Dope-Slap Satori

This post is composed of a couple of excerpts from my correspondence with my spiritual friend and advisor. I post it here because of another insight I had, which I expressed (in yet another correspondence) like this:
"Much has happened in my life lately! I had a bit of a shake up and epiphany/satori that was kicked off by a fall that I took in my kitchen. (I wasn't hurt at all, and in retrospect I have been laughing because it was so much like the old Zen stories when someone gets enlightened by getting a nice hard whack!)"

Something is happening, and I think it might just be a really good thing.

So, I fell down in the kitchen the other day and landed right on my chest. I thought for a minute that I'd hurt myself, but no. I don't know if I told you about another fall last winter, when I fell out of the car because I was trying to stretch myself to step over a puddle and my foot slipped off the door jamb and I fell backwards into that same puddle. That fall was way worse than the one in the kitchen. I got whiplash that still sometimes makes my neck cramp up; skinned my elbow really bad and bruised a rib. Falling in the kitchen just stunned me for a minute and made my diaphragm feel really funny for a couple of hours.

I think that second fall literally knocked some sense into me. I realized that I've been selling myself short. I've been trying to see myself as other people see me, and I've been trying way too hard to fit myself into some category that matches what I think they see. All of that came about because I'd lost all my confidence and my gusto. I'd lost my chutzpa; my courage; my mettle; whatever you want to call it.

Well, I think it's starting to come back. No, I know it is. I guess you could say I had a kind of crisis, in which I was lying on my bed feeling pretty damn close to despair, and not knowing what to do. I don't know which came first, but what it boils down to is that I went and put on my karate gi and practiced for an hour, and then for the last two nights I've taken the dog out for a run-walk at eleven at night.

It was right after the fall in the kitchen. I was shook up and at first I felt kind of weepy, and I thought about being old and breakable. Then it was like somebody dope-slapped me, and I said to myself, "Hold on! Nothing's broken, nothing's bleeding, you didn't have any trouble getting up, your back doesn't hurt any worse than usual, what the hell is your problem?" I suddenly felt like I understood something. There were no words to this understanding, and I didn't want there to be any.

The best way I can describe what I understood is this: My confidence came back. My courage came back. My willingness to take a risk came back. I understood that all of those qualities come through my physicality. I had stupidly thought that because my body was physically damaged that I could not trust it anymore, that it wasn't capable anymore. It wasn't in words, but something like this happened inside of me: "I don't care, I'm gonna do it anyway."

It's not a reckless feeling, it's not that I'm being unrealistic; it's more like a feeling that it doesn't matter. It just is what it is. I suddenly knew that I could still trust my body. Maybe it's creakier and kludgier than it was once, but the juices still flow, and there is still some bounce left.

The other thing that I understood was that, for me, the body is my true context. I can't truly understand anything unless it comes through my body. All the rest is just trying to use words to express it. The words come after the understanding, and even if I never find the words, the understanding is still solid, real, breathing and present.

So, stuff is on the move. I haven't felt like this in a very long time. I'm done with coming up with reasons why I can't do something. I'm back in my body, and it feels good; even though there's dust and cobwebs and rust, and maybe some dry rot to deal with.... I can work with what I've got.



I'm not going to second-guess what's going on, and I'm pretty sure that I'm not getting ahead of myself. I'm not young anymore, and my body just won't do some things that I used to be able to do, but that doesn't matter. It really doesn't. I guess that's what is making me feel good. I feel my body responding-- and it feels familiar and right. Sore muscles from exercise feel different than sore muscles from sleeping wrong. These sore muscles feel lively and sturdy and satisfied, and that's as it should be.

I am at a total loss as to how to put into words what's going on in my peculiar little mind, but it feels like I'm taking back something that totally belongs to me, and only to me. It feels as though I've remembered something essential; something as important as gravity; something as ubiquitous as the air.  Something that's 'got my back' when I say this to the world:  "I don't need to explain myself to you. I don't need to try to figure out what you want. I don't need to live in your shadow. I don't need to modify my opinions to make you more comfortable. I don't need to kiss your boo-boos and make them better." 

The really huge thing I figured out is that I can still be compassionate even when I reject someone else's opinions or priorities as foolish or just plain wrong (as in morally/ethically wrong).

I don't have to take all my likes and dislikes prisoner, lock them up in some internal interrogation room, and question them under such a fierce floodlight anymore. 
Because that is exactly what I've been doing. It makes me blush. 

Old Man Zen just bends over, points his finger in my general direction, and laughs until his eyes water. I say, "Oh shut up!" and he chokes out, "I didn't say nuthin'!" and keeps right on wheezing in hilarity.