Making Peace Promises - For Compassion's Sake!

I was shocked to realize this morning that I haven't told y'all about Peace Promises. Peace Promises is the brainchild of the “unmessable-with” Josselyne Herman-Saccio, who I know both through my work at Landmark Education and as a talent manager, and the amazing Dr. Monica Sharma, who, “through her work at UNICEF, UNDP and the United Nations has impacted over 130 million people in 60 countries.”

Peace Promises' tagline is "Causing Peace on the Planet, One Promise at a Time." From the website:

"We say that if one person is fighting, or at war, with someone in their life, with themselves, with a belief, with an opinion of another’s, then there is war on the planet RIGHT NOW where they are."

As Thich Nhat Hanh said in the opening of Creating True Peace (boldface is mine):

“True peace is always possible. Yet it requires strength and practice, particularly in times of great difficulty. To some, peace and nonviolence are synonymous with passivity and weakness. In truth, practicing peace and nonviolence is far from passive. To practice peace, to make peace alive in us, is to actively cultivate understanding, love, and compassion, even in the fact of misperception and conflict. Practicing peace, especially in times of war, requires courage.... when the seeds of anger, violence, and fear are watered in us several times a day, they will grow stronger. Then we are unable to be happy, unable to accept ourselves; we suffer and make those around us suffer. Yet when we know how to cultivate the seeds of love, compassion, and understanding in us every day, those seeds will become stronger, and the seeds of violence and hatred will become weaker and weaker. We know that if we water the seeds of anger, violence, and fear in us, we will lose our peace and our stability. We will suffer and we will make those around us suffer. But if we cultivate the seeds of compassion, we nourish peace within us and around us. With this understanding, are are already on the path of creating peace.”

Peace Promises allows us to practice peace, to take on a Peace Promise and mindfully follow it throughout the day, notice when we stray from it, and gently return to our promise. Peace Promises cause us to be mindful. Spending the day focused on our Peace Promise is not that different from sitting on a cushion noticing our breath, or walking mindfully and noticing the ground beneath our feet.

Check out this inspiring video, showing real New Yorkers sharing their Peace Promises:


The Peace Promises site offers an opportunity for each of us to share our promises. I was on jury duty today, and so I shared my promise, to “happily serve jury duty today, knowing that I have benefitted tremendously from our jury system, and I’m able to help provide the same service to others.” When I had brief moments that frustrated me during jury duty, I remembered my promise, and returned to enjoying the day, without beating myself up for my momentary derailment. Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us that every moment is an opportunity to create peace, and this program really brings that idea to life.

Some of the recent promises I found particularly inspiring on the site:

"I promise to find more constructive ways to communicate (and less destructive complaining)."
"I promise to stop being so hard on myself and to let go of things I have no control over."
"I promise to try opening my heart to everything and everyone and put my wall down to be loved."
"I promise to be honest and truthful everyday."
"I promise to stop being so hard on myself and to let go of things I have no control over."
"I promise to keep peace in my heart and spread it to whom ever I come in contact with."
"I will be consciously kind to those random people I meet in life."

What's really exciting about this to me is that it's all about mindfulness; it's about noticing what we're doing and not judging it. When we notice where we're inclined to be unkind, and then act kindly, we've subtly shifted our brain's programming. But even if we just notice our reactions, that's often enough to cause a shift! From a Peace Promises email:

"Becoming aware of something often times sets you free from the grip of it. As you identify and acknowledge something it is no longer invisible to you. When something is invisible to you, it has power over you. When you can see it you can also give it up. The act of giving something up creates space. In that space something new can be created."

So this alone is inspiring, but Josselyne and Monica were kind enough to design a program to cause a shift in peace for each of us, in our communities and relationships, and in our own lives. Here's what the site says about the 30 Day Peace Promise Program, which is "designed to create more peace in your life in the areas of inner peace, relationships, your workplace and community."

"This program will give you an opportunity to exercise the muscles that actually create PEACE. Giving you the tools to create an alternative to stress, an alternative to arguing, an alternative to intolerance, an alternative to war."

Each morning, you get a new promise emailed to you, to focus on that day. I'm on day 29 of the program, though I have to admit I haven't taken on the promises every single day. The email explains the promise and how it provides access to peace in your life. Some of my recent favorites:

"I promise to do something unexpectedly nice for at least one of my neighbors today."
"I promise to smile 20 times today when I meet or see people I do not know."
"I promise to notice my prejudice (race, religion, age, sex etc) today and be compassionate and accepting."
"I promise to forgive someone who I have been holding a grudge against today."
"I promise to educate myself on someone else's point of view on an issue I have been being very rigid about. I promise to learn about it with a commitment to see something valid and new."

That last one was a real challenge for me; I chose to take on educating myself on the Republican point-of-view on healthcare. Prior to this Peace Promise, I shut down and wouldn't listen when I heard anything from the right; I made a commitment to learn something, and I actually did learn something!

I am still sure, however, that we need a public option. But at least I've given another point of view some real consideration. And that allows me to actually be in a conversation with another person who has a point of view that doesn't match mine. That's peace.

By cultivating peace––peace in our inner selves, peace in our relationships, and peace in our communities and the world, we allow our natural compassion to emerge. Imagine a really slow commute to work––has that ever happened to you? Many of us react with anger and frustration––to the traffic, to the other drivers, to ourselves for not taking a different route. If we'd made a Peace Promise that day, any Peace Promise, we might find ourselves noticing our frustration and anger, and letting it go mindfully. We might even find ourselves able to react with compassion. We'd still be stuck in traffic, but we'd be able to carry that peace with us throughout our day. So when we get home from the traffic jam, our frustration and anger isn't carried to our interactions with our spouses and children. We might, in fact, get to simply be with them, and enjoy them; we wouldn't still be stuck in traffic, even in our heads.

Go to the site and sign up for the 30 Day Challenge. You'll be glad you did. *

Making Peace Promises - For Compassion's Sake!

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.

