Empowering you to live an effective Zen-inspired life of openness, empathy and clarity.
“Social equality and economic protection of the individual appeared to me always as the important communal aims of the state. Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated.”
Albert Einstein
“Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.”
Maya Angelou
The past is already past.
Don’t try to regain it.
The present does not stay.
Don’t try to touch it.
From moment to moment
The future has not come.
Don’t think about it
Beforehand.
Whatever comes to the eye,
Leave it be.
There are no commandments
To be kept;
There’s no filth to be cleansed.
With empty mind really
Penetrated, the dharmas
Have no life.
When you can be like this,
You’ve completed
The ultimate enlightenment.
Layman P’ang
We are living in a revolutionary cultural moment. The term “mindfulness” and related practices are becoming common language. For the first time in history, masses of people are learning to stand “next to” their mental creations and notice them. Rather than immediately believing in or being identified with these impressions, people are actually witnessing and observing them. The significance of this cannot be overstated. Throughout human history most violence and intolerance came from people’s inability to question their own thoughts and feelings. This is a truly remarkable moment in the evolution of consciousness.
Our minds/brains are constantly generating impressions. This is what they do, this is their healthy functioning. The Zen Master Uchiyama Roshi called this “secreting thoughts”. I would say, we are secreting thoughts/feelings/sensations or what I call “impressions”. We can say that from the infinite potential of the next moment “some-thing” is created. Mindfulness is the process of observing these creations. One does not empty the mind, one notices the “somethings”.
While mindfulness is extremely helpful in cultivating a different relationship to mental phenomena, the meditation that I practice and teach emphasizes something quite different. Though we still notice the various ‘arisings’ of mind and body, this noticing is not the center or the purpose of the practice. While this meditation, called “just sitting”, is not the same as mindfulness practice, it is not-not mindfulness. We sit with the paradox that while polishing the mirror (i.e. mindfulness) is essential, the mirror (our true nature) has never been tarnished.
This mirror image is based on a powerful and important story in the history of Zen. This historical event involves the choosing of a successor to the 5th Ancestor.
One day Hung-jen challenged his monks to compose a verse that expressed their understanding of the dharma. If any verse reflects the truth, Hung-jen said, the monk who composed it will receive the robe and bowl and become the Sixth Patriarch.
Shen-hsiu (Shenxiu), the most senior monk, accepted this challenge and wrote this verse on a monastery wall:
“Our body is the bodhi tree
And our mind a mirror bright.
Carefully we wipe them hour-by-hour
And let no dust alight.”
When someone read the verse to the illiterate Huineng, the future Sixth Patriarch knew Shenxiu had missed it. Huineng dictated this verse for another to write for him:
“There is no bodhi tree
Nor stand of a mirror bright.
Since all is void,
Where can the dust alight?”
This illiterate monk knew that true realization was beyond any activity of his mind. Rather, it arose from intimacy with his True nature. Although this intimacy cannot be created by any meditation practice, it can be encouraged by the practice of “just sitting”. As modern Zen teacher Baker Roshi has said, “enlightenment is an accident and zazen (“just sitting”) makes you accident-prone”. Intimacy comes from directly experiencing life itself.
Intimacy, Aliveness, Wholehearted Welcoming
For me, meditation is learning to be intimate with our lives, this intimacy is radically alive. Saying “alive” I do not mean to imply that it is pleasant or unpleasant, exciting or dull or anything in particular, rather that it is authentic and directly experienced. Before our opinions, beyond our preferences, life “just IS”. This “IS” can be sensed directly.
This “is-ness” is dynamic! You learn to surf the waves inherent in the movement of life. If carried off by thinking, one is committed to returning to the living moment. The core practice is wholeheartedly welcoming the moment. This is the practical ground for learning deep acceptance. This is the practical ground for just being yourself.
When there is a voice inside that fights or hates the moment we wholeheartedly welcome that. This meditation requires an attitude of generosity toward the moment, toward the self. We are not “doing” meditation, meditation is alive in itself. How can we know the experience/non-experience of intimacy and aliveness?
Confidence helps.
What can we have confidence in?
• Confidence that you are much more than the voices in your head.
• Confidence that this moment is impermanent and always changing .
• Confidence that your habitual, conditioned self is just a small part of you.
