More Money Please!

Thanks so much to all my amazing sponsors for the upcoming 24 Hour Meditation Marathon on November 6-7, to benefit the Interdependence Project. My original goal was to raise $480, and then I quickly raised it to $720. Well, we're way past that so the new goal is $1,000.

Click here to find out more about the marathon, the Interdependence Project, and why I'm sitting! *

More Money Please!

Lama Marut teaches us that we can learn from anyone. Even Glenn Beck.

I was very happy to hear that Lama Marut chose this site as his "website of the month." I've long been a fan of his work and I am pretty sure his podcasts were my first real taste of Buddhism. He's amazing at explaining complex concepts in a very simple and often funny way. There was a good year where I listened to his Dharma Essentials courses for hours each week. He has tons of free audio teachings, ranging from karma, to the Diamond Cutter Sutra, to emptiness, to the Six Perfections, to the Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, to the Lam Rim. It's great stuff, and he makes it super accessible.

I found out about Marut's selection of this site via email from his associate Cindy, who was kind enough to point me to one of his teachings. I had been trying to remember where I'd heard him talk about how anything or anybody can be your teacher. I fumbled through the concept in explaining how you could be taught something, even by High School Musical. Cindy pointed me to this amazing audio teaching, "The Appearance of the Sacred in Another Being." Give it a listen.


Lama Marut tells us:

“The guru can appear in all kinds of forms... the guru can also appear as your boyfriend, or girlfriend, or husband, or wife, or child, or mother or father. The guru is not limited in their appearance possibilities...

...the guru can also appear as a lake view. Anything that's changing your consciousness.... is the guru at work. anything that's changing your consciousness, anything that's going oh my god maybe life isn't just ordinary, that's the job description... of a guru... 'Make them believe that it isn't just ordinary.' That there's a sacred world right in front of their eyes if they could only see it. Bring them to nirvana... the end of suffering... bring them to heaven by showing them it's been here all along. It's been here right in front of you all along....

...they're like the entry point, the mediating entry point from a profane world into a sacred world. they're like a door that brings you into a different reality. And it is up to you to invest them with that capability. If you don't invest them with that capability they have no capability ever. Zero....

...when you meet another person you have two unconfirmable possibilities.... you can imagine them as just being ordinary, or you can imagine them as being a sacred angel on your case.... put on your case, come down from HQ on your case. And you can't confirm that they're not.... you've got that choice. Which one would be more interesting? Which one would be a better way to live? Which one would allow that person to start helping you? The secret of guru yoga is that you constitute somebody as sacred, as special, as divine in your life. And then everything they say and do from then on becomes a teaching for you.... what kind of lesson was that for me?

The power isn't coming form the guru. The power is coming from you. It's just a feedback device.... you invest the power in them and it comes back to you. and the more you invest in them the more it comes back to you."

So the key for me, then, is to invest everything with the power of the sacred. What can I learn from High School Musical? What can I learn from that guy who cut me off in traffic? What can I learn from Glenn Beck? Hard to imagine, but as Lama Marut points out, your teacher doesn't always appear the way you expect them to. It's up to us to decide to invest something with the power of the sacred, and that enables us to learn from anything.

So the guy in traffic can be a lesson on compassion. Glenn Beck too, believe it or not. Whether you imagine him as a child, or a father, or a husband. (I have no idea if he was ever any of these, not even a kid.) When he's making you really angry, you can imagine what's making him suffer, what's causing him to react so fearfully, and to instigate fear in others.

Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us this, in "Living Buddha Living Christ," how we can forgive even someone who makes us really, really angry:

"'You my brother or sister have wronged me in the past, I now understand that it was because you were suffering and did not see clearly. I no longer feel anger towards you.' Only when you understand what has happened can you have compassion for the other person and forgive him or her... when you are mindful you can see the many causes that led the other person to make you suffer, and when you see this, forgiveness and release arise naturally."

