listen. I don’t know what
fruit my practice would have yielded without the explicit reminder that had
stuck in my brain when I read it, but having it so fresh in my consciousness
was a gift and a miracle. It is not
common to hit the pavement of the 405 and have my first thought be, “how are
you, body?” But it set the tone for a
very sacred experience of being with my experience from that moment to this one.
Part 2 – The Healing
After
Fast forward.
Saturday night I cannot sleep until 2am.
General discomfort, and I think maybe I am still in shock. Sunday is something of a blur. Lots of emotions from lots of different
things. You know, because life doesn’t
necessarily stop simply because we are hurt.
I don’t go anywhere, except to walk down to my yoga studio and say hello
to some friends. I am splendidly
tired. Partly because of how long it
took me to fall asleep, partly because my body is repairing itself on so many
levels I can’t even begin to imagine. I
have decided by mid afternoon that I will not go in to work on Monday. Sunday night I sleep better. I think I take aspirin more proactively so
the pain doesn’t keep me up. Monday
morning I wake up and I realize my body is still charged with fear and
anxiety. The sheer physiological trauma
of impact, alongside all of the stress hormone reactions that are created in
the body by such events, still sits in almost every cell of my body. I realize that my greatest task for Monday is
to figure out how to heal and release this trauma. I realize I am afraid. That I want to curl up in a ball and
cry. And on Monday morning I do let
myself huddle up on my bed for awhile and “dry cry.” It’s been a long time since I’ve been very
“good” at crying (meaning it’s hard for me to know how to let tears just come),
so sometimes I just let my body go through the motions to move some of the
energy. I realize it is time for
meditation. I sit on my cushion. I don’t sit to feel peaceful, I sit to give
honor and give space to the fear and trauma.
I sit to let the cells feel. And
they do. For the first half hour or so,
the moment of impact plays in my brain again and again. Each time I think of the crash my body
twitches, jerks, or convulses. It is
releasing something. I let it. I’ve heard that animals who are wounded will
go off by themselves and tremble. They
are quite literally shaking off the trauma (thank you, Taylor Swift, for the
good advice). I let myself twitch. I let myself tremble. I let myself connect with what I want. I want someone to hold me, but I’m too
vulnerable at the same time. I want
female energy, but I don’t want complications or emotional entanglement. After awhile I realize that I am still that
child wanting his mother. I don’t judge
this. I just let it be. I let that yearning grow. After 45 minutes, the bell on my phone
sounds. It feels like the process has
only begun. I reset the timer and end up
sitting for another 35 minutes.
After a while, I realize that what I’m wanting isn’t
actually for my physical mother to be holding me. I wouldn’t reject her presence, but it’s only
an image or a metaphor for what I’m seeking.
It’s not the literal thing. I
think of going to Deer Park on Sunday and the people I will see there. I think of my dear monastic sister who
becomes more and more like a blood sister every time I see her. I think of how I hug trees when I am at the monastery. I realize I need to go hug a tree. I plan to go for walking meditation when I am
done sitting. I think of the trees
outside that I can hug. Somewhere before
or after this I realized that I can take a bath. I realize that I can honor sensual but not
sexual craving I have for touch, for reassurance, for being held by letting
myself be safely enveloped by water. I
plan for a bath. I realize I am healing
through the elements. Air: the breath in
my sitting meditation . Earth: walking
meditation. Hugging the trees –
wood. Sitting in the bath – water. I decide without having to decide that the
accident itself had enough fire energy for many days.
I realize that this might be the first time I have had any
connection with the idea of “mother” earth.
I’ve always wanted to, but I always knew in my heart that the phrase was
simply something I said to sound “right.”
I’ve never really had much felt experience of the earth as my
mother. As a living system, yes. As a source and sustainer of life for us all,
yes. As our sacred home,
absolutely. As our mother? No. No
that is not how I’ve known this precious planet. And then I realize that my longing for my
mother to hold me is actually a longing that could be met in the experience of
the earth. I think of hugging the
trees. Of opening up my heart and
letting the pain and fear and grief from the past two days pour out into that
tree – into the earth, and I realize that it can hold it. Can hold me.
I think about writing this blog post – and about how much
more my Caltech friends will consider me a “dirty hippie.” Actually hugging trees. I smile internally. Doesn’t matter. I need to heal. Something about sliding into a car on the
freeway generated a trauma energy in me that needs to release. I’m not ashamed or embarrassed by my need to
hug trees – to have my sacred mother earth embrace me. At Deer Park we talk of “earth holding.” I was asking the earth to hold me.
I realized that my fear was as much about what didn’t happen as it was about what did happen. Meaning, I wasn’t just scared of the
collision. I was scared of what the
collision could have been – death. I
went back to the moment of impact in my mind.
I pictured it differently. I
pictured the force more violent, something different happening, a different
angle or velocity or trajectory. I
pictured dying. In one way, at least,
quite graphically. I relaxed my body in
meditation and didn’t react physically to the image. I didn’t let mental notions or judgments
about this being horrible or awful or unthinkable creep into the visualization. I just let it be. I could have died. I relaxed and breathed. That was okay. Then what?
