Let me start by saying: IT WASN'T A RACIAL THING.
I know there’s a lot racial tension in our country right now and I wouldn’t be true to myself if I added to it.
The only reason I was attacked by these men was because they were intoxicated. I’m sure it didn’t help that I am 5'8” tall and they were all bigger and taller. The attack was prompted by self-confidence mixed with hypermasculinity.
They just happened to walk up to the wrong guy at the wrong time.
Here’s what happened:
I was walking home after a long day. On nights like this, I usually get delivery from one of the too many food delivery apps. Unfortunately, my orders would take up to 2-3 to arrive. I do not get home until 1-2 am, so most of my orders were being cancelled, leaving me hungry, sleepy and too tired to even eat if they do arrive. This was happening a lot, and I needed to do something about it.
I found a new restaurant 15 min away from me that stays open until 2 a.m., so I’ve been ubering there recently to pick up food on my way home.
Usually the streets are empty after midnight. During quarantine, it was very quiet, but since things have been reopened, there has been more foot traffic. Still nothing too noticeable, especially on weekdays.
So I was a little surprised to see three men walking my way that night, and from what I could see, they were really drunk, and possibly on drugs.
When I first saw them, one of them was yelling at a car and its driver so I tried to avoid them when they got close to me. For a second I thought about stepping off the sidewalk and walking on the street, but at the same time I wasn’t expecting to get punched.
Then it happened, bam on my face, right eye. I couldn’t wrap my head around what happened. At that moment, I was very confused but in situations like that, your reflexes and instincts kick in immediately. I thought for a tiny second about hitting back, but I felt at that time that it was unnecessary. After all, they reeked of
booze and drugs. And who fights drunk people?
Then I saw that my face mask was broken and that my phone was on the floor. Now that pissed me off.
Still, I decided to let it go. At that moment, I wasn’t confused anymore. I was very calm, probably too calm. But when you’re an experienced meditator, keeping your calm is just second nature. If you add that, my experience as a troubled teenager and my background in martial arts to the stillness that comes to you when you’re facing danger, you have a perfect recipe for a warrior.
But what was bothering me, or perhaps what I was afraid of, was my phone. I didn’t know how I would react if it had been broken. I’ve been doing a lot of work on my phone, and at work there’s this important client that we’ve been working with for 4 months. I just couldn’t miss his calls.
I saw that my phone was just scratched, so I let it go, turned around and gave them a smile. They must have not liked that, because the guy who punched me drew a knife and said: “What? What’s up?” in a very threatening way.
I knew then that I was going to fight.
In fights like this, when you are outnumbered, the important thing is to neutralize the threat. In my case, it wasn’t the punches, the guys themselves or even how big they looked. I was going to get beaten, that’s a given. The threat here was the knife, and I had to take it away.
So I did that. I could describe to you the technique that I used, but I am not trying to encourage anyone to fight. Besides, it requires hours and hours of sitting alone in silent meditation and a lot of concentration, which helps with focusing your attention on one thing. And that’s the secret: Concentration, and you only learn that in meditation. Also, I had the advantage of being sober.
Once I got the knife, we were pretty much on the floor. A few things happened then. His friends got scared for an instant, which every human being would be in that situation. I knew that I had a very small window to cause enough damage before they charged me in revenge. I didn’t, not because I didn’t want to, part of me did, the other part was hesitant.
At that moment I knew deep down that I had won the fight and that was enough for my ego. The problem was what could happen next, and there were only a few answers to this question. I was either going to kill a man in self-defense, but nevertheless kill a man, and possibly get killed in revenge, or I was going to let it go and get beaten.
If I did survive this, the aftermath of killing someone in America even in self-defense is limitless. I was going to need a lot of therapy. The court system in this country is not the best, trials can be excruciatingly long and unfair. People who already hate me for one reason or another would find more reasons to hate me. Even if I could run, which is something that crossed my mind at that time, I was going to leave behind work, my life and people I consider family. There just was too much to lose.
You have to remember that in situations like this, even though everything is going so fast, time seems to slow down in the meditator’s eye. I’ve faced death before, but I had never been this calm. On some conscious level, I knew what was waiting for me on the other side and that knowledge seems to take away the fear of death.
At that time, my only problem really was: What do I do? What is the right decision? I was thinking all of this in what I could only describe as nanoseconds. I could see why many would make the wrong call. It happens very fast.
I was considering the first choice, and seeing where it would lead me. I could stab the guy, get up, and get ready for the other two to come. I had my keys in my belt loops, and I knew that I could do some severe damage if I applied the right pressure. I was also looking around and saw what seemed to be a brick, and I knew what that could do too.
Then something happened, I heard very clearly, not too loud but loud enough that it felt real, the voice of an ex. She was crying and begging me to stop.
Depending on what you believe, this might have been an act of God, my unconscious mind or a manifestation of my ex’s soul, but something needed to stop me. I was taking too long and I had to make a decision.