• Confidence that you are directly connected to a vast field through awareness.
How do we get this confidence? I suggest many, many short moments of pausing and sensing into the background of the living moment. Let go of accomplishing something; sense how you know you are alive right now. This sensing is most directly felt as a bodily experience. Our body is always vibrating with the aliveness of the present moment. Even tiredness or dullness have qualities that can be felt. Sense what is alive right now! This requires a kind of listening and welcoming. Direct experiencing is always ‘right there’ yet it needs our invitation, our participation.
During a daily meditation practice of “just sitting” one can emphasize this resting into aliveness. Directly sensing the way life is known right now, we can rest in the awareness that notices. Mindfully observing the particular phenomena in the moment can be included with a light touch. Do not form the sense of a “solid observer”. Allow a feather-like noting of the momentary impression. Even when you notice a long, involved ‘story’ do not take it so personally, treat it lightly. The impression then dissolves like a snowflake falling into a mountain lake.
Turning the Light Around
When zazen does zazen, you are you.
When you are you, zazen can do zazen.
This knowing is simple, authentic and direct.
We have the expression “effortless effort”. This means it takes a clear, strong committed intention to rest in the light of “just sitting”. When we turn the light around toward the experience of being alive, the experiencer and the experience dissolve and all that remains is bowing to the intimacy with living.
The point of meditation is not to control the mind or to be mindful. It is to be intimate with self and life. This intimacy is alive because you are alive. You do not “do” meditation. Warmhearted welcoming creates the conditions in which meditation can reveal you to yourself.
I will end with a famous, wonderful dialogue.
It’s Alive!
A student asked Master Chao Jo (Zhaoruo)
What is zazen?
“It is non-zazen” he replied
“How can zazen be non-zazen?
“Its Alive!”, Chao Jo replied
by Russell Delman, January 2013
“You can take a short view and think that everything is a mess, that life is a cheat and a deceit, and of course you feel miserable. And I become very much amused by some of my colleagues, particularly in the study of literature, who say the pessimistic, the tragic view, is the only true key to life–which I think is just self-indulgent nonsense. It’s very much easier to be tragic than is is to be comic. I have known people to embrace the tragic view of life, and it is a cop-out. They simply feel rotten about everything, and that is terribly easy. And if you try to see things a little more evenly, it’s surprising what complexities of comedy and ambiguity and irony appear in it.”
Robertson Davies
“I’ve decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
Martin Luther King
“You are an idiot.” the flyer from Cirque du Soleil clown John Gilkey says in the opening description to “A Workshop for the Comic Performer,” that is taking place four nights in October, in Hollywood, probably close to the Kodak theater where John is playing in Cirque Du Soleil’s Iris. A most talented and wonderful performer, full of eccentric delight and funny. As the flyer states, an email that Clown Conservatory has sent, John has created and played lead roles in 4 Cirque productions, and beyond the flyer, I do think he is one of the leading figures on the avant-garde edge of circus clowning.
The flyer continues; “First accept this, then learn how to use it and your ability to play comedy will grow exponentially. Almost without exception, the successful film comedians of today play the clown archetype. Learn what the clown archetype is and how to play it. Discover your sense of anarchy, humility and stupidity.”
Well that is saying a lot, not just that there is a clown archetype, but that all the successful film comedians are using it. Woh. I’m a clown and I’ve always wanted to play in the movies. Woody Allen is in town, and I’m here ’til next Wednesday, when I go on the road again. So maybe I’m fated to meet him by chance on a street corner, and he will immediately recognize the genius that resides in me, after all I’ve been channeling this clown archetype going on 30 years, and I’m a recognized expert at it, so maybe Woody….
back from my self revelatory day dream.. I’m assuming of course that anyone who reads this has an understanding of the world clown: is not caught up in some media maelstrom Steven King fear of clown syndrome, that you’re someone who understands the deep vein of humor the clown channels from well beyond the silent movie clown heyday, the vaudeville music hall and stretch back through many chapters of history, the commedia del arte, the king’s jester and fools, to the Greek plays and well before…yahdiyah, but still, it’s not about the make-up, but what’s inside…
The reason I started writing was a reaction to ruminations that occurred after reading John’s words. John is an exceptional performer, and teacher, by all accounts. His flow continues to open so much laughter in this world, oh yeah, go team !! The planet delights! I’ve known John through many years and phases. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was down to his shortlist of people after a grueling audition afternoon here in San Francisco. It was to be in the clown piece that he developed, directed for the “Le Reve,” the big Dragone water production living in one of the Las Vegas Casinos.