I thought of the trauma it would have been for the cars around me to
watch me die on the highway. I breathed
into that trauma, too. I realized that
even this would heal, eventually. Even
if it took generations. Even if it lived
in them in some way and in their children and in their children’s children. Eventually the pain would heal. The seeds of transformation are ever
present. Even the greatest traumas
(which this would not have been) can be transformed – can be healed – can wash
away. No matter how much blood is shed,
the river will eventually wash it away, eventually. This doesn’t make pain easy to bear, but it
does remind me that everything passes.
That fear is not worth the energy.
It let the cells open and release that trauma. Not just the trauma of what happened, but the
trauma of what could have happened. It
doesn’t mean I plan to go out and get killed.
It does mean that the fear-energy doesn’t live and move in my cells
anymore.
I went outside and walked slowly along the sidewalk. Present with my steps. Walking on the earth. The miracle, Thay says. Truly that day it was a miracle. I could be dead. Any time you crash a motorcycle you could be
dead. I wasn’t being melodramatic. It wasn’t a “hey look at me, can you believe
what I just survived!” type of awareness.
I’m not a Lifetime movie. I’m
just aware that it is/was a possibility.
But instead of being buried or cremated, I am walking on the earth. Two days after a motorcycle accident on the
405, I am walking on the sidewalk, breathing the air, being with my steps,
honoring my body’s wisdom. Honoring my
need to surrender and heal. Miracle. I am alive.
I stop and hug a tree.
When I hug people I don’t open my heart and flood them with the pain I
carry inside of me. I embrace them as a
welcoming, a meeting of souls and bodies and friends. When I hugged the tree I was hugging the
earth. I was hugging my mother. I let myself melt. I let myself become a small child. A hurting child. I let myself sink into the bark and empty the
damaged, fearful, skittish and frightened parts of myself into the energy of
this representative of the planet’s love.
The planet’s ability to love, embrace, accept, transform and heal. I wonder if my pain nourishes the tree-life
the way my respiratory waste (CO2) nourishes it. I wonder if we are built in symbiosis in this
way as well. I wonder if the trees offer
us their trauma as healing for us and if our traumas can be life for the world
of plants when offered in love, gratitude and sincerity. I don’t think about that for very long. I am
too busy being held by my mother. I am
too busy pouring out.
I let go. I feel
cleansed. In my bones. In my heart.
In my core. I keep walking. Slowly.
Mindfully. I hope no one calls
the cops on me because I look like a fucking weirdo. I cross the street and walk back. Dogs like to bark. I feel sad that they are not more at
peace. I think about how fear cycles
into the animal kingdom. How we live in
a world where there is violence, and so we train dogs to protect us. This is not “wrong.” It just shows how our fear conditions the
worlds we create around us. I look at
the dogs with loving, sad eyes as they snarl at me through the fence. I walk a little farther away because I don’t
want to incite them to this kind of protecting.
Most of the dogs who are barking simply seem to enjoy the sound of their
own bark. Only one dog truly seems
hostile and angry. I keep walking. I hug another tree. I stop and touch the bark of still
another. There’s an energy there. I could spend all day with it. I am more healed now than I ever could have
expected to be two hours previously.
Part 3 – Healing with
my motorcycle
Eventually I come back to my home and I look at my bike
across the street. I realize it is time to
go make peace with my bike. I don’t
pressure myself. I walk over and sit
down on the curb next to my bike. Like a
friend you haven’t seen since a big fight.
Just sit, don’t say anything.
Just let the energy become safe.
I looked at it. Impressed at how
it held up under the collision.
Impressed at how my own body held up.
Saturday night in the shower I had thanked my right arm for
taking the brunt of the impact. I
thought about how my jeans tore. I
thought about how my leg got scraped up, and I realized how much more severe my
wounds could have been. The pain in my
wrist was from its absorbing momentum that would have otherwise been
transferred and absorbed elsewhere in my body.
The price my arm paid in taking that momentum saved other parts of me in
ways I can’t know. I thanked my arm from
the bottom of my heart. Perhaps it even
saved my life. Probably it saved my leg from a deeper cut or a stronger
bruising.
I look at the bike from the curb. Not an enemy.
Not unsafe. Not a danger. I sit on the bike, hold its handlebars in my
hands. I think I would have started
shaking if I had done this two hours earlier.
But I’ve already played out the “worst” case scenario of motorcycle death
in my mind. I’ve realized I don’t need
to be scared. Sitting on the motorcycle,
I am at peace. I am truly at peace. My neighbor comes home and asks how I
am. I say I am okay and that I am doing
some of my psychological healing. She
nods as if to say that is a good and natural and appropriate thing to do. She says she is going to the store in twenty
minutes and asks if I need anything. I
say, “Which store?” She says Vons. I say “Epsom salts.” She says she will get some if they have
any. I know they have some. A few hours later her five year old brings me
epsom salts. I thank her and she walks
away. I’ve never been handed epsolm
salts by a five year old before. The
universe is always creating new situations.
How many times have I said “there’s a sentence I never thought I would
hear in my life!” Every experience is –
or at least can be – something brand new.
“There are no ordinary moments.”
