Joe Isuzu's Daily Slander

Connections

Back in October I related a story (see My Friend) about bonding with a fellow Buddhist in his effort to win over his doubts about what he could accomplish. It was a six-month daily effort on both our parts chanting an hour each morning together and we both got so very many positive results out of it. Becoming a more positive person is one.

I think that one of the reasons relating a personal experience about the results of doing this practice is so difficult is because it’s so profoundly complicated. One of my all time favorite shows was called Connections by James Burke. The first episode starts with him standing on a field in England where the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066. He explains that the Normans won because they had one piece of weapon technology that the Saxons didn't: the stirrup. Then he proceeded to show how that battle and specifically the stirrup, which may have originally been brought to China by Buddhists from India and then found it's way back to what was to become Europe, eventually lead to the technology which enabled him to be holding an aluminum valise which contained a small nuclear weapon. This alternative view of how things change wove together events, which may appear happenstance but in reality are co-dependent.

About five or six years ago I was chanting with another Buddhist friend who also happens to be an actor. (Everybody knows I’m an actor not a car salesman, right?) Together we came upon an idea for a TV show and worked out a plan to pitch it to the network powers that be. I knew of only one person that could get us through those network doors. But he and I weren’t that close of friends because we moved in different strata both social and economic. My actor friend and I first had to pitch our idea to him. So we worked on our pitch. My actor friend had little cards on his altar with various peoples’ names or ideas to ruminate whilst chanting. (I been waiting my whole life to use the word “whilst”) He told me that his wife once commented that if something was worth chanting about it was worth making a little sign/reminder. I have a lot of personal mini-placards now. Over time I’ve imbued this seemingly simple idea with many meanings and implications, which vary in degree from “don’t forget about this” to “a vow in sumi ink”. One of the first cards I inscribed had on it the name of the person to whom we were to convince our TV show idea was worthy of his time to take to the networks. We did convince him. And he did take us to the networks. The networks didn’t buy the idea. But I kept the card with his name on it. After time, he and I became not just friends, but the best of friends and we share so much now. And every time I look at his name on that card I can’t help but smile and ponder how our friendship came to be.

Around the same time, remember this is years ago, I made up a card, which on one side said “Acting Work” and on the other “New Agent”. And on occasion I chanted about these two items. Over these years I have created a plethora of little cards, all folded so that they sit neatly one on top of the other in a pyramid. I now have a legion of writings and names of people on inverted v-shaped cards, which could be shoulder harnessed by tiny villagers in Dept.56, although none of them say “The End Is Near” or “Eat At Joes”. (Of course people who buy those tiny villages do so for fantasy and because they’re quaint. Not so they can see a mini reflection of society with a mini town homeless guy with mini Tourette’s living behind the mini abandoned Linens-n-Things.)

But what I mostly chanted about during that time was my teenage daughter, who I had gotten full custody of and was raising (that’s the optimistic term) as a single parent. That was really my full time job and that was where most of my daily life effort was directed.

As the years passed and my daughter became more and more responsible and independent, I found I had more and more time for myself. I recently went back to acting class to knock off some of the rust. The teacher was an old friend so it was a safe place to fail. He didn’t think I would need much work, but as it turned out, he was wrong. The work I was giving him was exactly what was on the page. What was missing was me having fun. And that took a while to rediscover. At the same time I serendipitously (99% hard work which miraculously appears as fortune) acquired a new agent who started sending me out to audition again. Then I realized this all seemed familiar. Except I wasn’t in my early thirties any longer. I’m already on my pension attempting to start over. How extraordinarily exciting!

Then one day a few months ago my new agent sent me to audition for a Soap Opera. I have mostly done only comedy. I called my friends who have done Soaps and got their advice: just be confident. I called my Buddhist actor friend and told him about the audition and related a story of my last audition for something that wasn’t necessarily humorous. The piece was for CSI, written with humor, but I decided to give my best straightforward serious reading of the material. Forget any humor or comedy. Afterward the director who was in the room watching the readings came to me and said, “That was really different. We haven’t seen anything like that today. Could you do it again but leave the comedy out?” I started to laugh and told him that I didn’t think this was going to work out because he just got my best shot at being serious. Some of us just twinkle. But my Buddhist actor friend told me that he never thought of me like that. So I chanted until I didn’t think of myself like that either. I went to the Soap audition filled with confidence.

