Common Ground: A Little Wake-Up Call

January 2007 | BackWords

A Little Wake-Up Call

By Chris Malcomb

In some schools of Zen a teacher will issue a “reality check” by smacking students on shoulder with a long, thin wooden stick called a kyosaku. This practice is not a punishment but, rather, an effort to bring meditators back to the present moment. Though I’ve never practiced Zen and never been struck with a kyosaku, I’ve had plenty of experiences that mirror its effect. On my last Vipassana retreat, while we all sat in perfect stillness, an earthquake shook our meditation hall. Two days later, someone fell asleep on his cushion, tipped over and slammed face-first into the floor with a loud bang. Any distractions coursing through my mind in these instants were quickly vanquished, even if only for a second. It’s not just meditation junkies who get these “wake-up calls” though. They happen everywhere.

A child’s soccer ball rolls into the street in front of our car, hot coffee spills into our lap, our flight hits a patch of turbulence. Each of these moments can startle us out of daydreams and directly into present-time awareness. Sometimes I imagine God sitting up in the clouds, smacking random people with a giant kyosaku. “Wake up!” he (or she) whispers between chuckles.

Months ago, I was standing on a Berkeley street corner waiting to cross to the library. It was a particularly lonely day, and my mind was a stream of sullen thoughts. I was missing my ex, annoyed by a chronic injury and depressed about my creative drought. My mind was clearly “elsewhere.”

Suddenly, I heard a loud, close noise. Boom! I jumped like an actor in the Milgram experiment, turned my face away from the apparent explosion in the large, metal transformer box bolted to the ground next to me, and prepared for the worse.

But there was no explosion. On the gray metal door, just a foot from my face, I saw the remnants of an egg — bits of white shell, marigold-colored yolk, clear albumen — sliding toward the sidewalk like a Jackson Pollack painting. Down the road, teenagers leaned out the window of a car, laughing and pointing fingers as they sped away.

Jolted back to awareness, I tried desperately to remain planted in the present moment. I observed my bodily sensations — pounding heart, seething throat — and tried to breathe deeply. But my anger was intense. I felt violated and wronged. Soon, I was no longer feeling the rage; I was the rage. I wanted to do something: yell, kick the light post, chase down the car, drag the kids onto the street and pummel them like Chow Yun-Fat (as if). As my retribution fantasy evolved, my body tensed. My teeth clenched like a vice-grip. My fists curled like sea anemones.

Again, I tried to pull myself back from the story of my anger. The light changed, but I didn’t move. I watched the egg dripping into a puddle on the cement below. A garbage truck went by, rumbling under my shoes. As I calmed down, my rage gave way to vulnerability. I felt alone and sad, deluged with the terror of exploding bombs, the harshness of random violence, the cruelty of isolation. A tear rolled down my cheek.

The world is one big kyosaku, constantly smacking us on the shoulders. “Wake up!” it says. “Feel what you are feeling, without censorship or anesthesia. Pay attention to now.” Even so, most of us feel only the unexpected smacks. It takes a tragic death, a sudden earthquake or the climax of passion to dislodge us from our daydreaming minds. But these moments, however brief, offer us a true gift.

I recently saw the film Peaceful Warrior, based on Dan Millman’s true story of awakening. In one scene, Socrates, Dan’s eccentric mentor, draws Dan’s attention to the myriad “small” things surrounding him—the wetness of a dog’s mouth as it catches a Frisbee, the shiver of two lovers kissing on the lawn, the intricate sounds of a brook’s babbling water. “There are no ordinary moments,” Socrates says. “Everything is a miracle. Pay attention.”

To feel with deep intensity, unencumbered by the habitual ribbon of judgment, regret and fear, is to truly awaken. If we show up for these “ordinary” moments, we discover new layers; that what lies beneath our anger is different than we thought.

A famous Chinese proverb reads: “People in the west are always getting ready to live.” Some days I think this was written for me. I fret so much about what I should do or could have done instead of simply arriving with both feet in what I’m actually doing.

Meanwhile, I miss the fragrant jasmine lining the sidewalk.

Meanwhile, I miss the leaves rustling in the autumn wind.

Meanwhile, God, thoroughly amused, is aiming another egg at my head.

Chris Malcomb is a freelance writer in Berkeley. His essays have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, Teachers & Writers, the East Bay Monthly and KQED radio’s “Perspectives.”

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