by Marco Vassi
"True enough. But I wasn't performing."
"I'd say you'd reached the point where your only awareness was of your awareness, but that's still a kind of self-consciousness. And as long as any self persists in your practice, your pillow is still a stage on which you are mounting your act."
Larry's eyebrows shot up. Alec's perception of his quality of sitting and his knowledgeability about levels of zen practice was surprising. Alec smiled, at first a straightforward expression of friendliness, but then the smile changed until it was almost grotesque, looking as though the man who wore it had buck teeth. His eyes narrowed and, as Larry watched, Alec was transformed into an Oriental. "You are surprise' I speak your ranguage?" he said, imitating a long line of Japanese colonels who ran Hollywood concentration camps.
Larry laughed, the first time he'd done so in weeks.
"Would you like a beer?" Alec asked.
"I don't drink," Larry said at precisely the same instant Alec also said, "I don't drink."
"Am I that obvious?" Larry said.
"Everybody's got a role, right?" Alec replied. "It's just a question of spotting the premise, then deducing what would be consistent with the character. Pretty simple stuff, really."
"O.K., I'll have a beer," Larry said. "I wouldn't want to be too consistent."
"That's the spirit," Alec replied, and went into the next room where he could be heard rummaging about in a refrigerator. "Tell me," he shouted, "Before the others return and things get complicated, why did you come here today. Tell the truth now, or else come up with an interesting lie."
Larry smiled to himself. Suddenly he felt a liking for the other man, a sense of camaraderie, an intuition that Alec was someone who would understand perfectly anything Larry told him about his inner life or his problems with Eleanor. In the same instant, he wanted Alec to like him and to respect him. It did not occur to him that this was the effect the charismatic director had on everyone and was the reason, apart from his native theatrical genius, that made him such a powerful teacher.
"I came to see what Eleanor is up to," Larry replied, making the statement innocent and suggestive at the same time. But any cleverness he might have felt was cut short by the sight of Eleanor walking into the room, coming through the door Alec had left by.
"Why Larry," she said, "What do you think I could possibly be up to in an acting workshop?"
Larry's first response was chagrin at being taken off guard, then anger at being suckered. "Were you in the next room all along?" he asked.
"All along when?" she replied ingenuously. She walked up to him, her eyes twinkling, radiating good humor, put her arms around his neck, pressed herself tightly against him, and kissed him on the lips warmly. She held the kiss for several seconds until Larry felt the surge of response in his thighs and chest and tongue. Then, as though she were throwing a switch, she turned the chemistry off and stepped back, smiling pleasantly, as though she'd just shaken his hand instead of his libido. "What a nice surprise," she said.
"In my day we used to say, 'Look at what the cat dragged in'," Alec said as he came back into the room, a fresh beer can in hand. Larry took the frosted can from him and turned back to Eleanor. "I was just out for a ride," he said, "And I thought it might be a good day to pay a visit. I've been meaning to meet Alec."
"Not bad," Alec said.
"What's that?" Larry said.
"The interesting lie you just told."
Larry was about to protest that he was telling the truth when he saw what a trap that would be. He was lying, and Alec was exposing him, and the only way to handle the sudden seeming betrayal was with silence. "Cat must have got your tongue before it dragged you in," Alec went on. Larry felt distinctly uncomfortable, the space between the three of them thick with psychic challenge and danger.
Then Alec broke the mood by clapping Larry on the shoulder and saying to Eleanor, in the chiding tones of a teacher to his student, "Didn't you warn him?"
"Warn me?" Larry said, almost perspiring, holding the beer can stiffly in one hand.
"Anybody is free to visit," Alec went on, slipping his arm around Larry's shoulder, "But anybody is fair game."
"Fair game for what?"
"For the game we play here."
"You mean hide-and-seek?" Larry said, trying to inject mild contempt into his voice. "People running around in the woods and women hiding in the next room."
"Oh Larry," Eleanor said, her voice halfway between mock and real disappointment.
