Monday, August 17, 2015

Trying to meditate. Trying to perform...


I always used to imagine meditation was such a peaceful thing.

I would see pictures of Buddhist monks and imagine the joy of utter tranquillity.

But the actual practice, I have discovered, is not like that. Not like that at all.

And the minute you think “I feel peaceful” you’ve lost it.

And you have to start again. Again and again.

And the process of returning to your centre, or your mantra, or your breathing, or your candle flame, or whatever, is an endless endless process and we seem to uncover so much shit on the way.

All the mind’s pathetic preoccupations. The worries, the anxieties, the petty jealousies, are all dragged up to view, somehow, alongside the bigger troubles. The griefs and the rages.

And how hard to detach, hard to let go without frustration or judgement.

It’s the same for me performing, somehow.

Now week 2 of the Fringe is over I’ve stopped being afraid of performing, mostly.

But it’s as if I’d hardly begun to be able to keep focus on the present moment, and then let it go again, because time is always passing, and not judge, and not be concerned about the audience because the effort, the work, the craft, is the continually renewed attempt to do it all as best I can.

But once the show is over, it’s as if a defensive layer has been peeled away...

And I find myself being attacked by no end of resentments, jealousies, and uncertainties.

So much from the past...

So I read an article about Robert Lepage and I find myself furious, utterly furious with him and don’t really understand why.

Until I reflect that in the early nineties, when he was making his name my career had taken such a disastrous turn.

Dear M. Lepage. It wasn’t his fault he was being feted and applauded and allowed to work on a large scale when I couldn’t even get a single original play performed, never mind accomplish all the large scale work I was dreaming of.

And now, without condemning myself, I do everything I can to wish him well.

To wish all of us well, performing in this amazing Festival.

Performing against prudence, against reason, against economics, and mostly against good sense.

Bless us all. And the work goes on....

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