As it happens, my sister in law works on the Soap show in the make-up department. I went to visit her. While I was there I started talking to some guy and we had the best conversation. While I was driving home my sister in law called me and asked how long I had known the guy I was talking to. I said we just met there in the room. Apparently, everyone thought we’d been friends for years because of the way we spoke to each other. I didn’t even know his name. He was an actor on the show. He’s been on it for twenty plus years. He went to the producers and pitched me to them.

Okay that was the set up. Here’s the real experience. The next day Friday I was in Phoenix for a fundraiser, (say that three times) when I found out I got the job, which started on Wednesday. There were other actors there who’d been on Soaps and they all told me with a deadly serious look in their eye to know the lines because you only get one take. My career started in commercials where it took five days to do twenty seconds of dialogue. And being out of town (not to mention out of practice) I wouldn’t get to look at the script until I got back on Monday.

I was surprised to find myself suddenly filled with doubt. And fear. So much so I made myself physically ill and was fantasizing ways to avoid. But because of the experience of going through the same thing with My Friend for six months, I had a pretty good idea why, where, and how this fear and doubt suddenly sat on my shoulders. I started chanting to the corner of my hotel room to overcome myself. This heated battle (there is a singe mark on the wallpaper) went on for three days until I could get home and get my hands on that damn script. I worked hard to replace fear and doubt with hope and joy. I couldn’t fake it either. No “acting” confident. It had to be real.

And I got help as I helped myself. I called my friend whose name is on the card and told him I was nervous. He told me that after so long in the business I was lucky to still find something to make me nervous. Bam! He’s so right! Energy is energy. I used it to work for me when I chanted. Or in ichinen sanzen terms, whatever world you think you find yourself in is a gateway to the other nine including becoming an enlightened being in a life moment of three thousand connections.

When I got to work, I was ready because I had become more than what I used to be as an actor and as a person. And I had the best time I’ve ever had on any acting job. I also got the most positive feed back I’ve ever gotten. Five episodes turned into ten, which turned into twenty. But the absolutely best part was that several people, some actors and some crew, went to the producers and said, “can we keep this guy”. Whether they do or don't seems inconsequential. I’m way ahead of the game because next to “I love you dad,” that’s the greatest compliment I’ve ever gotten. It's not an Emmy, or an Oscar, it's the Ichinen Sanzen Award. I’m very appreciative for being able to utilize this Buddhist practice.

I wanted to comment on Charles blog but for some reason I'm unable to so I'll do it here. Great blog on targeting. A "sign" is a definite target. How long my mind stays focused is another issue. But here's a little something from WND Vol. II On The Protection Of The Nation,pages 120-121

“The reason is that the Great Teacher Miao-lo declared that if people of dull capacity or those lacking in wisdom in this latter age carry out the practice of the Lotus Sutra, they will find it easy to practice, for Bodhisattva Universal Worthy and Many Treasures and the Buddhas of the ten directions will appear before them. Thus he states: “Chant the Lotus Sutra with your ordinary distracted mind. You do not have to enter into a state of mental concentration. Weather sitting, standing, or walking, just fix your whole mind on the words of the Lotus Sutra.”
“The purpose of this passage of commentary is to assure foolish persons of this latter age that they are included among those who can carry out the practice. The term “the ordinary distracted mind “ is used in contrast to the term “the mind fixed in concentration.” Chanting the Lotus Sutra means chanting all eight volumes, one volume, one word, one phrase, one verse, or the daimoku, or title, and includes responding to the sutra with joy for a single moment and continual propagation to the fiftieth person. The words “whether sitting, standing, or walking” mean that there is no objection to fixing your whole mind on the words of the Lotus Sutra while carrying out the four activities of daily life. The Term “whole mind” does not mean the mind that is concentrated in meditation, nor does it mean the mind that observes the truth. It is the mind that is found within the ordinary distracted mind of daily life.”

Posted by joeisuzu at March 5, 2009 05:39 PM