The Dharma of High School Musical Part 2 - "Get'cha Head in the Game"

I want to be really, super clear here, because I've had hesitations about writing more postings like the one I wrote last week.

Here's the thing. I am not joking. I really, honestly think there's a Dharma lesson in the song "Fabulous" from High School Musical 2. I can't say whether this was intended by the song's authors, but I genuinely heard a lesson in the song after probably the thousandth time I'd listened to it. The lesson had been there all along, but it took the right causes and conditions for me to "get it."

I say this with the deepest respect and reverence for the Buddha's teachings, and also knowing that I am a complete novice when it comes to my understanding and analysis. This is why I go to pains to quote impeccable sources, teachers who have a much greater understanding than I have or perhaps ever will. Most of them are tagged over on the right hand side of this page. I welcome any clarification or rebuttal of any of anything I put forth; like I said, I'm no scholar.

My intention in my work on this site is to inspire others to take on compassion as a focal point in their lives and careers. Often, this veers into other, related areas of Buddhist study, but they're all closely connected. As someone who's in the entertainment business, I think it might be helpful to point out that there's room for a powerful teaching in any medium, whether it be a small, heartfelt movie, a Broadway musical, or a Disney Channel teenfest.

And perhaps part of the reason millions of fans connect to the High School Musical films is the thread of compassion that runs through all of them. We are no different from Sharpay, each of us always wanting the newest toys, and justifying it to ourselves like she does.

And that leads me to my next observation:

Last night, after my amazing nine year old daughter Lily made us dinner (for real!) I asked her to list all the songs from High School Musical, so that I could search for more Dharma lessons. Her equally amazing brother Eli shouted out "Get'cha Head in the Game," and I knew immediately he was on to something.

Watch the video:


The lyrics are a stunning back and forth between the running monologue in Troy's head, and what he knows to be important, that he simply must "get his head in the game." It's like two voices, battling for Troy.

Here's worried Troy remembering all the things he's been told to do:

Coach said to fake right
And break left
Watch out for the pick
And keep an eye on defense
Gotta run the give and go
And take the ball to the hole
But don't be afraid
To shoot the outside "J"

And then mindful Troy simply remembers that none of this is possible unless he's here, in the present moment:

Just keep ya head in the game
Just keep ya head in the game

Here's worried Troy talking about the past and the future, both in the same verse:

Let's make sure
That we get the rebound
'Cause when we get it
Then the crowd will go wild
A second chance
Gotta grab it and go
Maybe this time
We'll hit the right notes

"Let's make sure that we get the rebound," is worried Troy worrying about the future. "Maybe this time we'll hit the right notes," is worried Troy comparing to the past.

But then mindful Troy reminds us what's important:

Wait a minute
It's not the time or place
Wait a minute
Get my head in the game
Wait a minute
Get my head in the game
Wait a minute
Wait a minute

There is such a simple and profound lesson here. Thich Nhat Hanh says, in "The Miracle of Mindfulness,"

"Joy and peace are the joy and peace possible in this very hour of sitting. If you cannot find it here, you won't find it anywhere. Don't chase after your thoughts as a shadow follows its object. Don't run after your thoughts. Find joy and peace in this very moment."

Thay later quotes Tolstoy in the book:

"Remember that there is only one important time and that is now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion."

Even more recently, Eckhart Tolle shared similar sentiments in The Power of Now:

"When you are present in this moment, you break the continuity of your story, of past and future."

"Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now."

These great teachers seem to be saying the same thing: "Get'cha head in the game."

This doesn't mean that Troy should give up! As Tolle says in The Power of Now:

"For example, if you were stuck in the mud somewhere, you wouldn't say, 'Okay, I resign myself to being stuck in the mud.' Resignation is not surrender. You don't need to accept an undesirable or unpleasant life situation. Nor do you need to deceive yourself and say there's nothing wrong with being stuck in the mud. No. You recognize fully that you want to get out of it. You then narrow your attention down to the present moment without mentally labeling it in any way. This means there is no judgment of the Now. Therefore there is no resistance, no emotional negativity. You accept the 'isness' of this moment. Then you take action and do all you can to get out of the mud."

Troy can "get his head in the game," accept the "isness" of the current moment, and then take action and do all he can to win the game! How profound this is, when we all spend so much time worrying about what actions we need to take, how we've done them the "wrong" way in the past, and how concerned we are that we'll repeat our mistakes in the future. But while we're worrying, we've created a world where "something's wrong," and we're unable to take any action other than to fix what we perceive to be wrong. If Troy's worrying about getting what the coach said "right," he's not going to be able to react and play to his fullest ability. Likewise, when we're worrying about what might happen, or what happened in the past, we're unable to really act from any place of strength; we're simply reacting, on full automatic.

And when we're reacting to the past, or worrying about the future, we're likely to be defensive, angry, and self-centered––and much less likely to be compassionate. *

The Dharma of High School Musical Part 2 - "Get'cha Head in the Game"

Help Bat Nha Monastery!!!

Hi everyone. I've been getting a lot of emails and Facebook notes about the situation at Bat Nha monastery in Vietnam. Bat Nha was established by followers of Thich Nhat Hanh, and the Vietnamese government recently demanded the monks and nuns living there leave the monastery. According to published reports, when the monks and nuns peacefully refused to leave, they were repeatedly harassed and attacked. Here's a quote from a recent press release: "Excessive violence was used against unarmed, non-resisting, peaceable monks and nuns, in flagrant breach of all internationally-recognized principles of human rights."

Yesterday, a mob descended on the monastery and forcibly evicted over 130 monks, later threatening over 230 nuns and aspirants who were forced to abandon the monastery. Here's the press release

"Yesterday morning, a 150-strong mob descended on Prajna Monastery, Lam Dong Province, Vietnam. The crowd violently evicted over 130 monks, followers of Venerable Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. Plain-clothes police were known to be amongst the mob; uniformed police blocked all roads of access. Government officials refused to intervene, claiming that nothing was happening at the monastery site.

