Lost in Character?

Entranced by ignorance, from begingless time until now, you have had more than enough time to sleep.....So do not slumber any longer, but strive after virtue with body, speech and mind!...The time has come for you to develop perseverance in your practice..... Since we do not recognize that impermeant things are unreliable , still, even now, we remain attached, clinging to this cycle of existence. Wishing for happiness, we pass our human lives in suffering.

Passages from Common Preliminary Practice section of The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Penguin 2005

I have been feeling sad off and on over the last few days . Part of that sadness comes from an attachment I still have with the things around me that I seem to be losing or have already lost. It comes from an over identification I have with them.  I am still caught up in this "me" thing and I am still seeing life circumstance as happening or not happening to "me".  Despite my practice, I can still get lost in story. I can still fall back to sleep.

I can still get  completely mesmerized by the movie in my head and before I know it I  find myself in the starring role of victim again. So engrossed I become in this part and this movie that I forget it is a movie. It, all the drama happening around me and in me, the heavy plot, the background music, the atmosphere of the scenes, the appearance of villains, as well as the part I am playing as victim,  all seem so bloody real. I feel like the character does...trapped and stuck in great suffering. (Suffering that the acting coach  tells her she is not responsible for and  that she does not have the  power of controlling).  Like her I find myself fruitlessly  plotting and planning, without knowing how, I am  going to get out of the mess I am in. It gets so dark and heavy.

"Cut!"

And then all of a sudden I hear this little director's voice within me softly and patiently calling out "Cut!!" 

The lights suddenly come back on and the sad music stops playing in the background. I look around to see that none of the props were real, that I am in costume and heavy makeup playing the part of a victim, but not really one. I realize  that I have been reading from a script.  Those playing the role of villains, I quickly discover,  are just actors like me.  They are simply playing a part too. I even see my own awkwardness and vulnerability  in them. I sigh deeply, releasing my identification with the character.

Then  I step off the stage and I go outside to I feel the Autumn sun on my face.  I hear the breeze blowing through the leaves now orange and red with vibrant beauty.  I put one foot after the other down on the pine needle covered path I walk everyday. The earth  feels so good underneath my feet, solid, supportive, loving. One step and then the next step.  All that was in my mind seems to be pouring out the souls of my feet.  I take a breath and let it go...and another and another.  It seems to be all that matters. This breath, this step, this moment is all there is. There are no "problems" ...no victims, no villains...no drama...no lines to remember...just this...just this precious moment and everything in it. I see that I am that. Tat Taum Asi. I was never the role I was playing only moments before. 

I reflect on how I got lost in my role again and tell myself I am going to try harder so that doesn't happen again.  I commit to persevering in my practice so I can stay with the moment longer. So I can stay awake. I am at peace, feeling hints of happiness and joy. 

"Take!"

Then suddenly there is pain. 

My mind is drawn from the souls of my feet to my left rib cage to the pain I have been having since May. My mind steps in again. "What is it?  What could it be? Why will no one tell me? Does it have  anything to do with those other lumps and masses and pain I had in the past that was dismissed and forgotten by everybody but my body and mind, without so much as an explanation? Those things that took so much away from "me" and led me here struggling to survive financially?  What is happening to this body?  I need this body to be well now so I  find some kind of paying  work so I can survive. Do I have to relive what I lived in the past again and again and again? Why do I have to suffer like this? Why "me"? " 

Then from there I hear  another impatient director's voice calling out, "Take 5067!"  

I am suddenly back in front of the camera ready to perform.  The lights go down, that music starts again. The actors around me become villains and I get lost in character . I get lost in the movie once again.  It all becomes so dark, so heavy,  so real. There doesn't seem to be a way out. 

Where is the director with the soft voice that can end this scene? Oh right...that director is me.

Going In and Out Of Reality

This is what it is like for me.  I am so trying to stay in the moment...to stay with what is real . Yet, I continue to get pulled away into the mind's movie by ego's direction and called back to realty by soul's. There is a battle between the two for my attention it seems. So though I am in the moment more and more, I still get called back into the mind's attachment to the unreliable and impermanent things. I realize what is real, what is important and what isn't but phenomena still has a pull for me.  I am still attached. And that attachment will lure me into my costume and make up again and again. 

Sigh!  Regardless, recognizing this pattern is a crucial step of our practice.  No one ever said that waking up, let alone, staying awake was going to be easy.

All is well.