Years onward, as I muse on John’s words ‘play the clown archetype, ‘ I remember the words of another eccentric genius, former, perhaps lesser, cirque du soleil clown, who admonished me in a facebook post exchange, with words to the effect: “one has to be the clown, one cannot play the clown!” He had responded to my response to his response to my response to his post. I talked about “playing certain emotions such as…” I hadn’t meant to suggest one could “play the clown” and might have avoided his wrath had I used a different word.
I suspect the true deal is he didn’t like where my response to his post was going, which was to debate whether the clown had to be “stupid” as he claimed, or could they just be “innocent,” which was the word I preferred to use to generalize. I wasn’t opening up to my innate natural stupidity, which brings up a moralistic discussion whether one is born innately stupid but what is stupid? According to the dictionary it is more about knowledge than ability to comprehend yet one would think that we are born bright eyed and many of us once given a chance comprehend very well…
I mean when I think of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, whom I watched recently, an youtube video of when they are much older, and are brought back as surprise guests, they look like normal old gents until they posed for a picture, and the Stan took on his sheepish grin and transformed instantly. When I muse what is it that I so love and loved when he transformed then, reminding me of so many cherished film moments-he always is just delighted with what is, and follows his own logic, delighted with his own capacity. Something that we love so much… Is this stupidity ??? Is it innate, Stan’s transformation was certainly instantaneous.
Anyhow beyond this musing, the reason I’m still tapping the keyboard is to get back to my main point: wondering about this phrase: “playing the clown archetype. ” Since I do a lot of clown archetype teaching but have yet to believe there is a specific archetype. Teaching, I ask folks to embrace embody and express from their sense of humor, and whatever that is eventually distills into their archetype of clown. Is it the same one for everyone? Is there more than one common flow of humor, do we all sail in the same sea navigating the same winds?
My clown teacher, Richard Pochinko, way back when, almost thirty years ago, in that upstairs Montreal studio on Ave St. Laurent, had us working with archetypal expressions from 6 directions: North, East, South, West, Above and Below. That all made a lot of sense at the time, and still does, that we express our many faceted natures. In the workshop, each of participants had completely different and unique visions, their very specific own archetype. Perhaps John inadvertently misused the word playing, same as me….after all the the title of the workshop is The Fool…
How do you see the clown archetype? If I were anywhere near LA, I would go the workshop, a great chance to explore the forever more in that blesses all art forms, especially when there is a comic genius at hand.
I was born in Los Angeles, and now live in San Francisco,. Inbetween I lived in Europe for a good segment of time. About my vocational side of life, and what leads to a good amount of the writing on this blog: I perform and teach in the clown realm. the term no-nose clowning and european theatrical clowning applies. I offer workshops and trainings focused on humorous expression on 4 continents. Themes include “Humor your Human” , “ClownZen, the Power of Levity”, “ButohClown” ,”Clown is Poem”. I’m one of many who bring humor, joy and laughter into crisis areas- where it does a lot of good. I started by performing in 3 small Guatemalan refugee communities in Chiapas, Mexico in 1987. That has lead a pathway through South Africa, Croatia, Guatemala, Haiti, Kosovo, , Nepal and Sudan. This last January-February (2009), I traveled to Myanmar/Burma on an international Clowns Without Borders project performing 20 shows with 3 Myanmar artists, one Swedish and one Australian clown. I also offered workshops with activity leaders/trainers from a number of NGO’s using humorous expression to both release trauma and empower children, not to mention have a lot of fun.
Once upon a time,
when women were birds,
there was the simple understanding
that to sing at dawn
and to sing at dusk
was to heal the world
through joy.
The birds still remember
what we have forgotten,
that the world is meant
to be celebrated.