So learning about compassion and forgiveness can come from the most unexpected places! Really, almost anything can be a lesson in compassion; just look at today's headlines, or walk down the street and consider the lives of others, or drink a cup of coffee and imagine all of the interdependent factors that went into you getting that perfect cup. And you can have compassion for the farmers, for the truck drivers, for the baristas, for the workers in the cup factory, and for anyone else who led to you getting your drink. Compassion is everywhere, if you look for it!

Thanks so much, Lama Marut!! *

Lama Marut teaches us that we can learn from anyone. Even Glenn Beck.

Sponsor me in the Interdependence Project's 24 Hour Meditation Marathon!

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts this weekend, Buddhist Geeks (I love their tagline, Seriously Buddhist, Seriously Geeky) and heard a great interview with Ethan Nichtern, founder of the Interdependence Project, which inspired me to sign up for one of their classes on what they call Heartcore Dharma. It started this past Wednesday, and I really enjoyed it. This, in turn, inspired me to sign up for their big fundraiser, the "Sit Down Rise Up" 24 Hour Meditation Marathon. A bunch of participants will be sitting in the windows at ABC Carpet and Home, meditating for a total of 24 hours. I, personally, have only signed up for a four hour shift. In all honesty, I've never sat for much more than an hour, and my regular practice is less than that. So it's a challenge I'm excited to take on. But Ethan and some others will be sitting for the full 24 hours.

The event is designed to raise money for the Interdependence Project; they are a "meditation community dedicated to doing something with the mindfulness that comes from meditation. [They] offer meditation classes, arts programs and [they] have some very active social action programs, as well as a popular blog and podcast." Their FAQ specifically says this:

"The money is primarily for the IDP to get a new center, but also for several ongoing activism programs that need support like the initiative to end plastic bags in NY State and our prisoner tutoring program. IDP also plans to start a program this year for teaching mindfulness meditation in schools, as well as a radio show based on our popular podcast."

I particularly like what the Interdependence Project is all about:

'The core idea of our meditation group is engaging in the world with any benefits that come from meditation. So we “Sit Down” to work with our mind during meditation and then “Rise Up” to engage in the world."

Please consider sponsoring me for this event and making a fully tax-deductible donation. I've committed to raising $1000 (previously $480, then $720), but I'd like to raise a lot more, and I'll be updating you how it's going via this site. I'll be sitting from 11 PM on Friday, November 6th to 3 AM on Saturday, November 7th. Feel free to come by and watch me try not to nod off.

You can sponsor me by clicking on http://www.theidproject.org/node/91. There are instructions there to pay by credit card, cash or check. Make sure to enter my name - Jon Rubinstein - in the blank, and make it easier for me to keep track by sending me an email at jon [at] authenticm.com. Thanks! *

Sponsor me in the Interdependence Project's 24 Hour Meditation Marathon!

Brad Warner - "You can have compassion for anybody. You should!"

Brad Warner, Zen priest, former punk rocker, and the amazingly talented writer of Hardcore Zen, Sit Down and Shut Up, and Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate, was kind enough to take the time to speak with me on his point of view on compassion and its role in the arts.

What's always struck me about Brad's writing is that it's completely reality-based. There's very little theory involved, even when he's describing difficult Buddhist concepts, he takes great pains to connect them to reality. Which is why I thought it'd be great to hear what he had to say about compassion.

When I first asked Brad about how he thought compassion relates to the way an artist takes on a project, he responded, "My teacher likes to say 'Buddhism is just realism.' So in order to portray a killer realistically, you have to play him as a real person. You can have compassion for anybody. You should!"

When we spoke later on, Brad explained why it was important for an actor to be compassionate towards a character when taking on a role:

"Anybody who does something well has to have a kind of compassion to do it well. Trying to do a performance that's meaningful, it's a kind of a key thing, especially for actors to have, and I think it's a natural thing, if you're good at it, you need that to do it.... to a certain extent society rewards that because they want to see it, they want to see people be compassionate."