"No, no," Alec interjected. "He's right. That is the game. And sometimes we play it like children, pretending we're invisible behind a tree or hiding behind a door." He took his arm from Larry's shoulder and walked around him to the glass doors. "Sometimes, we hide from ourselves. And, to use language you are probably more familiar with, ultimately we seek the Self—capital S, of which, presumably, we are all chips off the old block."
Larry took a swig of beer, and felt an immediate rush from the unaccustomed alcohol. He glanced at Eleanor. She had her arms folded over her chest and was watching him quizzically. He looked back at Alec who regarded him like a benign uncle waiting to see if his clever nephew was going to be able to put the puzzle together. Larry realized that by barging into Eleanor's world unannounced he had also stepped in Alec's world, in which all social conventions were rendered transparent. He wondered how far the man would go.
"That's more Hindu than zen," Larry said, scrambling back into familiar territory.
"Oy," Alec exclaimed. "Such fancy shmancy. I used that language to make you comfortable, not to get into a discussion about religion."
"You prefer another kind of theatre," Larry said, getting into the spirit of the exchange. It was clear now that Alec was baiting him and, by extension, his practice. He realized that Eleanor must have talked about him and his "obsession" quite a bit to Alec, and the director obviously considered zen just another form of drama, and not a particularly fascinating one.
"Well," Alec drawled, "I don't call what I do theatre. Some of the people I've trained have done stage and screen, and a couple of them are pretty big stars, but that's not what I'm aiming for."
"What are you aiming for?"
"The bathroom," Alec replied. "I haven't moved my bowels in two days and now it's time. Maybe your meditation did some good after all." He moved from the window and across the room with exaggerated delicacy, as though he were trying to keep from rousing someone sleeping.
Larry was nonplussed. He didn't know whether Alec was actually going to the bathroom or circling around the house to make an entrance from the other side or simply fooling, with no purpose other than to have his peculiar brand of fun. Eleanor was beaming. "Isn't he fantastic?" she said.
Larry took a sip of beer. "He knows much more about zen than I would have imagined," he said grudgingly. "And he is amusing."
With his last word, Eleanor's eyes narrowed and glittered momentarily, warning him he'd been a little too condescending, a reaction he himself would have had if someone described Shido as "cute." Actually, he was a bit afraid of Alec and his superior attitude was a defense against his own tendency to let his guard down in front of the man.
"The others should be coming back soon," she said, changing her tone back to one of friendly neutrality. "Why don't we get comfortable? You are staying for a while?"
"Sure. I hope you don't mind."
"Why should I? You let me come to your zendo."
"It doesn't feel like the same thing."
"It might be a bit trickier here."
"How's that?"
"Alec was right, I should have told you what to expect if you came. He uses everything and everyone as material. He's really ruthless. And he makes us be ruthless too."
"How?" Larry asked, feeling his heart skip a beat.
"Let's sit down," she replied. They each took a pillow and sat four or five feet apart, taking the same casual distance as strangers or students in a class. She went on, "I suppose you could call the game we play hi
de-and-seek, but technically what we're doing is assuming a role without letting anyone know what it is. Then we have to maintain that, as an inner discipline, no matter what else we do, whether it's running around in the woods or even reading lines from Shakespeare."
"What's the point?"
"Well, you get to see that that's what we all do all the time anyway. That's the way life is, except that very few people are aware that they're acting, or that others are acting. This wakes us up to how we really are."
"And this makes you a better actress?"
"On the stage or in life?" she asked, countering his question.
Again Larry felt his heart flutter and he wasn't sure whether it was the alcohol or his recurring sense that he was very close to the edge of a mystery. He knew that something was being revealed, but he couldn't yet grasp its form. He saw that there were certain similarities between his practice and the metatheatre that Alec taught. The approaches were worlds apart in structure but the goal was the same—clarity. And both ways seemed to involve a period of confusion in the process.
All at once the front door burst open and a knot of people exploded into the room, shoving and giggling. They piled inside until several of them saw Larry and suddenly sobered up, like drunks spying a policeman. The others followed suit and in a few moments the nine boys and girls became men and women, all of them in their thirties and forties. They arranged themselves in a ragged semicircle and stood awkwardly looking at Larry and Eleanor.
