No Motion

I had a teacher in college who told me that going on stage was like flying in a plane, once the curtain goes up, you have no choice but to stick it out to the end. Just like taking off in an airplane, where the captain is in charge, an actor really has very little control, it could be a bumpy ride, it could be a smooth landing, all you can do is be present and aware each minute of the journey.


The same teacher was a great fan of Viola Spolin who created a series of acting exercises called “No Motion.” The object of No Motion was to become aware of every movement and sound that you make in a scene. To do this, we would move and speak so slowly it was if we weren’t moving at all, making sure that every movement was vital and executed deliberately.

No Motion is easier to grasp if you picture a flipbook where someone has drawn a character doing something, let’s say a magician is pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Each page has a minor adjustment in action, dozens of tiny details articulated one by one, a page at a time; when the book is flipped quickly, it looks as if the character has come to life. Detail is key. If our magician is pulling a rabbit out of a hat it isn’t very interesting to look at the first page, magician and hat, and then cut to the last page, Magician, hat, Rabbit with puzzled look on his face. We want the whole story, the how, the why of the puzzled look, we want every nuance colored in and fleshed out.

No Motion is meant to teach actors that if they are completely mindful, they will have no choice but to live each moment of a scene. There’s no chance to take shortcuts, to omit important emotional storytelling elements. The actor is more present and the audience is never left out in the cold wondering how or why the magician pulled the rabbit out of the hat.

No Motion is rather terrifying. It’s scary being on stage and living every moment fully, acknowledging each tenderness, exposing every fault.

Mindfulness Yoga brings up the same awareness, only instead of being able to hide behind a character, it’s my own psyche and vulnerabilities that come to the surface. By focusing on each and every action of the body and breath, a person has no choice but to be present. I have done this kind of yoga before but maybe because I’m in India or because I’m older, this time is different. Instead of being intimidated by the process, I’m really understanding what a gift it is to slow down and complete each moment before moving onto the next.

That said, today has been a little challenging.

Mathew’s home is a sanctuary. I feel like I’m in a cocoon learning to fly differently. Mathew is fast becoming one of my favorite counselors. When I am struggling with something or feeling a little lazy, he invites me to participate more fully rather than berating me for holding back. At meals we have developed a boisterous camaraderie. Inside of a week we have running jokes. When it comes time for yoga, we get still and with each class I get closer to understating what “meditating on the movement” means. In between asanas, we discuss bliss and letting go of the ego. We compare notes on living outside the boundaries of more conventional society. Mathew views me as his teacher while he reminds me to stay present and to observe without judgment and expectation.

On top of that I went back to see Mary Kotti again. She massaged and bathed me. I tried to be present, to feel only her hands carefully wiping away my stress and cares. I was successful about 55% percent of the time. I’m not used to being taken care of and exposed so completely. We humans give that up as adults, that childlike ability to be nurtured and tended to without reservation.

Mathew is trying to get me to stay here in the hills until Monday when I go to Bengal to teach at the school I told you about (Yay!!!). Here’s where the challenge comes in. Instead of staying in the present, I’ve been obsessing on where to go next.

I am scheduled to go to Amma’s ashram on Friday. Mathew thinks Amma is nothing but hype. Like many gurus before her and after her, he feels any spiritual gifts she has have been consumed by her brand. I have been in the same room with Amma and felt genuine spiritual vibrations. I suspect her ashram, even if it is hectic and more of a business than a spiritual center will be a unique, once in a lifetime experience.

On the other hand, if I stay here I will continue to have one on one yoga classes with Mathew, twice a day.

The trees, those wise beings I often look to for guidance, have been sparkling and rustling their leaves all day; it feels like they are trying to get my attention. Maybe they are telling me to root myself where I stand, to trust that there is great strength in learning to be still and quiet. Maybe I don’t need to go immerse myself in Amma’s pageantry to find my center, to be connected to spirit. As Mathew would say, “Bliss is found within. If you connect to your true self, the self that is pure consciousness without judgment or expectation, you will be happy. From that place you will be able to truly connect and to have deeper relationships, relationships with synthesis.”

But I must admit that I’m inclined to go to Amma’s. My curiosity is quite keen to see what being in a space occupied by thousands of devotees of the Hugging Saint feels like, looks like, sounds like. I can see Amma in Seattle, but back home there aren’t elephants and salmon colored dormitories, or 3,000 people chanting in unison.

But at some point I have to leave this cocoon, I have to fly again on my own. What if this sanctuary is turning into my own Shangri-la. Am I getting stuck here?

This is the seesaw I’ve been on all day, sitting on one end of one plank, jumping off, running to the other end and jumping on that tangent.

As I was doing yoga tonight it occurred to me that by running all these possibilities in my head that I’m trying to get off the plane too early, I’m not coloring in all the details. Mathew doesn’t need to know if I’m staying or going till tomorrow night. That means the next scene is still quite a ways away. I’ve been spending so much energy today trying to get to the last page, to know if the magician pulls the rabbit out of the hat, instead of really taking in all the luxurious breathtaking moments of this day here and now.

So, I’m going to be brave, live in the now. I’m not going to decide if I’m going to Amma’s until tomorrow night when I would need to hire a car to get down to the plains on Friday. I’m going to see if I can slow down and become aware of all the tiny steps it really takes to get from one day to the next, one town to the next, one honest heart-felt decision to the next.

On the Subject of Gurus

My friend Marianne recently wrote and asked if I was going to Varanasi...actually, she asked if I was going to Benares, which is the old name of Varanasi.  I said "Yes", and wondered why she asked.