Brad went on to explain that when we understand the suffering of others, we understand our interconnectedness with them, our shared humanity.

"Everybody needs some kind of help. There's nobody in the world who's got everything together and doesn't need any help. Interdependence is the reason you're compassionate. You recognize the interdependence and interconnectedness of things. You suffer if you're not compassionate. We think it's kind of arbitrary or 'it's a good thing' to be compassionate, but it's also an intelligent thing to be compassionate. It's the smartest move you can make, to act in a compassionate way. We normally think we want to get what we can for ourselves, and screw the other guy, and that's seen to be a way to make yourself richer or more powerful, and it works to a limited extent, but I don't think it works ultimately. The reason it's intelligent to act with compassion, because that's ultimately how you are going to feel better. So there's tremendous incentive to act that way. It's not just something you're doing for somebody else, it's something you're doing for yourself."

Thich Nhat Hanh, who I seem to be quoting in every entry, said:

“My right hand has written all the poems that I have composed. My left hand has not written a single poem. But my right hand does not think, ‘Left Hand, you are good for nothing.’ My right hand does not have a superiority complex. That is why it is very happy. My left hand does not have any complex at all. In my two hands there is the kind of wisdom called the wisdom of nondiscrimination. One day I was hammering a nail and my right hand was not very accurate and instead of pounding on the nail it pounded on my finger. It put the hammer down and took care of my left hand in a very tender way, as if it were taking care of itself. It did not say, ‘Left Hand, you have to remember that I have taken good care of you and you have to pay me back in the future.’ There was no such thinking. And my left hand did not say, “Right Hand, you have done me a lot of harm — give me that hammer, I want justice.’ My two hands know that they are members of one body; they are in each other.”

What Brad's saying is much the same, that we don't exist separately, we exist interdependently, and when that's portrayed by an actor, or shown by a director, a human audience is instinctively drawn to it. And how important it is to portray that honestly and powerfully:

"It's important work, because so many people are looking at it, and consuming it, it has such a huge influence, so it's not trivial work. Even though it might seem to be on some level. 'It's just acting, it's just a play, just a movie.' But so many people are looking at that and learning how to live from watching these films. You have to be careful."

Thanks, Brad, for the interview, and for the amazing books. Check out Brad's blog, Hardcore Zen, for more amazing insights! *

Brad Warner - "You can have compassion for anybody. You should!"

Why Compassion, and Who the Heck am I to Say Anything About It?

Have you ever watched a character in a film who was nothing like you on the surface, but somehow, you felt like you understood them? Or possibly even more significantly, like they understood you? That there was something in their being that felt totally human, that reminded you of yourself, or a friend, of your family?

Have you ever walked away from a play, or even a TV show, feeling like you understood something differently? That a new point of view that you hadn't previously considered was suddenly as plain as the nose on your face?

I've been working in the entertainment business for close to twenty years, and for many of those years, I was convinced that the business I was in was like any other; it was strategic. You did one thing to achieve another, which led to another, which led to a desired result. An analogy might be that we at SodaCorp repackage our soda in convenient Fridge-Packs™ which would allow the grocers who sell our soda to utilize shelf space more efficiently, and would allow consumers to have a convenient way to store our soda in their refrigerators. We'd have plenty of choices for each consumer's individual taste: regular cola, diet, ginger ale, lemon-lime, even root beer. Something for everyone, each in a convenient Fridge-Pack™ . Consumers would consume more of our product, which would eventually feed back to us as higher profits.

Think about it. An actor comes to Los Angeles or New York, and we, the representatives, the teachers, the casting directors guide them into the right kind of packaging in order to make them the most appealing to the consumers. We guide them to look to the others who have come before them, not as an example of someone who's looked deep into their own heart and found their own, personal path, but as someone to imitate. The windblown hair, the white shiny teeth. The chiseled abs. The casual way they deliver a joke, or how their eyes glisten as they deliver the emotional knock-out blow.