The crowd, armed with sticks and hammers, smashed doors and windows. The monks, some less than 18 years old, began sitting meditation and chanting in peaceful resistance. They were assaulted, removed by force and dragged out of their residence into the torrential rain. They were violently bundled into trucks and taxis, driven off and later dumped by the roadside. Some were marched up to 15 kilometers away from the monastery, being subjected to kicks and blows if they fell. The two most senior monks were beaten and arrested without charge. At this time, it is unknown where one, Brother Phap Hoi, is being held.

After they had successfully attacked the monks, the mob set upon the two nuns’ quarters. Doors were smashed down and all 230 nuns and aspirants driven into one building. There they were held overnight, awaiting threatened violence the next day. Left with no alternative, the nuns and aspirants, the majority of whom are young girls and women under 25 years old, abandoned their home for an uncertain future."

While the monastery has been destroyed, there are a number of ways you can help call attention to this horrifying violation of international human rights laws. Some senior monks are still unaccounted for, and it's important that the Vietnamese government feels pressure from the international community to release them, and to treat them humanely while they're under custody.

• Consider contacting news organizations asking them to cover the events at Bat Nha. Coverage in the West is limited, especially TV coverage. Any attention to this matter helps.
• Contact your representatives in Congress and ask them to pay attention to the events, and to hold the Vietnamese government accountable. You can contact your representatives by clicking here and your senators by clicking here.
• Write to the President of Vietnam asking him to allow the monks to continue their practice peacefully, and asking him to release the monks in custody.
• Contact Secretary of State Hillary Clinton registering your concern on the matter. You can contact her by clicking here.
• Contact the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
• Inform human rights groups about the situation and ask them to take action. Here are a few:

Human Rights Watch
Amnesty International
Reporters Without Borders

You can find the latest news at http://helpbatnha.org/.

To get a sense of what Bat Nha is like, please take a look at this video, which shows the daily practice at the monastery, and includes clips of the monks and nuns' nonviolent response after the initial attacks.


I am full of admiration for these monastics who responded to the attacks with nonviolence. Brother Trung Hai, who is a Dharma teacher at the monastery but was in France at the time of the attack, said this:

"The Vietnamese government and the Religious Committee and the National Buddhist Church have won. Their victory is that Bat Nha is completely destroyed. Everything is smashed. All the monks and nuns have been evicted from the monastery and the buildings have been stripped bare.

Our monastics brothers and sisters have done their part, that is they have responded faithfully to every challenge with non-violence, compassion and forgiveness. And yes, they have won.

Now we rest on the conscience of the government and of the people, inside and outside of Vietnam.

We do not blame anyone. We have no anger toward anyone. We know that our enemies are not people; they are greed, hatred and ignorance."

*

Help Bat Nha Monastery!!!

The great Dharma teachings of High School Musical 2 - Sharpay teaches us about dukkha

Tonight's Interdependence Project class was on the Four Noble Truths, so there was a lot of talk about dukkha, which is often translated as "suffering," "unease," or "stress." It was a great class and I felt like I gained some new understanding of several concepts.

On the scooter ride home, I couldn't get a particularly irritating song out of my head. Take a look at this video:

I confess that it's not the first time I've watched it. But for some reason it kept going through my head tonight, and so rather than forcing it out of my skull, I took a look at what it was about for me. And here's what I came up with:

This song is a great Dharma lesson.

Seriously. I've heard Lama Marut say that we can look at anything as an opportunity to receive a teaching. I can't find the quote, but I'm positive he's said something like "how do you know the irritating person in your life isn't a Buddha here to teach you something?" I hope I didn't get that wrong but I am pretty sure it's right in spirit.

So if a person, why not a Disney song?

Here's Thich Nhat Hanh on suffering:

"...If we use our intelligence, we can see that craving can be a cause of pain, but other afflictions such as anger, ignorance, suspicion, arrogance, and wrong views can also cause pain and suffering. Ignorance, which gives rise to wrong perception, is responsible for much of our pain."

So here's the lovely Ashley Tisdale, singing to us about all the things she wants. In the video, she has servants tending to her every need, but boy does she seem unsatisfied:

"It's out with the old and in with the new,
Goodbye clouds of grey, hello skies of blue
A dip in the pool, a trip to the spa
Endless days in my chaise
The whole world according to moi

Iced tea imported from England,
Lifeguards imported from Spain,
Towels imported from Turkey,
Turkey imported from Maine...

...I want fabulous,
That is my simple request,
All things fabulous,
Bigger and better and best,
I need something inspiring to help me get along,
I need a little fabulous is that so wrong?

Fetch me my Jimmy Choo flip flops,
Where is my pink Prada tote?
I need my Tiffany hair band,
And then I can go for a float."

If you haven't watched the video, go back and take a look. Sharpay really doesn't seem satisfied. I detect... dukkha. What makes it a lesson, to me anyway, is that Sharpay represents all of us. Whoa! That's a stretch, Jon. Seriously, though. We are all under the impression that we can be satisfied by material things, and we are deeply unsatisfied when our expectations are not met.

Sharpay is suffering because she wants things to be other than the way they actually are. This is a form of ignorance, I suspect––to want something to be that is not. She even complains when the wrong key gets hit on the piano!

Another example might be to expect something to be permanent that is inherently impermanent, to think that one's good health and youth will last forever, or to think that one's belongings will remain intact forever. On top of this, we're only concerned with our own well-being, and can easily ignore the suffering of others. Think about how upset we feel when our new car gets a scratch, but to see another person's car with a scratch on it doesn't bother us in the least.

The Dalai Lama said, "I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction." As she says, "the whole world according to moi." Sharpay mistakenly believes that she will be happy when she gets what she wants, but she doesn't realize that she can never be satisfied, that even if she gets the items on her list, she'll just... as the song says, "want more." She doesn't know that when she gets those Jimmy Choo flip flops, impermanence teaches us that they'll soon be old, and she'll want new ones.