Or maybe every moment is ordinary, and the ordinary is also
extraordinary.
I don’t think I realize how much I needed this day of
mindfulness until I watch myself on Tuesday doing things that would have
completely paralyzed me at another phase of my life. My bike is towed to the dealership. I go to the rental car agency. I go to urgent care. I get an x-ray. I go from urgent care to CVS to fill a
prescription. I sit and talk with
someone for a long time. I go home and
have a message from the insurance adjustor.
My motorcycle is totaled.
Totaled? It looked like I
wouldn’t even round out my deductible payment and it’s totaled. I call the dealership to confirm. Totaled.
I need a new vehicle. I call my
dad and we brainstorm. When I can’t
handle anymore I say “I’m maxed out, let’s talk more later.” No hostility, no irritation, just
acknowledgement. It’s been a long four
days. I go to Caltech and put in an
appearance at the group meeting of one of the research groups with which I
work. I’m not sure if they all know what
happened, but I think they do. I get a
few smiles. I’m glad to let them see
that I’m still alive. I leave to go see
my boss and another coworker who are both not there. I leave to go see another person on
campus. Also not there. I go to acupuncture. Another way of caring for and loving myself through
this process.
Part 4 – Right
Mindfulness and Ongoing Reflections
I think about the lesson I learned and lived throughout
these few days - to take the time to ask/listen for what needs to be done… and then
do that thing (and sometimes that thing is to do nothing). My conversations with my insurance company
(about an hour’s worth of conversations in between finding out my bike was
totaled and calling my father) was no less a practice in mindfulness than my
hour and twenty minutes of sitting meditation the day before. If I had chosen to sit on my meditation cushion
when I needed to call Geico, I would have been hiding from the thing that was
indicated for my life in that moment. If
I had tried to have an hour conversation with my insurance company instead of
sitting and letting my body relive its trauma in a healing way, I would have
been doing what far too much of the world today does: charging ahead of my
healing. Acting unskillfully,
unmindfully, and unaware of the habit energies determining my behaviors and
running my life when I am neither conscious nor awake. In each moment I have had the opportunity to
live mindfully and awake. This is not
about perfection; it is about intention.
I am sure there were many things about the past 4 days that could have
been handled differently, “better.” But
the choice I made from the moment I hit the pavement, inspired and nourished by
someone else’s experiences and reflections, to be present to my body with
mindfulness – that choice began to create a ripple effect in how I have experienced
these subsequent days. The simple act of
stopping to honor my body led to the next moment and the next moment. How do I honor my body now? And now?
And now? How do I honor this
moment – this process – this experience?
“Most people go their whole lives without every really
waking up.” I quoted this in my last
post. It’s so easy to go through life
asleep. Asleep at the wheel, asleep at
work, asleep with friends, asleep while watching tv, asleep while on jury
duty. All I really did was begin to pay
attention and become willing to listen. Continually
listen. I gave my body what it needed
without being self-centered or narcissistic.
I remembered to tell my supervisors I wasn’t coming in. I took care of medical, financial, physical,
emotional, and spiritual needs – none to the neglect of the others. I stopped.
I listened. I sat. I hugged trees. I filed claims. I made phone calls. I didn’t tell a bunch of people what happened
to get sympathy or pity or attention. I
was mindful that, depending on how I told people, it might spark feelings of
fear in them, and so I tried to be careful how I told others, and when. More than anything, perhaps, I did not waste
too much energy fighting this as something that should not have happened, nor
berating myself for being stupid or foolish.
I know that I was driving between lanes. Overall, what I did was safe and yet also
risky. Someone chose to break the law
and cross in front of me over a double yellow line. I have dealt with the frustration, anger, and
disappointment that someone could steer a motorcycle into another car and then
simply drive off. I am still dealing
with that, I guess. I am willing to
reevaluation my priorities that lead me to “lane split.” I am wondering at what point the increase in risk
to my life ever becomes worth consistently being able to “arrive” more speedily
at a destination. Is even a .001% (and
of course it is more than that) increase in the likelihood that I could die on
the road a worthwhile chance to take so that I can cut 15-30 minutes of my
commutes during rush hour? I am
rethinking the words in the fifth mindfulness training: “I am determined not to
gamble.” I do not have a problem with lottery
scratchers or slot machines, but perhaps I think the payoff of getting somewhere
just a little sooner is worth a gamble with my life. I am not answering these questions yet, but I
am sitting with them, and letting them reflect back to me more deeply where the
priorities of this world and myself lie.
It gives me pause to reflect on what is important to me, and why – and
how not lane splitting might be my
most powerful act of nonviolent resistance in a society consumed with getting
“there” more and more quickly. I don’t
know. I do know that I am alive. That I am here on this earth, and that I can
walk on the ground and kiss it with my feet.
I know that I can hug the earth and let it absorb my pain and my trauma
with its seemingly infinite capacity for love and restoration. I know I can celebrate the sunshine and the
starry night sky for another day. And I
know that I am here with you, reading this blog. Either rolling your eyes at my hippie-ness,
or struck by something that for you is a “takeaway” piece of wisdom or
insight. I know that we are here
together. Today. And this, more than anything else, is the miracle.