Terry Tempest Williams
The goal of this project is to re-activate the workshops with the children, training local theater artists to conduct the workshops in the training schools. The initial project is centered in Yangon. There is a desire to expand the project both in outreach capacities and in duration, however given the uncertainty of the future situation in Myanmar, the choice is to start small and expand if possible.In March, Moshe Cohen will travel to Burma and spend two weeks there working with the local theater group Thukhuma Khayathe. During this time he will:
Week 1
Conduct workshops for Thukhuma Khayathe actors focusing on acting/clowning skills
Create a show with them, and perform it in each of the 4 training schools
Week 2
Offer workshops to the children in each of the 4 training schools, training actors to teach workshops in the schools.
Updates are in reverse chronological order
Update March 25th, 2012
An airplane ride this afternoon will take me out of the dusty heat of Yangon into the polished aluminum modernity of the Singapore airport and onwards towards Europe and privileged ways of life. This last week, we returned to all the Yangon Children’s Training Schools to offer workshops. The children welcomed our return with grinning smiles, and dived into the exercises opening up a lot of fun, laughter, focused play and great times. Our plan, to bring artistic and creative activities into the Training Schools where there are none, proved to be a big success.
We worked with 30 children at a time, and with five of us teaching: Su Su, Thè Thè, May, Soe, from Thukhuma Khayeethe and myself. I was introducing workshop techniques that I have used frequently to the Burmese artists. Using the clowning to offer an opportunity to the children to open up personal expression, and to release a bit of their daily tensions. The workshops offered them moments to play important and powerful, as well as chance play frustration, and sometimes fear. I only wished that we could accommodate more children in a workshop as most schools have more children than we could fit into the time allotted. The children had a great time as they explored their creative zone. We often went over our hour-long plan.
Asking the children what they liked about the show, and if they like the idea of being funny was a nice way to invite them into the workshop activities. After a little warm-up, a few focus exercises we explored deep voice and the idea of doing something funny. We explored a bit of mime, starting with the venerable fixed point-your hand doesn’t move but your body does (hint: bend your elbow.) It was a great way to introduce elements of the show that the children said they want to try-the moment when we ran into the invisible wall, the tug of war with the invisible rope. There was a recurring focus on playing their funny where many children found their delight.. A lot of gleeful smiles went along with great moments of focus and concentration, and other moments where exploring their funny, the children came up with great imaginative improvisations.
We worked with 30 children at a time, and with five of us teaching: Su Su, Thè Thè, May, Soe, from Thukhuma Khayeethe and myself. I was introducing workshop techiniques that I have used frequently to the Burmese artists. Using the clowning to offer an opportunity to the children to open up personal expression, and to release a bit of their daily tensions. The workshops offered them moments to play important and powerful, as well as chance play frustration, and sometimes fear. I only wished that we could accommodate more children in a workshop as most schools have more children than we could fit into the time allotted.
Our last school visit, Kyeike Wine, was a little more difficult. We worked with older boys, and they clearly were not as interested in the funny as we were. As I started to witness a disconnect in the first session, I realized that we hadn’t quite thought out the workshop plan well enough. Adolescent boys, especially this tough crowd, were not interested in being funny. So I quickly switched gears, and started teaching them to juggle, improvising in the moment using small rocks as juggling balls. Now this was interesting, at least for about 7 minutes, and when I started to see signs of disconnect, I launched plan B, which was to have Su Su and Thè Thè, launch into several simple acrobatic duo holds. I was glad to see a number of children so interested in trying to juggle that they ignored the change of focus 
and continued their juggling.
Thukhuma Khayeethe will continue to visit the schools to offer workshops to the children. CWB-USA is funding the next two months of workshops, AND, if you feel so inclined to help support this effort, you can donate funds to CWB, and specify that you would like them to be used for the Burma Project.
The first thing I hear at Nget Awe San Children’s Training School are young male militaristic call and response voices. It is only after our show for some 450 boys, almost all in identical blue t-shirts that I clearly understand the nature of the voices. The boys have assembled into orderly groups, one boy heading each group, calling out to them as they respond in unison before leaving the large open-air pavilion in orderly rows, arms either swinging, or crossed across their chest. They leave behind a generous heaping of echoes of laughter as indeed they have a great time during our performance. It’s extremely hot in this rather arid section of the country where the main activity I am told is harvesting bamboo, though I do see, as we travel the last half hour over a dusty red earth road, quite a few rubber tree expanses.