Though I can't be sure, I have to believe this lesson is intentional; Sharpay is portrayed as a caricature in the film. And, she's named after a dog. So thank you to the creators of High School Musical 2, for this awesome Dharma lesson! *

The great Dharma teachings of High School Musical 2 - Sharpay teaches us about dukkha

Finding Right Livelihood in Showbiz

Isn't that what this is all about? Right Livelihood? I picked up an old favorite, Thich Nhat Hanh's The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching. It's required reading for that Interdependence Project class I'm taking. So here's TNH on Right Livelihood:

"To practice Right Livelihood, you have to find a way to earn your living without transgressing your ideals of love and compassion. The way you support yourself can be an expression of your deepest self, or it can be a source of suffering for you and others."

Oh. That's all we have to do. Just earn a living without transgressing our ideals. No problemo!

Fortunately, Thay goes into more detail, particularly when it comes to artists:

"A composer, writer, painter, or performer has an effect on the collective consciousness. Any work of art is, to a large, extent, a product of the collective consciousness. Therefore, the individual artist needs to practice mindfulness so that his or her work of art helps those who touch it practice right attention."

So first, we have to acknowledge what's so. Our work has an effect on the collective consciousness. It's not inconsequential; it has a tangible impact on others. We can ignore this if we choose, but it still has an effect. Working mindfully allows us to have Right Livelihood, and to benefit those who are touched by our work.

"...everything we do contributes to our effort to practice Right Livelihood. It is more than just the way we earn our paycheck. We cannot succeed at Right Livelihood one hundred percent, but we can resolve to go in the direction of compassion and reducing suffering. And we can resolve to help create a society in which there is more Right Livelihood and less wrong livelihood."

I added those italics. Nice, right? I love that bit. Just because we can't succeed 100% doesn't mean we can't go in the direction of compassion. It's easy to throw up our hands and say, "it's impossible to ever really have Right Livelihood, so why bother?" An actor might star in a film and approach a role with compassion, with the intention of benefiting others. The actor might be working with a director or other actors who are focused on their own self-interest. If the film is successful, it might feed the profits of a large multinational corporation that might or might not share the actor's compassion. We know, however, that every cause has an effect, that our compassionate words and actions aren't lost in the void. Thay points out that we can still make a difference, to move towards our ideal of compassion, by practicing mindfulness in our work:

"If you are able to work in a profession that helps realize your ideal of compassion, be grateful. And please try to help create proper jobs for others by living mindfully, simply, and sanely. Use all of your energy to try to improve the situation....

...to practice Right Livelihood means to practice Right Mindfulness. Every time the telephone rings, hear it as a bell of mindfulness. Stop what you are doing, breathe in and out consciously, and then proceed to the telephone. The way you answer the phone will embody Right Livelihood. We need to discuss among ourselves how to practice mindfulness in the workplace, how to practice Right Livelihood. Do we breathe when we hear the telephone ringing and before we pick up the phone to make a call? Do we smile while we take care of others? Do we walk mindfully from meeting to meeting? Do we practice Right Speech? Do we practice deep and total relaxation after hours of hard work? Do we live in ways that encourage everyone to be peaceful and happy and to have a job that is in the direction of peace and happiness? These are very practical and important questions. To work in a way that encourages this kind of thinking and acting, in a way that encourages our ideal of compassion, is to practice Right Livelihood."

So that's what I've been going on about nonstop for the past several months. We can choose to support ourselves in a way that benefits others, and leads to happiness for ourselves and others, or we can remain ignorant, or we can create more suffering for ourselves and others. It seems pretty simple, doesn't it!

For more on Right Speech and Right Mindfulness and the rest of the Noble Eightfold Path, this book is a great place to start!

And don't forget - sponsor me in the Interdependence Project's 24 Hour Meditation Marathon! *

Finding Right Livelihood in Showbiz

If a bomb designer can be compassionate, why can't we?

I was thinking about what I said the other day:

What if everyone knew that the entertainment industry was primarily interested in making the world a better place? What would that make possible?

And as I often do, I went to see what Thich Nhat Hanh had to say on the subject. In his book, Creating True Peace, Thay discusses how our occupations can be an opportunity to "help others, and to generate compassion and understanding in the world." He mentions how a man who works at a firm that designs nuclear weapons came to him, expressing his concerns, and Thay knew that if he advised the man to quit, another person would just replace him.

"I urged him to remain the director of his firm, to bring mindfulness to his daily work, and to use his position to communicate his concerns and doubts about the production of atomic bombs... if the bomb designer practices and does his work with mindfulness, his job can still nourish his compassion and in some ways allow him to help others. He can still influence his government and fellow citizens by bringing greater awareness to the situation. He can give the whole nation an opportunity to question the necessity of bomb production....

...once you begin to realize your interconnectedness with others, your interbeing, you begin to see how your actions affect you and all other life. You begin to question your way of living, to look with new eyes at the quality of your relationships and the way you work. You begin to see, 'I have to earn a living, yes, but I want to earn a living mindfully."

If this is possible for someone who designs nuclear weapons, it should be easy for those of us in the entertainment business––to look at our work and consider its impact on others, to see through the eyes of compassion, and to work to cultivate compassion in others. Entertainment gives us enormous power to communicate, to generate compassion, to generate understanding, and to bring us great joy by making a difference for others.

Take a minute, and consider it for yourself. What if entertainment was known as an industry where people were mainly interested in the well-being of others? What if you, personally, were willing to take on that commitment: to take on that conversation in everything you do. How can my work benefit others? How am I making a difference?

What would the world look like if my primary focus was making a difference for others in my work and in my life?
*

If a bomb designer can be compassionate, why can't we?

The Actor and the Casting Director - Fay Wolf and Sara Isaacson on Compassion from two different points of view

Fay Wolf and Sara Isaacson have been doing a series of videos I've really enjoyed called "The Actor and the Casting Director." They're really funny, and they manage to discuss some pretty important issues in the context of casting and acting.

In the course of this entry, which they kindly created for Adventures in Compassion, they talk about self-compassion, presence, negativity and sabotage.


Listen to Fay talk about working on the tv show Numb3rs and managing to be completely present in a scene. How she's not doing it in order to get something else, but she is simply there in the moment.

