Awake in This Life

One practice that can help us become more conscious is to look at our typical, circumstantial condition by comparing it to a theatrical experience. Imagine that the stage in a theater is our “mind.” On this stage of mind is a brilliant actor called the “ego.” On this stage, the ego acts out a drama called the “life experience,” or what we’ve referred to as our “circumstance,” and it always does its best never to take a break because the actor can only be in control of circumstances if it is on stage delivering its lines convincingly. What’s more, these lines come from a brilliant filing system that the ego has written and worked tirelessly over its lifetime to organize, so that no matter what circumstance arises, it can quickly access and cross-reference any script it might need in order for the production to stay relevant to whatever situation might arise. The ego is not only in charge of this theater of mind, but is also the protagonist of each tragedy and comedy. Moreover, it is the supporting cast as well as the director, the writer, the lighting and set designer, and the stage manager.

The drama that the ego produces can be long or short, deeply resonant or only superficially noticed. Whatever the case may be, it’s important to realize that to the ego, every bit of every drama counts. In fact, it acts from the conviction that any missed cue or forgotten line in any part of its performance means that it might be discovered as a phantom player acting out a scene that doesn’t reflect anything other than its own partial version of a vast, incomprehensible reality. The ego knows that if it is ever seen in this way, it will be deemed as insubstantial and incomplete. So, to keep up the façade, at every moment it does everything it can to convince its audience that its production is not only believable, but the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Continually producing these theatrical experiences might sound exhausting, but the ego has recognized that it can self-generate a boundless supply of energy from its attachments. In other words, as long as the ego can plug itself into to both the past and the future and identify with its judgments, the performance will be convincing. Stories anchored in our past, for example, give the ego an endless supply of templates for scripts relating to what it might like to either gain or avoid. Similarly, the future offers the ego the chance to project an unlimited array of potential outcomes onto the life experience. These unlimited potentials also impel the ego to act out forms of greed or aversion, which inevitably produce anxiety, stress, fear, and sometimes paralyzing panic. They all create great drama and allow the ego to evaluate and grasp all the things that will assist it in generating a great theatrical experience.

A woman from a sitting group that I was leading some years back asked me, “How then do I use this practice to deal with my daughters’ college admission process?” She seemed consumed by the circumstances surrounding this series of tasks. She went into great detail, telling me what needed to be done before her daughter could apply to her first-choice school, and I could tell by the tone in her voice that she felt the stakes were high. The mother appeared so caught by the circumstances that she and her daughter were facing, yet the more she and I talked, the more it became clear that the mother and daughter differed in their views as to what school should be chosen. And this was generating some suffering for everyone involved.

“What do you find yourself attaching to?” I asked the mother.

“I don’t want my daughter to make the same mistakes that I did when I was her age,” she said. “I had no encouragement and as a result, I sold myself short. So I guess that means that I’m clinging to a future outcome for my daughter.”

While this was only part of the story, it was huge for her to realize this. Her ego was busy at both ends of the stage, so to speak, trying to keep a reoccurrence of her past from happening by attaching to a future outcome for her daughter. Great scripts, great drama. As the mother began to see this, the stage play began to carry less weight for her. It took time and considerable attention on her part, but both mother and daughter were able to have more meaningful dialog once neither one of them was limited by attachments to the other’s past and future as well as her own. As it turned out, the girl chose a school that her mother never would have picked. Currently, the daughter is pursuing her doctorate, and her mother is quite proud.

Of course, not all stories turn out so nicely. As we all know, life circumstances are often messy and confusing. Regardless of this, as we climb higher on the Mountain of Spirit and we begin to enter the stream of Awakening, we become aware of the ever-present audience that watches the events unfold on stage and couldn’t care less whether things are messy or neat. It just watches. This audience of our ego’s show can be equated with what Buddhists call our True Nature, or our Original Face, or our Big Self. This audience is a relaxed, non-judgmental, and open presence that reveals itself as an unattached, and therefore enlightened, perspective. Instead of being caught by, and believing in, the ego’s portrayal of circumstance, the audience just watches the drama unfold just like a mirror reflects images put before it. This watching produces a shift from a small self orientation to a Big Self, witnessing awareness. Any of us can experience this shift if we can fearlessly be present enough in our lives to watch all of the unfolding drama without trying to adjust or modify any of it.

Perhaps there is no other situation better suited to support this shift than an extended meditation retreat. My first experience with a seven-day Zen retreat, or sesshin, was more than a little unnerving. I was crammed in a little dorm-style room with two other guys, both of whom snored loudly; the gentleman to my left in the meditation hall was a mouth-breather who always sounded like he was eating a banana with his mouth open; and there was a woman across the zendo who would sob whenever we were served rice during meals. This crying lady would then gag on whatever food she had in her mouth between sobs. This generated tension among those of us trying to focus on our food. Of course, this retreat was in silence, so I didn’t want to say anything to anyone about the distractions, least of all the people offering them.

Instead, all I could really do was watch what was going on within me as their activity was expressed. At first, the experience was maddening. I would ask myself why they all couldn’t just respect what all of us who were following the rules and being silent were doing? Couldn’t the guy next to me keep his mouth closed and breathe through his nose? Couldn’t the sobbing lady just toughen up a little? It’s only rice, for Buddha’s sake. Is there a medical name for this kind of attachment? Couldn’t everyone keep their rattling slumber, their slurping, and their overly-dramatic impulses to themselves so that I might enjoy a little peace and quiet on my cushion?

After three days of this, something shifted. The snoring kept on, the mouth kept salivating and smacking with each breath, and the rice still brought forth sobs and gagging. None of it ever abated, but my relationship to all of it changed. The moment that I let go of any notion of modifying or changing my situation, the shift occurred. As long as I accepted the fullness of each distraction as nothing more than something to watch on the Stage of Mind, and as long as I didn’t try to change any part of it, the shift from actor to audience, from small self to Big Self, was expressed abundantly. Looking back on it, I consider these people some of the greatest teachers I’ve had along the Path. My resistance to their behaviors was a simple expression of my unconsciousness. Having each of them to help me see this gave me and everyone else in the meditation hall a chance to climb a little higher up the Mountain.