"Hi," Eleanor said. "This is Larry, my husband." Larry smiled in their direction, but the expression died on his lips as he saw what seemed embarrassment on their faces. In that moment he was convinced, as irrational as such certainty was, that they knew all about him, that Eleanor had used him as "material" in their workshop, and that they were in on some secret in which he served as victim or scapegoat. It was an intense spasm of paranoia or acute perception, and Larry took another swallow of beer to cover his own embarrassment.
"Hello," one of the women said, walking forward. "I'm Helen." She half-turned toward the others. "And that's Ralph, Frank, Jean, Margaret, Angie, Ed, and Roger."
Larry glanced sharply at the man at the end of the group, remembering that he was the one who supposedly told Eleanor to take her locket off. In the flesh he looked nothing like either of the men in Larry's fantasies. He was middle-aged and paunchy, his face flaccid and his eyes shifty.
"Hello," Larry said, "I'll try to remember all the names." He turned to Eleanor. "I thought there were fifteen in the class."
"Not everybody comes every day," she replied.
The others unbent a bit and moved into the room, some of them taking seats on the pillows and several of them lying down and closing their eyes. No one said anything else. Larry realized that his presence was being registered and integrated. He took a deep breath and straightened his spine.
"Are we doing something?" The voice was Alec's and everyone turned in the direction it came from. The director was standing at the door to the kitchen, a look of exasperation on his face. "I hope we're doing something," he continued. "Waiting room, maybe. Or funeral parlor. Otherwise it would be too much like a bunch of dimwits hanging around my living room, wouldn't it?"
The tone of his voice was sharp and the others responded as though he had lashed them. The ones lying down sat up and the ones sitting brought some focus to their eyes. Larry watched as Alec prowled the room like a trainer in a cage full of tigers. He was glad of the man's presence if for no other reason than it seemed to take the heat off him.
But the grace period was very brief. Alec turned to him. "Please excuse this," he said, "But this gang of actors"—he delivered the word with scorn—"Has a tendency to forget our purpose in being here. Send them out into the woods for an hour and they regress."
"Maybe I should leave," Larry said. "I don't want to get in the way of your work."
"Not at all," Alec boomed. "This is a rare treat for our little group. How often do we have an exalted zen master joining in our childish revels?"
"I'm not a zen master," Larry said defensively, feeling the sudden shift in direction of Alec's attack, "I'm only a student."
"Just what a zen master would say," Alec replied triumphantly. He swept the others with his glance. "However our guest defines himself, you must stay with your own role. His presence should sharpen your practice, not distract you from it." He turned to Larry again, his manner ingratiating. "In any case, I am going to prepare tea."
Alec spun around and retreated to the kitchen. Larry watched him leave and continued staring at the door after he'd gone. He wasn't quite sure how to behave. In part he felt he was being mocked. At the same time he was intrigued by the way Alec kept the mood of the group on edge. The man was obviously totally dedicated to his work, and a consummate professional. With a few deft strokes he'd drawn Larry into the spirit of the workshop.
Larry returned his attention to the group. Everyone was now sitting on a pillow, a conscious circle observing itself. No one spoke, but a great deal of communication was going on through the eyes. They all looked at one another, either glancing from face to face, or locking stares and holding them. Larry couldn't help but get involved, and he found himself gazing into the eyes of the woman who'd introduced herself as Helen. She was a petite woman with pepper and salt hair, and wearing the almost ubiquitous jeans and t-shirt. Like all the woman there, she did without a bra and he couldn't keep himself from looking at her breasts. To his surprise, when she saw him do that, she raised her chest slightly, as though offering her nipples to him. It was so subtle he almost wasn't sure she'd done that, but then she smiled at him in a way that left no doubt. She was flirting boldly, using a minimum of clues.