And, for a time, it works. If we package it right, if the goods are of a certain quality to begin with, and there's enough shelf space in that particular section of the market, it flies off the shelves.

For the better part of twenty years, I thought that's how it worked. And apparently, so do a lot of artists. For many, it's all about in order to. I'll do this TV series in order to get the movies I want. I'll do this genre movie in order to be considered for the movies I really want. I'll take this job in order to make the money I need, so that I can do this play in order to be considered a serious actor. I'll try and be more like him in order to get the jobs I want.

I'd spent years strategizing, trying to figure out the “right” next move for each client so that they could someday have what they wanted. And it was working out! I could point to my strategies and see how they'd been productive. If they hadn't worked out, I could point to some unforeseen outside circumstance, something beyond my control that had gotten in the way of my master plan. Of course, I never got full credit in success, because I was never willing to take full responsibility. I couldn't say “do this,” I'd say “it sounds like this is the right choice, based on your feelings and concerns.”

Unknowingly, I was actually exploring a very different territory with my clients, though not with full awareness and therefore not with full power. When I heard them talk about the work to which they were truly drawn, I couldn't help but be touched, moved, inspired, and to support them in their endeavors. It wasn't passive; their passions became mine, and I'd find myself torn between the strategy I thought made sense, and the inspiration I felt in my heart.

Poet and author David Whyte says, in his astounding book The Heart Aroused:

“...if we can see the path ahead laid out for us, there is a good chance it is not our path; it is probably someone else's we have substituted for our own."

I started my company in early 2005, thinking I knew the path laid out ahead of me. But when I was finally in charge, when I could no longer claim I had to live within someone else's worldview, when I realized I was personally responsible for my own point-of-view, I started thinking about what actually inspired me, instead of what I thought should inspire me.

And there it was, right in front of me. Every single artist who truly inspired me, who brought me to tears, who brought me to a new understanding of what it means to be human, who made me laugh, and who inspired me to action, had something in common:

Compassion

My client Tom Hiddleston, about whom who you'll be hearing quite a lot, is quite accomplished with his Latin. Tom says:

"Passion" is from the Latin verb "patior" meaning "to suffer" (participle is "passus" meaning "suffering"). And the "con" part in the preposition meaning "with.” So - literally "suffering with" means taking on another's suffering as your own, a deep kind of understanding and connectedness with another human being. Having compassion for people as a whole, for the whole palette of humanity, all of us with all strengths, weaknesses, our flaws, our nobility and fragility. That's what compassion means to me as an artist. An understanding that no character's suffering or insecurity or weakness or fear or strength is any greater or smaller than my own. ... "patior" has a second meaning in Latin, which is "to allow, "to acquiesce,” "to submit.” So I suppose etymologically "compassion" carries within it an essence of permission, acquiescence, acceptance. Which deepens my understanding of it in terms of having compassion for the characters I play even more.

Another smart guy (H. H. The Dalai Lama) said this:

Whether people are beautiful and friendly or unattractive and disruptive, ultimately they are human beings, just like oneself. Like oneself, they want happiness and do not want suffering. Furthermore, their right to overcome suffering and be happy is equal to one's own. Now, when you recognize that all beings are equal in both their desire for happiness and their right to obtain it, you automatically feel empathy and closeness for them. Through accustoming your mind to this sense of universal altruism, you develop a feeling of responsibility for others: the wish to help them actively overcome their problems. Nor is this wish selective; it applies equally to all. As long as they are human beings experiencing pleasure and pain just as you do, there is no logical basis to discriminate between them or to alter your concern for them if they behave negatively.

Wow, that's a lot to take on. Here we have an artist's point-of-view, and we have the point-of-view of a religious leader who's spent his entire life studying and meditating on compassion. And it sounds to me like they're coming from the same place.

Except here's what I see, every day:

Dude

Dude, you're a manager?

Me

Yeah, that's right.

Dude

Cool, dude, like in Entourage!