My ex knew how to stop me when I was being an ass, she also knew of my softer side, and she would tap into that making me nicer, kinder to people. And that made her the ideal and quite frankly the only person at that particular moment that I would’ve listened to and I guess on some unconscious level, I knew that. I needed that.
Suddenly, I was back in my body, and I saw that these guys are just guys, people, friends, who had a little too much to snort. Friends who have families and other friends. If they were to die, people would miss them. I thought about how their moms would feel, I knew how mine would, and I decided to throw away the knife as far as I possibly could. Sure enough, the other two guys jumped on me and beat me until I let their friend go. He got up and ran, and they picked up the knife and left. At that moment, I was still on the floor with the voice of my ex in my head begging me to head home. It was guiding me. That’s how I would put it.
So I did that, even though part of me wanted to go after them. The voice was getting stronger at that point and was followed with cries, so I listened and went home.
Once I got home, I realized that I had lost one of my earrings, a gift from a cousin who passed away, so I went back to look for it. I returned against the advice of the voice, and thankfully they were gone. I spent a few minutes out there sort of hoping that I would see them again before I caught myself thinking: What are you doing? So if you catch them, what happens next? I remembered then again all of the thoughts that I had during the fight, and I thought it clearly wouldn’t have been worth it. I went home, put an ice pack on my face and went to sleep.
Now why is this important, and how can meditation and/or mindfulness practice can help our law enforcers save lives?
This is a very touchy topic so I want to be very clear when I say this: I fully support reforming the police and the criminal justice system, not just here but around the world. I believe that there have been way too many incidents of violence for them to be isolated cases. Moreover, I believe that, here in the US, we should absolutely keep pursuing police officers who are found guilty in the killing of innocent black men, women and (I can’t believe I’m saying this) children.
I believe that the words justice for all should be applied to everyone and anyone, not just the ones who can afford it.
Allow me to play the devil’s advocate here for a second. There are some good apples, and most police officers do their jobs impeccably. I’ve had multiple encounters around the world, with police officers who were remarkable. I’ve personally been helped by police officers who were patrolling after I got mugged here in NYC.
I know of someone whose mother and brother were kidnapped and had to rely on the police to get his family back. I’ve been helped in situations where I was clearly trespassing by police officers. There have been times during quarantine where I would just walk to them and have regular conversations with them.
I’ve offered them my books and Christmas cards as recently as last year even though it was against the law (for their own safety) and they took them and thanked me for them. However, I’m not going to keep praising them either. I do believe when we speak of police officers we do forget these people who are actually protecting and serving us, but more on that later. My point is police officers are people too. They are humans and like my attackers, they too have friends, families and people who love them.
As human beings they, too, can and absolutely do make mistakes all the time, just like the rest of us.
Just like the rest of us , they, too, are underpaid. Their training is solely based on survival skills, so of course they go into situations thinking they’re going to die, and of course everytime they are out, they’re pretty sure everyone is out to get them. That’s what they’re taught.
If you add that to the systematic racism of which they’re also just pawns, most officers do really believe that black people are dangerous and are threats to their lives.
This is where bringing meditation to our law officers can be very beneficial to all. Meditation helps you develop compassion. It helps you see beyond the physical aspect of reality and see the others as just flesh and bones with families and friends just like you. Mediation helps develop concentration, useful when you’re facing a perceived danger. Meditation can actually help you figure out what the actual threat is. This way we can save lives, and my story is proof of it.
Meditation helps you also cultivate love. This is important because when facing great danger, whether or not the danger is real, because the thought of losing those loved ones can be very helpful in the decision of taking someone’s life. Who knows? They might hear loved ones’ voices too.
(Clearly if you shoot someone for just being in their home, or sitting on one’s neck until they die, you absolutely deserve and should be in prison.)
We could absolutely keep advocating to defund the police (defunding the police does not mean abolishing it). Many get this confused. Defunding means to transfer some of their funds to other agencies. We have tried that in the past, and it didn't work.
When we talk of defunding the police, we do not take into account the majority of police officers who are solving murders and stopping crimes. We’re not thinking about that part of the department that is constantly working to prevent and stop terrorist attacks. We’re not thinking about the ones who are actually serving and protecting us. And that takes a lot of money. Avoiding another 9/11 requires sophisticated technology and manpower, making sure we wake up everyday and go to our favorite restaurants or bars without the slightest worry or care costs a lot of money to the city, to the police department.
But, there is also, of course, a lot of framing in criminal investigation and more.
My point is, defunding the police will not stop the bad officers from continuing to take innocent lives. Our problem lies in human behaviour that hasn't changed in hundreds of years. That’s what we need to target, and what meditation can help us achieve. It’s free, and there will be absolutely no need to give the police department more money, or to defund anything. Meditation is the answer.