"Maybe her inner role is seductress," he thought. "She wouldn't be acting that way with Eleanor in the room if it wasn't some kind of exercise." The insight calmed him, but raised the question of how he should respond. Under ordinary circumstances, as a faithful husband and temporarily celibate zen student, he should accept any erotic offer with equanimity and compassion, treating it as the other person's projection. But here he was free to don any cap he wanted, and he began to see the edge that Alec was working with, the almost imperceptible line between illusion and reality.
Finally, he broke off the contact and looked to see what the others were doing. Their expressions varied, ranging from anger and suspicion to complicity and glee. Except for the man called Roger, whose face was flushed with lust. Larry followed his line of sight to the place he was fixed on, and saw that it was Eleanor he was coupled with. His stomach tightened. She was gazing back at the man with open desire. Her legs were spread apart, her feet flat on the floor and knees raised and falling to either side, her crotch exposed and seeming to pulse with energy. Larry blinked. For a few moments he thought this was another hallucination, an imposition of makyo on the palpable reality around him. But he was wide awake and seeing clearly, and Eleanor was radiating raw sexuality. He knew it had to be an exercise, that she wouldn't openly flaunt an actual affair she was having with Roger in this way, but the rational conviction could not compete with the flame beginning to burn in his belly.
"I can't leave you people alone for a minute!" Alec bustled into the room carrying a large tray with a teapot and a dozen cups. "This looks like a consciousness raising group for deaf mutes," he went on as he lowered himself to the floor and put the tray down in front of him. "The only real tension was the avoidance between Ralph and Jean. Eleanor and Roger's crude version of desire is something that should be saved for Broadway, as was Larry's imitation of jealousy. We can excuse him because he's an enlightened man merely amusing himself for an afternoon, but you characters are supposed to be working."
Alec's intrusion snapped the spell and everyone visibly relaxed. Eleanor pulled her antennae back in and discarded her aura of wantonness as efficiently as wiping lipstick from her mouth. And Roger turned back into his ordinary lackluster self.
Alec lined up the cups and poured tea, and
when everyone had been served and were all sipping contentedly, Alec continued his criticism. "Life's a stage, remember? There are many sets, many costumes, many roles. But there is one difference from what we usually call theatre. In life there is no audience. You have to be the thing, not indicate it for someone else to pick up on. If someone else can read what you're doing and play back, that's great. But that has to happen spontaneously. You can't act for anyone else's benefit, not even your own. Any questions?"
"How do you know if someone is reading you correctly?" asked Helen. "I was feeling a rush of breath when I looked at Larry and he took it as a sexual signal, at which point I started feeling sexy, and then wondered whether that wasn't what was going on in me all along."
"That's always what's going on in you all along," Margaret put in, and everyone laughed.
"Well," Alec said after a few moments, "That's what you're supposed to be finding out. Choosing an inner role is not a mechanical exercise. The role changes even as you define it and use it. You've got to go through many changes before the essence becomes clear. With Larry, you were probably responding to his external role as a Buddhist figure, and then picked up the sexual vibrations he was giving off as jealous husband."
"Were you really jealous?" Eleanor asked.
"Around here, who knows what's real?" Larry replied good-naturedly.
"Isn't there a saying in zen," Alec interjected, "To the effect that when you attain realization you know it as sharply as you know the difference between hot and cold water?"
"Yes."
Alec swiveled his head to gather the attention of the others. "Well, that's how it should be with your inner role. Then, no matter what happens inside or outside, you aren't shaken or thrown off balance."
Something clicked in Larry's mind. "But that's like being crazy, isn't it? I mean, it's like having a private room in your mind that no one else can get into, and then there's a wall between you and everyone else."
"Exactly," Alec replied. "But this exercise doesn't create the wall. That's always already there. This work makes you aware of it. Not the ordinary defenses and partitions in the mind, but the basic wall of separation. The thing that defines you as T. And when you have come to terms with that, then you can use it consciously or dissolve it. The first produces art, the second produces religion." Alec poured himself more tea. "Of course," he added, "You can fall between two stools, as Gurdjieff put it, and then the result will be madness. But then it's an open madness, not the conventional insanity that the world calls civilization."