Me

Ummm.... yeah.

That ummmm... yeah is me being judgmental, by the way. Not very compassionate of me, I know! But it's not really a true story, it's one I made up to make a point about what is right now. So I'm being judgmental of an imaginary character. That's ok, right? Ermmmm..... oh yeah. Here's what is:

Every day, I encounter people who see entertainment as mercenary, it's about getting something in order to get what they really want, it's about strategy and business planning. And this comes from a group of people who generally got into it completely inspired, people interested in human connection, creativity, and making an impact in the world.

Naturally, this leads to people in the biz feeling resigned, disappointed, and beaten down. They suffer through their work because they have to, they do work thinking it's what they need to do, and very often and very quickly the inspiration and passion that they'd hoped to have in their careers and lives gets drained away. And anyone even considering getting into the entertainment business is led to think that this is how it works, that entertainment is about anything but compassion, it's about business school, and spreadsheets, and foreign sales value.

There's a deep cost to the world that comes from this kind of behavior. We're suffering, and we're being deprived of the things that bind us, that show us what we have in common, that give us hope.

And where does that lead us? To a world full of entertainment created by the uninspired. Sure, there are exceptions, but in a world where artists are being told to focus on business strategy, those exceptions are sure to become rarer and rarer.

Can you imagine a world where careers full of compassion, inspiration, and creativity were commonplace? And what that might make available in the world?

What I have noticed is pretty simple:

1. Compassion is at the center of every career that truly inspires me.
2. Compassion is the key to the most extraordinary career possible.
3. Compassion is the key to making the most extraordinary impact possible
4. Compassion is the key to the happiest life possible.

Wow! Big leap! Especially #4. I mean, seriously, who the heck am I to make that assertion? I'm just a poor suffering schmuck, but there are much smarter people than me who agree:

Again,The Dalai Lama:

The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes.

And again:

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Another smart guy, Shantideva, from The Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life.

All those who are unhappy in the world are so as a result of their desire for their own happiness. All those who are happy in the world are so as a result of their desire for the happiness of others.

Oh, you think it's only a Buddhist thing, right?

Thomas Browne Sr.

By compassion we make others' misery our own, and so, by relieving them, we relieve ourselves also.

George Washington Carver

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.

St. Teresa of Avila

Yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion for the world is to look out.

Albert Schweitzer

It is a man's sympathy with all creatures that truly makes him a man. Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things, man himself will not find peace.

Mohammed

No man is a true believer unless he desireth for his brother that which he desireth for himself.

Hasidic Proverb

He who feels no compassion will become insane.

And that's the intention of this project, to show how 1, 2, 3 and 4 are possible, and to inspire others to take on compassion as a focal point for their own lives and careers. We'll be seeing video commentary from some amazing people, each with their own personal point-of-view on compassion and how it relates to their work. Along the way we'll be hearing from actors, writers, directors, acting teachers, writing teachers, Zen teachers, educators, people from the nonprofit world, students, and anyone else who has something to say.

I am particularly thrilled to have the participation of Peace Games in this project. Peace Games' mission is to support young people as peacemakers through programs in elementary and middle schools. I have long been impressed with Peace Games' focus on compassion, communication, and activism. Peace Games' students, volunteers, and staff members will participate on our site in a dialogue, responding to the postings on compassion. We'll get to see the direct effect of the videos on young people. The dialogue between members of the Peace Games community who aim to foster compassion in their schools and neighborhoods, and professionals who value compassion in their work, will be an exciting concept around which to build a unique online community.

As a result of this partnership, not only is there an opportunity to inspire our Peace Games community, but an opportunity to reach thousands worldwide and energize them about the value of compassion in their own lives.

Come back to our site for regular updates, videos, essays, and commentary, showing how compassion has made a difference in the lives of our participants, and to get inspired by seeing how it can make a difference in your own life. *

Why Compassion, and Who the Heck am I to Say Anything About It?