Non-striving or Bust

“Almost everything we do we do for a purpose, to get something or somewhere. But in meditation (and yoga) this can be a real obstacle. That is because meditation (and yoga) is different from all other human activities. Although it takes a lot of work and energy of a certain kind, ultimately meditation is a non-doing. It has no goal other than for you to be yourself. The irony is that you already are. This sounds paradoxical and a little crazy. Yet this paradox and craziness may be pointing you toward a new way of seeing yourself, one in which you are trying less and doing more. This comes from intentionally cultivating the attitude of non-striving.”
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.

Recently practicing Non-striving has made me aware of my Santa-Clause-With-Huge-Bag-Lugging-Behind-Me tendencies. I tend to falsely believe I am in the “present” only to take another look and sense, I am more like Santa with a bulging sack of presents from the past, clinging out of fear, or resisting to being present because my mind and heart are hiding in the past screaming, “Didn’t work then! Wasn’t enough! How can I be enough now! Hide in a fat suit. Lug nice tricks. Deliver the goods to get liked by the casting director. Hurry!”

At the root of striving for me is a constant audition to be liked, by a “They” that have no face, in a parallel universe, where a “better” version of myself with out any human tendency to doubt or eat too much licorice is hanging out topless with bigger boobs on a yacht in Portifino.

But you see, I decided to ‘release’ all that Santa stuff before I performed Love Lessons at Haverford College.

My “old way” of rehearsing felt like a cross between running 100-yard dash in that Santa get-up while memorizing Shakespeare in Yiddish.

Have you ever noticed that you may have a built in “make it harder than it has to be/screw you up maker”? It’s that part of yourself that makes things 100 times more difficult than need be.

I don’t quite understand this aspect of human-ness, and I decided that I was going to experience rehearsal and performing a new.

My new way was to dump the struggle. Dump the angst. Dump the dredging up of emotion from the script.

For a work of art to emerge and for a character in a play or my self, for that matter, I believe I needed to practice what Jon is saying above.

Stop striving. So I stopped. And what I found was awkward and powerful.

Nothing much happened. No drama. I found it was me sitting there, watching myself. Running lines. Eating a banana. Saying “Good job. 2 hours a day. And you got it.” Nothing much at first. Shit. What now?

I sat with the characters in the play. Sat with lines. Sat with a void.

And then one day I felt something new let go. I just felt the characters. Their insides. Their hearts. Present in them. Very Wheaties, very fortifying to feel them.

During the performance, I lost my place 3 times. I’d never performed in that space before and with only one hour to run tech – sound and lights – it’s easy to loose one’s sense of place.

However, I also found myself in a new way.
Present. Open. Still. A channel for a story to be told.
A space where deliverance happens. Not caring who liked or didn’t like what I had to offer. Free to express from the heart.

Practicing non-striving is something I fail at everyday and I guess that’s why I practice every day. Because I love to strive at something I want to master.

Now can I apply the same mind set to finding the:
The perfect kitchen faucet
Reasonably priced plumber who does a great job and calls me back
Painter who doesn’t rip me off
An electrician who can re-wire my early-20th century kitchen with out having to replace the current fuse box and explain how not to blow a fuse each time I use my hair dryer.

Yes. Yes. Amen.