Monday, May 08, 2006
Lovingkindness....
Lovingkindness...a powerful word.....an outrageous concept,especially if you live in a tightly packed sardine can like NYC....lovingkindness, indeed. Loving AND kindness in the same utterance....whew! a mouthful....! And the book with that word as its title is a bookful, I assure you..
I am reading Sharon Salzberg's book called Lovingkindness, in preparation for the end-of-May weekend I am spending up at Menla meditating and sitting in talks with Sharon S. and Robert Thurman......and it's difficult for me to express in words what I am feeling and learning as i read this book...it is all about the metta -practise in Buddhism...the one based on the metta sutra that begins: "This is what should be done by those who are skilled in goodness and who know the path of peace: let them be able and upright, straighforward and gentle in speech, humble and not conceited, contented and easily pleased, etc.etc....it is a most wonderful collection of ideas, and I meditate on this suttra every day now...it goes on to explicate, in the gentlest way possible, how a human being should behave in the world we live in...it's some, maybe 50 lines long....and the words have crept into my consciousness....they are sort of acting like a little silver shovel, unearthing mounds of mud that have covered over my thoughts and my being for so long...as a result all sorts of wormy things are crawling out to see daylight for the first time in a long time, and the sheer process of greeting these creepy crawlies has me fascinated! The mind is a never-ending source of entertainment!
As the dirt and mud get tossed aside, and as my purer thoughts emerge, it is stunning how mean they are! And how constantly, doggedly judgemental they all are! How critical and nagging in tone...how narrow-minded and biased. Underneath all I do, there lives a curmudgeonly monologist, not charming, not fun, not nice....lovingkindness? Phooey! Who the hell do I think I'm kidding! I am Satan in disguise! I seem to hate almost everyone who crosses my path! At least for a brief tiny instant....my mind is a contant gardener of critical comments...they bloom without my even knowing they were there before they pop their little heads up and splash out to the world: "Yuck, look at her awful hair!"...or "Wow, is he fat and ugly!"....or "God, I hate her ,she's so thin and gorgeous!"...or "How dare that stupid young mother let her kid sit down in a seat I could be sitting in?"...or "Wow, now that is a stupid looking outfit...so wrong for that body"...etc.etc.etc and much worse, I assure you.
I have become hyper-aware of how NOT full of lovingkindness I am....and this neither shames me nor alarms me..it just surprises me! Because basically i like people. And even understand enough about the way the world actually works to know that the gulf that separates us is imaginary...we are all the same... and love IS all that matters...but there those thoughts are! And that is almost a source of amusement for me....it's like watching bad Television!!!!! And all my channels are the WB Network! Bad, bad, tacky and worse....
So...this book is having a definite impact... it is clearing my vision...and during a time when so much could be clouding it (when is there not a time when that is so?) I find instead I look and see only wondrous possibility and hope...how dare i hope in such a world as we have today? One interesting by-product of doing A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE right now is that despite mixed reviews (some great some not), and even though the York is having to offer seats at a discount to fill the house, the house IS being filled and each audience loves the show more than the last one...yesterday we got a standing ovation...becaue it IS a good good show, the music and story are what people want to hear...and it MOVES THEM! And the York (and the wonderful James Morgan) is devoted to getting the shows they believe in out there for people to see...so we will probably run to our scheduled closing date of May 21 with full houses, with the York's "nut" not being met....but people will get what they came for: a theater experience that changes them for the better.
People would rather be thrilled by a live theater event than believe what they read in some critics column. So, whatever spirits are guiding people to the York's doors to see us are spirits with hearts in the right places....I love the looks on the audiences' faces after I sing "No One Ever Knows"...wet with tears....a recognition that what they have just heard is true...a glad sharing of a bitter-sweet truth....and after Christianne sings "Close Your Eyes", that instant when the audience hangs onto silence rather than break it with applause...it's magic.
I have to go meet a wonderful NYU student for lunch. More later...
I am reading Sharon Salzberg's book called Lovingkindness, in preparation for the end-of-May weekend I am spending up at Menla meditating and sitting in talks with Sharon S. and Robert Thurman......and it's difficult for me to express in words what I am feeling and learning as i read this book...it is all about the metta -practise in Buddhism...the one based on the metta sutra that begins: "This is what should be done by those who are skilled in goodness and who know the path of peace: let them be able and upright, straighforward and gentle in speech, humble and not conceited, contented and easily pleased, etc.etc....it is a most wonderful collection of ideas, and I meditate on this suttra every day now...it goes on to explicate, in the gentlest way possible, how a human being should behave in the world we live in...it's some, maybe 50 lines long....and the words have crept into my consciousness....they are sort of acting like a little silver shovel, unearthing mounds of mud that have covered over my thoughts and my being for so long...as a result all sorts of wormy things are crawling out to see daylight for the first time in a long time, and the sheer process of greeting these creepy crawlies has me fascinated! The mind is a never-ending source of entertainment!
As the dirt and mud get tossed aside, and as my purer thoughts emerge, it is stunning how mean they are! And how constantly, doggedly judgemental they all are! How critical and nagging in tone...how narrow-minded and biased. Underneath all I do, there lives a curmudgeonly monologist, not charming, not fun, not nice....lovingkindness? Phooey! Who the hell do I think I'm kidding! I am Satan in disguise! I seem to hate almost everyone who crosses my path! At least for a brief tiny instant....my mind is a contant gardener of critical comments...they bloom without my even knowing they were there before they pop their little heads up and splash out to the world: "Yuck, look at her awful hair!"...or "Wow, is he fat and ugly!"....or "God, I hate her ,she's so thin and gorgeous!"...or "How dare that stupid young mother let her kid sit down in a seat I could be sitting in?"...or "Wow, now that is a stupid looking outfit...so wrong for that body"...etc.etc.etc and much worse, I assure you.
I have become hyper-aware of how NOT full of lovingkindness I am....and this neither shames me nor alarms me..it just surprises me! Because basically i like people. And even understand enough about the way the world actually works to know that the gulf that separates us is imaginary...we are all the same... and love IS all that matters...but there those thoughts are! And that is almost a source of amusement for me....it's like watching bad Television!!!!! And all my channels are the WB Network! Bad, bad, tacky and worse....
So...this book is having a definite impact... it is clearing my vision...and during a time when so much could be clouding it (when is there not a time when that is so?) I find instead I look and see only wondrous possibility and hope...how dare i hope in such a world as we have today? One interesting by-product of doing A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE right now is that despite mixed reviews (some great some not), and even though the York is having to offer seats at a discount to fill the house, the house IS being filled and each audience loves the show more than the last one...yesterday we got a standing ovation...becaue it IS a good good show, the music and story are what people want to hear...and it MOVES THEM! And the York (and the wonderful James Morgan) is devoted to getting the shows they believe in out there for people to see...so we will probably run to our scheduled closing date of May 21 with full houses, with the York's "nut" not being met....but people will get what they came for: a theater experience that changes them for the better.
People would rather be thrilled by a live theater event than believe what they read in some critics column. So, whatever spirits are guiding people to the York's doors to see us are spirits with hearts in the right places....I love the looks on the audiences' faces after I sing "No One Ever Knows"...wet with tears....a recognition that what they have just heard is true...a glad sharing of a bitter-sweet truth....and after Christianne sings "Close Your Eyes", that instant when the audience hangs onto silence rather than break it with applause...it's magic.
I have to go meet a wonderful NYU student for lunch. More later...
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