"This is what I'm doing. I'm not here so that this can be a great thing to put on my reel...."

Ade quod agis. Do what you are doing. As Thich Nhat Hanh said,

"Life can be found only in the present moment. The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life."

By being present, even in a scene on a long-running TV show, Fay allows herself to fully enjoy the moment, and give of herself. She's being truly compassionate to everyone around her by doing so––not driven by the ego that would tell her, notice me, notice me. Instead, she's serving the other actors, the director, the crew, the writers, and the show at large. She's making something available to the audience that would be distracting if she were focused on herself. And simply doing so can bring her joy!

Here's Eckhart Tolle from The Power of Now:

"Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry — all forms of fear — are cause by too much future, and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, and not enough presence."

And by caring for that one moment, by being compassionate in that moment, something great is possible. Here's Eckhart:

"The great arises out of small things that are honored and cared for."

Hey, I get that she's talking about an episode of Numb3rs. But she's taking responsibility for that one moment, and if she can manage to do that there, imagine what's possible as she takes on other roles.

Sara, as the casting director, observes that she often sees another way of looking at work from actors:

"I wanna audition so that I can like be on TV shows so that I can like, update my status on Facebook saying that I just booked an episode of something."

That's entirely about ego, about grasping for status. The Buddhist term dukkha, which is roughly translated as "suffering," or "stress," comes from craving; it's the Second Noble Truth. You wish for things to be a certain way that they are not. We wish for money, and when we have it, we worry that we will lose it. We wish for good health, and want it to always be that way. Whether a wish for status (even the Facebook kind) or material things, or the wish that we not get older, or get sick, or die, all suffering comes from desire. We wish for things that are naturally impermanent to be permanent. Here's Thich Nhat Hanh again on the topic:

"If you suffer, it is not because things are impermanent. It is because you believe things are permanent. When a flower dies, you don't suffer much, because you understand that flowers are impermanent. But you cannot accept the impermanence of your beloved one, and you suffer deeply when she passes away.

If you look deeply into impermanence, you will do your best to make her happy right now. Aware of impermanence, you become positive, loving and wise. Impermanence is good news. Without impermanence, nothing would be possible. With impermanence, every door is open for change. Impermanence is an instrument for our liberation."

Think about it: if you're doing the work to get that brief hit of status, that quick jolt to the system that comes from being able to tell people "I got a job," or "I'm on a talk show," or "I'm on the cover of a magazine," then the moment that has passed, we're simply back to being junkies looking for another fix. When you're basking in the glow of your freshly updated Facebook status, you're immediately mourning its impermanence. Fay's comment points out that we can simply enjoy the moment we're in, and be compassionate to ourselves and to others by doing so.

Fay goes on to talk about how having that compassion for ourselves creates an impact:

"Let's have compassion for ourselves and own the fact that we are all awesome... you're an awesome casting director, I'm an awesome actor, and if I don't wholeheartedly believe that about myself when I'm walking into an audition room, how in the hell are you gonna think that?"

Sara, the professional, answers it simply: "I won't."

Thanks, Fay & Sara!!! Make sure to check YouTube for their latest videos everyone! *

The Actor and the Casting Director - Fay Wolf and Sara Isaacson on Compassion from two different points of view

I'm at the Pizza Hut, I'm at the Taco Bell! I'm at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell! Breathing mindfully with Das Racist!

Hey everyone! I'm a day late this week. Sorry. I promised to post at least once a week and I didn't. I'm committed to doing so going forward.

The truth is––not by way of excuse, but on the topic of self-compassion––that I had a bit of a breakdown. Some challenges at work got the better of me for a day or two, and I found myself not particularly inspired to spread compassion through the world. You may remember that this has happened to me once or twice before (!). Fortunately, I have lots of tools to bring myself back to this present moment. Isn't it funny how when we're wrapped up in our own problems and our own drama, that we often forget our ability to make a difference for others?

There I was, worrying about my own problems, getting stuck in my own dialogue with the little voice in my head, and not making a difference for anyone:

Little Voice
You suck!

Jon
No, I don't!

Little Voice
You totally suck! Loser!

Jon
Ummm, really?

Meanwhile, as that's going on, two million children a year are dying from diarrhea. More than five thousand kids each day. So while I'm wrapped up in my drama, I'm not doing anything to make a difference for them, or for anyone else. The very inspiring life coach Matthew Ferry reminds us that the easiest way to forget our own problems is to focus on being of service to others.

Matthew often talks about the "Contribution Game," in which we look at every action we take through the lens of "how is this a contribution to others?" Matthew says that the more we contribute to others, the more that the things we want will come to us. A man after my own heart.

And in the spirit of contribution, I'm here, now, and remembering to breathe mindfully.

From the Plum Village website:

"Our breathing is a stable solid ground that we can take refuge in. Regardless of our internal weather- our thoughts, emotions and perceptions- our breathing is always with us like a faithful friend. Whenever we feel carried away, or sunken in a deep emotion, or scattered in worries and projects, we return to our breathing to collect and anchor our mind.

We feel the flow of air coming in and going out of our nose. We feel how light and natural, how calm and peaceful our breathing functions. At any time, while we are walking, gardening, or typing, we can return to this peaceful source of life."

The breath is always with us, and just stopping for a moment to be aware of it can make all the difference in the world. Thich Nhat Hanh offers that we might like to say to ourselves, as we breathe:

"Breathing in, I am aware that I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I am aware that I am breathing out."

Okay, so I'm getting a little serious again. As the little Chogyam Trungpa sign on my desk says, "Cheer up." So on that note, I'd like to note a little bit of contribution from the music world. Music can affect us so powerfully without us even knowing it! Listening to this track from the ridiculous duo Das Racist, I can't help but smile. And perhaps there's a lesson here...