She said,  "The city has always caught my imagination as being the mystical center of that spiritual universe."

Well, everything about that sentence hits me like a gentle punch in the gut and makes me want to yell, "YES, YES, YES. Me too.  That's the way I see it too..."

Long before the Beatles went to meet Ravi Shanker India has drawn spiritual seekers like bees to honey.  People don't call India "Mother" for nuthin'.  She's the bosom, heart, soul for billions of folk.  After all, she birthed two of the oldest religions we've got: Hinduism and Buddhism.

I have been wooed at different times in my life by Buddhism and Hinduism, as well as, Sufism, Catholicism, Judaism, Quaker-ism.....

The problem, not really a problem, more like a conundrum, really, with all those "isms" is that I'm not particularly down with the idea of gurus, wether they are called "guru", "sensei", "Pope", 'Rinpoche', "Rabbi."

On the other hand, call someone a "Teacher" and my hesitation goes away.  I love teachers.  I've had some fantastic teachers...both in school and out.  I see teachers everywhere.  I try to value each being I encounter as both a teacher and a student, each relationship, no matter how brief or how long, as an opportunity to learn, to grow.  This is a huge daily practice for me, as I like to do things my own way.

But when a teacher is elevated, or elevates themselves, to the realm of "Guru" I get squeamish, especially when they purport to have the only lesson plan for my personal enlightenment.

It's not the knowledge and wisdom that Spiritual leaders impart that I object to.  I'm just not big on the idea of putting the picture of some famous guy or gal like the Pope or the Dalai Lama on my wall or alter and praying or meditating or self-flaggelating myself "to" or "for" or "in the name of" these other mortal humans who have, lets face it, been coddled and cocooned and isolated from many of the kinds of relationships and interractions (marriage, parenthood, knocking up their girlfriend when they were teenagers, living openly as a homosexual.....) that try us ordinary mortals.

I know, I know...they study their whole lives (or over several lives in the case of the Dalai Lama), they dedicate themselves to the betterment of humanity.  I get it.  I do.  I admire that immensely, deep down into my boots, I admire that, I do.  I think the Dalai Lama is an incredible human being, like Ammachi, the Karmapa, Pema Chodron, Eckhart Tolle.....

I've been blessed to be in the same room with Ammachi and Pema Chodron, though not at the same time.  (Wouldn't that be something?)  Each time there were hundreds of other people in the room, most of them between me and each of these Bodhisattvas, but their calm, their grace, their infinite emotional space and open hearts were astounding, humbling, jaw-droppingly beautiful.  Each of these tiny women filled every nook of the cavernous auditoriums that they sat in with love and, even from so far away,  I felt washed clean by their powerful light and energy.

Each of these teachers/gurus/women have their own distinct style.  Ammachi, a Hindu who is also known as The Hugging Saint, makes you feel warm and safe, the way a small child feels cradled in the arms of their mother and, like a mother would, she feels the pain and heartache and frailty of all of her children and she loves you anyway.  Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun, loves without attachment and holds within her emotional embrace the secrets that might help each of us release our own attachments to things that bring us pain and, as it turns out, from things that bring us joy.

I would like to know what each of these women know.  No doubt about it.  But I cannot imagine asking one of them to be my guru or, more likely, one of their disciples to be my guru.  I cannot see putting their picture on my wall as if they were a member of my family...how presumptuous that would feel to me.  I could, actually, go to Ammachi's ashram when I am in India.  It's possible.  I will be right up the road.  I have looked into it, thought about it, wondered if I'm so resistant to the idea of a guru because I really really need one to evolve spiritually.  It could be argued, I'm sure.

But my gut has always said, "no."  "YES," to India. "No" to gurus and ashrams.  Though I think I would like ashram life, that's the funny thing.  I'd love to live for a few weeks or months chanting with hundreds or thousands of other people, meditating our way into our higher minds.  I love the idea of everyone chipping in, doing the dishes, cleaning the floors, making food.  I would welcome the idea of living for a while in community like that.  And I think the discipline of that kind of devotional practice would be good for me.  But when I ponder further, it also makes me feel a little bit like I'd be drinking the kool-aid.

An intuitive woman once told me that, unlike many people who walk a path that was cleared long ago by someone else, I would always feel like I am chopping my way through uncleared jungle with a scythe creating my roadmap one step at a time.  As I am writing this post and "listening" to myself talk about gurus and teachers, I wonder if the method of exploration and discovery that I've chosen is made unnecessarily difficult by my refusal to humble myself in some important way to a guru who has already cleared a path that I could follow.

I have always yearned for a spiritual home, a place that I could hang my hat and settle in.  As I get closer and closer to setting down in India for a few months, I wonder if that home might be in the place, India itself....if "that spiritual universe" populated with galaxies of gurus will hold enough power taken on its own to help me clear my path and get closer to my personal "mystical center", even if I don't choose to cross the threshold of an ashram.  Can I learn how to stop working so hard and settle into the core of myself while reaching out in genuine connection with the divine without explicit guidance from one clear voiced human guide?

Or, might I discover that all my hesitation about elevating one teacher over all the others, about taking a guru, as it were, melts in the heat of India?  Might something about the culture of India crack through my resistance and show me that there is a path already marked out for me and that walking beside me, or slightly ahead is someone far wiser than me into whose hands I can completely and willingly put my spiritual education?

I am trying to hold these questions lovingly, giving myself permission to change my mind as my heart opens and India teaches me, well, whatever it is I'm meant to learn from her.  It would seem, it occurs to me just now, that maybe, just maybe, India is all the guru I will need.  At least for now.