Well first off, after a wikipedia search, I found a fascinating story behind Osho. I find it a little embarassing that I'm quoting him (Let's just say he got to Oregon before I did), but still, in his words, I find some needed wisdom. He talks about looking at the moment between breaths to find reality - that our awakening comes from witnessing this almost non-existent moment. If we can observe this moment, we can observe all. I'm reminded of Bruce Blair, the Buddhist chaplain at Yale. I was talking to him one night, and he was discussing awareness. As he continued talking, he made a reference as I swallowed in my throat. I didn't even notice myself swallowing at the time, so I was shocked that he would notice such a small detail. Later Bruce told me about long hours of meditation when he would suddenly realize that a candle had gone out while he sat. He asked himself, where was I?
Suddenly tonight, I made sense of my car crash many years ago. Back when I was a sophomore at St. John's, my friend Jessie and I were hit by a big truck. From that moment, something in me changed. I applied to Yale, met Brenda, started dancing like an obsession and spun off onto what felt like a tangential life. I told my friend Simon, at the time, and I felt it for the past years - it was like I stepped onto an express train when I meant to take the local. I just watch those stops whip by. I think I felt like I was on that train until the past summer. It was only then that I began to take some ownership over my life. Before that, I seemed to be getting sucked onto some fatal course.
But back to the car crash - tonight, I understood what happened in those moments. I remember Jessie pulling out into the intersection, and I turned to my right to see the truck coming. I think I said, 'O Jesus' just before the truck hit the engine block in front of my seat. I remember the glass shattering, I remember the spinning, and I remember the most powerful force I had ever felt in my life. We spun and spun, and then it was quiet. Those moments as we spun were the first waking moments in my entire adult life. I remember the sensations, and they were actually beautiful. I saw the world as if in slow motion, and with a clarity that I didn't know was possible. I experienced life like I hadn't for years. As a child, I remember examining things with a tireless fascination. I could sit and meditate with an object for what felt like hours - I poured attention like I've never known in my adult life into the simplest of mechanisms. In these moments, the secrets of the universe unveiled themselves to me, but as I grew older, I took the world for granted. I assumed that I understood all that I had learned. I lost my true awareness. I rediscovered this deep sense of awareness in the brief moments of collision. It was the moment between breaths, when my experience became unfiltered. I saw reality as I'm sure the sages have seen it. Oddly, it's taken me almost four years to understand what happened.
Everything in my life after that crash was a response to that one pure moment, however I didn't really pay attention to what I was doing. I felt like I was spinning for the next two years. How I ended up at one of the most prestigious institutions in the country and hated the academics, I never understood. I couldn't figure out what I was doing there. At the end of my time, I sat in a Vipassana course - a 10 day silent meditation - and it finally occurred to me that I had taken three things from my time at Yale. Dance, meditation, and Aikido. In that moment, I felt that I had found the synthesis of my entire life. I loved both dance and aikido, but I could never find the true link between them. It was only upon beginning my study of meditation that I realized the essence of both of them is awareness.
Now, I'm sitting in Portland stringing together money for my bills. I can't find the heart to practice even one of the three. I seem to do nothing but read. Reading, reading, reading. I read until I'm sick of it. I have the suspicion that I need to get back to my loves. I just realized another thing though. When you're 'lost,' the awareness of your situation becomes oddly sweet. Maybe I am forced to become aware when everything disappears. Maybe this is the meaning of the old phrase that you have to hit bottom to rise back up again.
I bought a mirror the other day. It slipped when I leaned it against my dresser, crushing my jade plant. The plant lost some leaves, and I felt sickened as I threw them into the trash. They felt like flesh. How was I so unaware not to notice that the mirror would slide?
