One Time, One Meeting

In “A Voyage to Laputa,” the third book of Gulliver’s Travels, Gulliver visits a flying island where the inhabitants “of better quality” are so preoccupied with their thoughts that they fail to take notice of their surroundings. To remedy that situation, each such inhabitant has been supplied with a “Flapper,” who carries a “blown bladder fastened like a flail to the end of a short stick.” With this device, the Flappers bring their masters’ wandering minds back to reality:

The Flapper is likewise employed diligently to attend his master in his walks, and upon occasion to  give him a soft flap on his eyes, because he is always so wrapped up in cogitation, that he is in manifest danger of falling down every precipice, and bouncing his head against every post, and in the streets, of  jostling others, or being jostled himself into the kennel.*

These same dreamers also “forget what they [are] about,” until their memories are “roused by their Flappers.”

If you are married, as I am, your First Flapper may be your spouse. Who else will tell you that your button-down collar is unbuttoned, or that you are wearing a black belt with brown shoes, or that you have just said something uncommonly silly? Help may also come from a candid friend, who duly notes your slips of the tongue, or from the driver behind you, whose rude horn informs you that the light has changed. But a host of Flappers may also be found in the Zen tradition, which aims to waken us from our daydreams and haul us back to the here and now. Over the centuries, Zen teachers and zendo officers have employed a variety of means toward that end, including shouts, slaps, and robust whacks with the keisaku (“encouragement stick”). But for the lay practitioner, who may not be interested in monastic training but would like to lead an awakened life, gentler methods are available. Practiced with diligence, these methods can be as efficacious as a master’s barked rebuke or a keisaku landing on tender shoulders.

One such method is the gatha, or meditative verse, which may be recited before an action is taken. In his book Present Moment, Wonderful Moment, Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh offers a variety of gathas, traditional and contemporary, to sustain the practice of mindfulness in everyday life:

Waking up this morning, I smile.

Twenty-four brand-new hours are before me.

I vow to live fully in each moment

and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.

– – –

In this food

I see clearly the presence

of the entire universe

supporting my existence.

Memorized and recited throughout the day, verses such as these heighten our awareness of our often habitual actions. “As exercises in both meditation and poetry,” writes Thich Nhat Hanh, “gathas are very much in keeping with the Zen tradition.”**

A second method, also developed by Thich Nhat Hanh, is known as the “mindfulness bell.” Analogous to the actual bell that initiates a period of meditation, the mindfulness bell may be anything regularly encountered in one’s daily round—the screen of a cell phone, for example, or the handle of a coffee mug. Like the mezuzah mounted on the door frame of a Jewish home, the objects we have chosen call us back to ourselves, while also reminding us of the preciousness of life, which we honor by being fully present. Thich Nhat Hanh recommends that upon encountering our bells of mindfulness, we stop and take three conscious breaths. In that way we are awakened, time and again, and restored to the present moment.

A third and more demanding method is to ask a friend or family member to monitor our mindfulness. In his book Being Upright, Tenshin Reb Anderson recalls a woman who told him that she was doing whatever she was doing “wholeheartedly, with complete awareness.” In response he asked her, “How do you know that you are not just dreaming that you are doing whatever you are doing wholeheartedly, with complete awareness?” Developing his point, he asks all of us how we know that we are “not just practicing according to [our] dispositions and going along with [our] prejudices?” And in tandem with these questions, he suggests that “we all need someone in our lives to whom we are accountable, someone whom we have asked to give us feedback on our practice, someone to guide us in finding a balance in the midst of our likes and dislikes.”*** Such a person may be difficult to find—and even more difficult to retain. But practical arrangements can be made, as can reciprocal agreements.