Is it possible that they're teaching us to simply be aware of the present moment? If I were, in fact, at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, and I stopped, breathing mindfully, and said to myself, I'm at the Pizza Hut, I'm at the Taco Bell, I'm at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, would that not itself be a reminder of the amazing miracle of life? The pizza/taco scent in the air, the hard ground beneath my feet? As the Village Voice recently said, "It is either very, very meaningful or completely meaningless. Put it on repeat while you think it over."

Jokes aside, consider the amazing nature of the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. It's a meditation on interdependence! As we listen to this song, we can contemplate so many different things... the farmers who provided the tomatoes and lettuce for our Seven Layer Burrito, the fuel that came from the earth to transport everything to the restaurant, the kid at the register––his parents, his grandparents, what he ate that day, the teachers who've educated him, the sun in the sky, the air we breathe. This can go on infinitely! What a great gift Das Racist have given us, to remember to be in the present moment, and to appreciate the miracle of the world we live in. *

I'm at the Pizza Hut, I'm at the Taco Bell! I'm at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell! Breathing mindfully with Das Racist!

"You do not have to be good." - Mary Oliver on self-compassion

"When will you have a little pity for/every soft thing/that walks through the world,/yourself included?" - Mary Oliver

Sitting here in the woods of Vermont, I've been wanting to write something about the poetry of Mary Oliver as it relates to compassion. I recently bought a CD of Ms. Oliver reading some of her work, and though I haven't spent much time out on the Cape where she lives, her poems resonate well here when I'm running down a tree-lined road. Ms. Oliver, from time to time, refers to matters I'd call “self-compassion.”

I've been thinking a lot about self-compassion. If compassion literally means, “to suffer with,” self-compassion means, to me, to be with your own suffering, and to accept it fully and mindfully. As an artist, this points to fully embracing yourself and your journey; without this embrace, when you're denying your suffering, it's hard to imagine an audience connecting to you and your presence. You're not giving anything to them, and you're surely not giving anything to yourself.

Famed voice and acting coach Patsy Rodenburg says this is required in order to feel alive. From her book The Second Circle, talking to a group of highly privileged young women:

“I hope you all get what you want in life. Husband, beautiful children, country house, town mansion, shopping trips to Paris, New York, and London. Travel far and wide and stay in the most glamorous resorts on the planet... But beyond this, I believe you will still be bored, because in order to feel alive you have to give, and I have never seen any of you give anything to anyone in my presence... why don't you believe you should show anything, give, offer? Do you really think you can go through life showing nothing?”

It's hard to imagine an audience connecting to a performer whose work comes from boredom, that lacks aliveness.

Poet David Whyte recorded a talk on the poetry of self-compassion (released as a CD called, surprisingly, The Poetry of Self-Compassion). It's worth the cost of the CD just to hear him read Ms. Oliver's “The Journey.”

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations, though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
but little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life you could save.

- Mary Oliver

Whyte talks about how hard it is to make this journey, leaving where you are in order to “come home.” But “you knew what you had to do.”

But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations, though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.

Whyte continues:

“Mary Oliver says, 'you want to know what it's like, when you take that step outside your house, and leave that confining identity around, and go out on the road of life, that's what it feels like, it feels like as if you're leaving at two o'clock in the morning in the middle of a windstorm.'”

Thich Nhat Hanh says (in his book The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching) this journey is required, to grow, to have the peace and joy you deserve;

“Without suffering, you cannot grow. Without suffering, you can not get the peace and joy you deserve. Please don't run away from your suffering. Embrace it and cherish it. Go to the Buddha, sit with him, and show him your pain. He will look at you with loving kindness, compassion, and mindfulness, and show you ways to embrace your suffering and look deeply into it. With understanding and compassion, you will be able to heal the wounds in your heart, and the wounds in the world. The Buddha called suffering a Holy Truth, because our suffering has the capacity of showing us the path to liberation. Embrace your suffering, and let it reveal to you the way to peace.”

As I previously mentioned, Thay also talks about the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara in his book For a Future to be Possible.

"The meaning of the word Avalokitesvara is 'the one who looks deeply into the world and hears the cries of the world.'; This voice relieves our suffering and suppressed feelings, because it is the voice of someone who understands us deeply -- our anguish, despair, and fear. When we feel understood, we suffer much less."

An artist must embrace his or her suffering, and by doing so an audience is given a space where they can accept their own suffering, where they can experience self-compassion. Avalokitesvara is present in any artist who embraces his or her suffering, because an artist doing so allows an audience to feel understood, and relieves their suffering.

Whyte goes on to talk about probably my favorite Mary Oliver poem, “Wild Geese,” which he calls a “poem of tremendous self-compassion and self-forgiveness.”

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over again announcing your place
in the family of things.
- Mary Oliver

Whyte says that that when you first “step in to write your poem, when you first step in to write your life, you do not have to be good. You can't get there from here if you think you have to be good in order to do it. She's saying if there is goodness in the world it comes from us rubbing ourselves up against life and testing ourselves against it, and making lots of mistakes, and falling down flat. And doing bad things thinking we're doing good things. Doing good things thinking we're doing bad things. And making sense of it from the greater perspective of one's own personal destiny and intuitions of where we're supposed to go in the world.”

It seems to me that any artist who does this, who's willing to embrace mistakes, to embrace his or her life, creates the listening that allows any audience to connect to their work. To create a space where we, ourselves, can experience self-compassion. To know that we do not have to be good, and to accept it fully.

So there's my advice for the day, from the woods of Vermont. “You do not have to be good.” *

"You do not have to be good." - Mary Oliver on self-compassion

Kristof, Nobbs, Blank, and Jensen and the ability of the arts to cultivate compassion - “The more who die, the less we care.”

Ever since I read Nicholas Kristof's column in The New York Times last week, I've been trying to figure out how to draw a connection between what he describes––how we're more likely to help a single individual in need, than to help many in need––and the potential of work in the arts. Here's Kristof:

"...as the saying goes, that one death is a tragedy, a million a statistic. More depressing, appeals to our rationality actually seem to impede empathy.

For example, in one study, people donate generously to Rokia, a 7-year-old malnourished African girl. But when Rokia’s plight was explained as part of a larger context of hunger in Africa, people were much less willing to help."

