Being More than an Actor

 

I don’t know if my friends or people at large know that all of us human beings live half our lives acting. We do not realize that we spend most of our lives as mere actors because the world around us is so illusory that we become attached to what we see around us. But it is astonishing to know that animals do not act the way we do. We human beings are on top of the Animal kingdom in terms of brain capacity: we can do great things that no other animal can do. We don’t have wings but we can fly in huge white birds of our own creation and we travel all around the world. Our skin is soft, our canines aren’t large, our stomachs are vulnerable, our finger nails are not as sharp as claws, and our heads are fragile not bearing any kind of protective structures such as horns. And yet we are the most ferocious animals of all. We can create weapons that can destroy the whole world in a matter of seconds! Yet we fail to realize that we are not who we think we are.

 
I had a great biology teacher when I studied in grade ten. He could be described as a great philosophical teacher. He had a certain uncommon specialty. Once we were each asked to plant a tree in and around the school campus. All of us brought various seedlings and planted them in various locations. Mine was just near our classroom. It was a bottle brush. I had fenced it with bits of bamboo and we were asked to water the plants regularly.

                               
Two weeks later, when he entered our class he said, “I asked you to take care of your own seedlings, but now I can see most of the seedlings shrinking. On the day I asked you to plant the seedlings you were doing a great job. The seedlings were being fenced, well protected, and they were young and green that time. Today when I was coming from the staff room right near your classroom, a bottle brush was dying. The fence wasn't there. Well, whoever the seedling belongs to, it was upsetting to see the seedling not taken care of.” Meanwhile, my face turned red with flush of guilt as he continued. “You see, look at those plants. They are no longer green. There are only few leaves left and they are dried. Now I want to ask you, who you really are and what is in ‘you.’ Yes, think about who you really are and what makes you who you think you are.”         

       
The question that he asked, I now realize, is so thought provoking. He told us that our failure to take care of those young seedlings was a reflection of our lack of self esteem, which in turn could possibly ruin our lives. He also told us that all human beings spend half their lives acting. Now if we try to recollect what we have been doing for the last few hours in school, at home or in town, if we examine whether the biology teacher was right or wrong in saying that all humans are actors half their lives, we will come to realize that he was indeed right. It is just that we do not recognize our true “self”. In this world, so materialistic yet illusory, we fail to travel inward into our own “self”. We explore the whole world, we interact with people of different races and learn their ways, we go to school and get education to learn about everything other than our “self”; we cling on so strongly to our desires, our dreams and our goals, always failing to notice that, meanwhile, we have become blind to our inner selves-a destination naively thought to be confused with insignificance.

Today, as I frequently find myself “acting,” I always remember the words of my teacher. The seedlings were planted, fenced, watered and taken care of only after my teacher asked. In his absence, they were left unattended. That was the reason why he pointed out that we are all just actors.

                             
As students, school is where we act most often. Sometimes we wish our teachers “Good morning” with our bodily gestures or agree with whatever our teachers say, be it advice or be it a lesson, but when we are with friends we are no longer the same students who were wishing “Good morning” or who had been nodding enthusiastically at what the teacher said; we start doing things that we were asked not to do. At times, we complain about our teachers being bad to us.

                            
Even with our friends we land up acting. We might show a fake smile and deceive our friends. We may be friendly with them, but we may also have certain reservations.

                           
During evening prayers, some of us are real devotees. We might chant prayers because we are conditioned in that way, as prayers are a usual part of school activities. The reality, however, is that we might feel suffocated and impatient about the lengthiness of prayers sometimes.

                           
But we find the same acting taking place among many people at the community level as well. Some rich people organize grand religious programs not with the Buddhist dharma in mind, but for the sake of displaying their wealth and to gain the respect of thousands of other devotees.                   

                           
I have seen this in Thimphu during one winter break. Since it was a vacation, I didn't have any regular work. Every evening I used to circumambulate the National Memorial Chorten with hundreds of other devotees, mostly elderly people, often as old as eighty. I could see how devoted those people were. Their bodies were stiff and they were panting even though they were walking slowly. In spite of their physical challenges and their exhaustion, they were not stopping. Although they could hardly bend their bodies, still they were prostrating. I was thinking to myself that eventually I would also have to go through this same state of ageing. If I were as old as they were, I wouldn't be able to circumambulate and prostrate. I wouldn't be able to go on a pilgrimage. Therefore, I would be unable to accumulate merits. So, I realized that it is a misconception that all those activities for the accumulation of merits are only meant to be practiced when we get old. I realized the importance of strength in doing all those pious acts, strength which is available to us when we are young.

                           
But among those hundreds I have mentioned were also the young boys and girls of Thimphu. Their feet were walking around that chorten and they were in groups of seven or ten. I could hear them chatting, which at first I mistook for chanting. They were talking about this and that, and meanwhile some of them were using slang. It was hard to imagine, but for them the National Memorial Chorten, consisting of statues of Buddha and many other great saints, had turned into a place where they could talk rubbish and use slang without any sense of respect. Nevertheless, at least their feet were walking around the chorten!

                            
As human beings we can think in better ways and do things in better ways. We can choose what is good and what is bad. We can even think about what we are thinking about at a particular instant, and we have the ability to alter the way we think from good to bad or from bad to good. Above all else, what separates us from other animals is our ability to control our minds. We say the mind is the master of all actions, but we often think one thing and do another. In this way, I believe we are all acting.

                          
When we can think in better ways, when we can manipulate the way we think, and when we can even think about what we are thinking, our ability to rid ourselves of the actor within each and every one of us becomes a practical reality. When we have all these extraordinary abilities, why don’t we rid ourselves of the actor inside us?  And why do we want to deceive others if we become the victims of our own deceptions? These are the questions that we must ask ourselves in whatever we do, wherever we go because the moment we find ourselves “acting” we can divert our minds to the path of truth. Then we can do whatever we do with devotion.

                          
With all our innate capabilities and cranial capacity, let us not travel further away from our own self, but travel the journey inward, deep within ourselves. Let us not deceive our teachers by wishing them “Good morning” simply to impress them, but speak with our heart and souls; let us not chant prayers with evil thoughts, but with hearts to liberate all sentient beings from this wheel of Samsara. By transforming every thought into a positive thought, and every action into a positive action, we can make this world free of deception. Let us all be pure- as pure as the vastness of the ocean and the sky- and let us make this world a place of solace, a place of serenity, and a place of true happiness.

                                            Thank you for reading!