One thing is for sure, during the last 3 days, the children have been laughing a lot. We have done six shows now, in 4 training schools, a woman’s vocational school, and a foster home that houses former street children. The kids are having a great time, loving the injection of humor into these institutions I have been working with five artists from Thukhuma Khayeethe (Arts Travelers), the local theater group who have been collaborating with the French and Swedish Clowns Without Borders groups. We have been working hard, though we joke about it being soft work, as indeed it is compared to the normal livelihoods in Burma, but there certainly hasn’t been any lack of effort, dedication and results.
We started with four days of workshops and creation focusing mainly on clown technique and developing one’s personal clown. Working with 6 paper shopping bags (courtesy of rainbow grocery and whole foods), some elementary mime, a hint of acrobatics, juggling and magic, we have concocted an hour-long show that is quite full of the funny, and the children have been loving our offerings.
The situation in some of the schools is better than others. In a few of them, there is certainly a sense of daily difficulty, and in others, the children seem better off. A couple of times, there has been a need to break through an invisible wall to reach the children’s funny bones, but once it opens, a lot of delight is in the air.
The trip out to the Nget Awe San training school was particularly memorable. Not only is it our biggest show (450 boys), but also the school is located in the election district where Aung San Suu Kyi is running for parliament so we there were NLD stands and posters along the way. It is such a contrast to when I was here two years ago, and no one would even dare say her name out loud for fear of being thrown in jail.
My two weeks here is part of a longer 3-year project with the Swedish and French CWB’s to increase Thukhuma Khayeethe’s capacities in clown performance and teaching abilities. There has been great progress in the actor’s clowning abilities this past week. That I can give feedback after each show has allowed the actors to really develop, as the best teacher in clowning is the audience. The show includes quite a bit of group clowning as well as three duos: Than and May do a professor’s nightmare rope magic routine, SuSu and TheThe have developed a routine around some very simple acrobatics, and Soe Mya Thu and I with a juggling routine involving balls and rings. It is wonderful to witness the laughter in these schools where the children don’t necessarily get to have such a good time.
I am looking forward to the week ahead when we will return to all the schools to offer workshops to many of the children. I will again be training the Thukhama Khayeethe actors as we go along, this time in how to teach workshops, focusing especially on using clowning exercises to release pent up tensions, and emotional energies through humorous expression.
I have just completed 4 days of workshop and show creation with Thukhama Khayeethe, and tomorrow we take the show on the road into the Children’s Training schools-6 shows in the next 3 days. These schools are really institutions for children at the margins of the Burmese society, street kids, orphans and kids in ‘conflict with the law’, that the government has placed in these schools. The work has been great, and the actors are quickly developing their clowning capacities. The show is bringing humor into skills they already have developed in acrobatics, magic and juggling, as well as improvisations around character relationships and mime that I have been introducing–so looking forward to seeing the smiles on the children’s faces. Next week we will plunge into offering workshops in the training schools, and developing Thukhama Khayeethe’s teaching skills. As one might expect, there is a great sense of teamwork and fun that pervades the time we are spending together, and no doubt we will be sharing that with the children.
I was born in Los Angeles, and now live in San Francisco,. Inbetween I lived in Europe for a good segment of time. About my vocational side of life, and what leads to a good amount of the writing on this blog: I perform and teach in the clown realm. the term no-nose clowning and european theatrical clowning applies. I offer workshops and trainings focused on humorous expression on 4 continents. Themes include “Humor your Human” , “ClownZen, the Power of Levity”, “ButohClown” ,”Clown is Poem”. I’m one of many who bring humor, joy and laughter into crisis areas- where it does a lot of good. I started by performing in 3 small Guatemalan refugee communities in Chiapas, Mexico in 1987. That has lead a pathway through South Africa, Croatia, Guatemala, Haiti, Kosovo, , Nepal and Sudan. This last January-February (2009), I traveled to Myanmar/Burma on an international Clowns Without Borders project performing 20 shows with 3 Myanmar artists, one Swedish and one Australian clown. I also offered workshops with activity leaders/trainers from a number of NGO’s using humorous expression to both release trauma and empower children, not to mention have a lot of fun.
“Creativity is intelligence having fun.”
Albert Einstein
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