Kristof quotes behavioral scientist Paul Slovic in saying "the more who die, the less we care." People are able to ignore a statistic, but it's hard to not stop and help a single, suffering child.

Kristof's piece reminded me of the unique ability that the arts have, to create an immediate and compassionate human connection to an audience and why that was possible and necessary. We're in a fog, most of the time, thinking about ourselves, and the arts provide immediate connection and understanding that shakes us out of our fog––whether we like it or not.

Listen to Erik Jensen and Jessica Blank talk about why they create documentary theater:

"All of that work that work that we do together I think is really grounded in asking audiences to empathize with people who they might not normally empathize with... the central mechanism of narrative, all narrative, film, novels, theater, etc. etc., is empathy, and I think with theater, that manifests in the most immediate way because everybody is literally in a room together. There's no screen, there's no wall, there's no page, there's no filter of the audience's imagination. Everybody is actually having a shared experience."

Keith Nobbs, too, talked about theater's unique mechanism, something that's created by being in the same room as someone else, and how that forces you to feel compassion for them:

“Someone described the difference of theater and film as watching someone go through something and being in the same room with someone who's going through something.... if someone is crying in front of you, and you're in the same room, and you're breathing the same air, you have to, as a human being, take that in and exist in that space with them and be there for them. You have to show up.”

Jessica and Erik must've noticed this, too, when they first conceived of creating The Exonerated. The project arose after they attended a conference on the death penalty, and heard stories about a group of guys in Illinois who'd had confessions tortured out of them by a particular police commander. They described how at the conference, they saw a documentary on some of the cases, and heard information that was disturbing, but "kind of on an intellectual level." The audience was presented information dispassionately, in a detached, journalistic way.

The key moment for Erik and Jessica came when the conference organizers presented, via cell-phone held up to a microphone, one of the men whose confession had been tortured from him and who remained in prison. "Within about 45 seconds to a minute, everybody in the audience was weeping.... all he was essentially saying was 'I want to go home' and who can't relate to that?"

Suddenly, a concept - "men who'd had false confessions tortured from them" - became a real live person. And he wasn't even in the room, he was miles away, connected by cell phone. But the fact that there was a real human being telling his story on the other end of that line forced every single person in that audience to notice, and to be personally, and passionately moved.

So the key for any artist is to create these moments of connection in anything they do, whether on stage or film, or in any other medium. The arts give us an opportunity to be the opposite of preoccupied: we're able to be present, and fully experience a moment that would otherwise slip by, unnoticed. They give us an immediate and undeniable connection another human being.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and get a little Buddhist on you. Shock! Thich Nhat Hanh, in his book For a Future to Be Possible, talks about Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva who is often called the "universal manifestation of compassion." In this section, Thay is talking about the Fourth Mindfulness Training, which starts with the words "Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I vow to cultivate loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and relieve others of suffering."

Thay says:

"The meaning of the word Avalokitesvara is 'the one who looks deeply into the world and hears the cries of the world.'; This voice relieves our suffering and suppressed feelings, because it is the voice of someone who understands us deeply -- our anguish, despair, and fear. When we feel understood, we suffer much less."

This is what Keith, Erik, and Jessica describe above. By being in a seat, in a theater, faced with a real live person on stage, we're setting the stage for deep listening. This deep listening allows us to understand another's anguish, despair, and fear, and in turn, it allows us to see that others understand our own anguish, despair, and fear. "When we feel understood, we suffer much less."

So how does this all connect to Kristof's point about our ability to ignore the suffering of millions, while we can't help but want to help a single, suffering individual? It's simply that compassionate work actually creates a real, suffering individual in the space before us, whether on stage, on film, or in any medium. We are hardwired to feel compassion, as I described in the recent Daniel Goleman post. So when that real human being is created before us, we can't help but feel compassion; since, as Jessica said above, "the central mechanism of narrative, all narrative, film, novels, theater, etc. etc., is empathy," we enter any space where a story is being told ready to empathize and to feel compassion for another living being.

This works in two ways:

1. When we feel compassion for another, we want to help that person and relieve his or her suffering. So the arts, then, create a world where we are all driven to help others, to relieve their suffering.

2. When we see a character or story created from a place of compassion, we feel understood, because we know, deeply, that the human beings depicted are no different from us in the most fundamental ways. We feel heard. This is the voice of Avalokitesvara, which "relieves our suffering and suppressed feelings, because it is the voice of someone who understands us deeply -- our anguish, despair, and fear. When we feel understood, we suffer much less."

It's possible, then, that through the arts, the suffering of many, for example, "wrongfully convicted death row inmates," becomes present to us as the suffering of a single human being. We then want to help that real human being, and that compels us to want to help others in the same situation.

In addition, when we experience that other human being as wanting the very same things as ourselves - for example, "I just want to go home," we feel understood, because we know that this human being shares anguish, despair, and fear that we have felt ourselves.

So the Kristof piece truly highlights what we're talking about here. A focus on compassion in the arts is necessary, and could even be a matter of life and death. If you, as an artist, want to connect to your audience, choose compassion. If you work with artists, and want them to connect to their audiences, guide them towards compassion. If you, as an artist, or as someone involved in entertainment or media in any way, want to make an impact on others, to relieve their suffering, choose compassion. *

Kristof, Nobbs, Blank, and Jensen and the ability of the arts to cultivate compassion - “The more who die, the less we care.”

Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen on an artist's responsibility - "What's the cost to the world when the artist chooses not to be compassionate?"

Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, the brilliant minds behind the documentary play The Exonerated, were kind enough to talk with me recently and share their point-of-view on compassion, how it's important to them, how it's pervasive in their work, and why an artist has a responsibility to take it on. The Exonerated was drawn from a series of interviews Erik and Jessica did in 2000 with exonerated death row inmates. It premiered in New York City in 2002, was directed by Bob Balaban, and its cast included Richard Dreyfus and Jill Clayburgh. It was later turned into a film starring Danny Glover, Aidan Quinn, Brian Dennehy, Delroy Lindo, and Susan Sarandon.

I'm especially impressed and grateful that they took the time to talk to me now, since they're preparing a new show, Aftermath, drawn from interviews they did with Iraqis who fled after the American invasion in 2003.

One of the topics that kept coming up in our long interview was an artist's responsibility to be compassionate. Surely Jessica and Erik's work is closer than most to that topic; after all, subjects of The Exonerated were former death row inmates, people who spent time in prison, people we might ordinarily dismiss. Jessica and Erik, however, saw them as human beings; as the Dalai Lama says, "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."

Jessica and Erik's play specifically and deliberately used these inmates' very own words to turn them from "enemies" into human beings right before our eyes. But compassion is at the core of Erik and Jessica's work, it's not just a by-product. Listen to Jessica talk about the art of storytelling:

“Storytelling is based in empathy.... it has this incredible potential to... expand our ideas about who we are and who might be like us in the world. It has incredible potential to make us all more compassionate or give us greater access to our own compassion and empathy... because storytelling can do that, absolutely as a storyteller I have a responsibility to absolutely make the most of that potentiality with my work all of the time. Otherwise, I've been given this incredible gift, and I'm not doing anything to serve others.”

Jessica's not just making this up; stories allow us to understand something directly, rather than intellectually. Facts are important, but stories hit us in the gut, and we remember what we've learned. In his book A Whole New Mind, Daniel H. Pink paraphrases E. M. Forster's famous observation:

"A fact is 'The queen died and the king died.' A story is 'The queen died and the king died of a broken heart.'"

Pink says that facts are widely available in the current Information Age, and because they're so widely available, each one becomes less valuable. "What begins to matter more is the ability to place these facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact."

This gives storytellers a unique responsibility, because they have a unique ability to communicate with emotional impact.

Erik and Jessica go on to discuss why an artist must choose to be compassionate, and what the cost is when they're not working from a place of compassion:

“What's the cost to the world when the artist chooses not to be compassionate? It's an enormous missed opportunity... art is the thing, storytelling is the thing that we have as human beings that keeps us connected to each other, that enables us to empathize with others who we don't know personally and to walk in somebody else's shoes. That's what stories are for. That's why human beings evolved the ability to tell stories and to listen to stories, it's in order to identify with each other.”

But why bother? What's so valuable about being connected to other people? Very simply, it's in our self-interest to be interested in the well-being of others, to understand that we are profoundly and inextricably connected to others. Zen teacher Brad Warner said in our recent conversation:

"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."

As Lama Zopa Rinpoche says in his book, How to Be Happy, the very essence of obtaining happiness for oneself is to seek happiness for everyone:

"Pacifying your own problems and obtaining peace for yourself alone is not sufficient. That is, to be honest, a very small purpose for living your life. A much more worthy purpose, a purpose that leads to much more happiness for both you and all beings, is to cherish all other beings––all beings everywhere who are suffering and want happiness––the same way that you cherish yourself. This is what brings real happiness and satisfaction."

And as Jessica and Erik echo:

“I really think that our happiness as human beings comes from our sense of connection with others.”

And they make it clear that potential impact is huge!

“All of the things that we can look at the world and say are problems... come out of lack of empathy and lack of compassion.”

For example, Thich Nhat Hanh says in his book, The World We Have:

"If we continue to live as we have been living, consuming without a thought of the future, destroying our forests and emitting dangerous amounts of carbon dioxide, then devastating climate change is inevitable. Much of our ecosystem will be destroyed. Sea levels will rise and coastal cities will be inundated, forcing hundreds of millions of refugees from their homes, creating wars and outbreaks of infectious disease.

We need a kind of collective awakening. There are among us men and women who are awakened, but it's not enough; most people are still sleeping. We have constructed a system we can't control.... We have created a society in which the rich become richer and the poor become poorer, and which we are so caught up in our own immediate problems that we cannot afford to be aware of what is going on with the rest of the human family or our planet Earth. In my mind I see a group of chickens in a cage disputing over a few seeds of grain, unaware that in a few hours they will all be killed."

Whoa. Thanks, Debbie Downer. But what Thay is saying, and Erik and Jessica are saying, is that we each have an opportunity and a responsibility to take action. Erik and Jessica point out that storytellers––actors, writers, directors––have a unique responsibility because of their unique ability and power.

And it would be easy to dismiss this power, because we often can't see its direct result, say, the way a doctor sees a patient survive because of his or her actions, or a teacher sees a child learn to read. But that's no excuse, as Jessica tells us:

“There are a lot of people I know in theater who go around having existential crises all the time about whether art can really ever effect social change or ever really make a difference, and sometimes that kind of existential crisis... can be a trap that allows people to not just dive in and say 'you know what, I'm never really gonna know if this is gonna make a difference.' I think at some point, we have to take a leap and say 'I'm not gonna know that, and do it anyway.'"

As Lama Zopa Rinpoche says,

"When we feel compassion for a person or an animal––any being at all––we wish that being to be free from suffering. When our compassion is strong, we don't simply wish for this but actually do something about it. We ourselves take responsibility for freeing that being from suffering.

In this way, each of us is completely responsible for pacifying all the sufferings of all beings and for bringing them happiness. It is completely in our hands. Each of us has this universal responsibility."

So get to it! Take it on! We each have this responsibility to take on compassion in our lives and careers, and it will give us the greatest happiness possible. And if we don't take it on, the cost is staggering.

You can take it on whether you're an actor, a writer, a director, an agent, a manager, a producer, or really no matter what you do in your life, whether in a creative field or not. As Lama Zopa Rinpoche says,

"Regardless of the nature of your job, as you prepare to do it think to yourself: 'I'm going to offer my services to others because I wish to pacify all their suffering and bring them happiness.'"

Thanks so much to Erik & Jessica for their time–and look for additional videos from our interview in the near future. And make sure to go see Aftermath when it opens! *

Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen on an artist's responsibility - "What's the cost to the world when the artist chooses not to be compassionate?"