Eckhart Tolle

I realize people don't come to this blog for self-help information, but I will tell you that I've been trying lately to be "present in the moment" as Eckhart Tolle puts it in The Power Of Now. In the moment, nothing is lacking.  The mind is quiet.  When I succeed at being present in the moment, I have an amazing sense of well-being, calmness and clarity.  I think it's the same thing that Bhuddist monks achieve in meditation, or very nearly so.

Anyway what I've realized is that performances are always "in the now."  When you're up on stage, if you're doing your job well, there is no past and there is no future.  Your brain is taken up with *right now* for the duration of the performance, and following the well-established truth that the audience will be thinking about whatever is on your mind, they will also be present in the moment.  As I've said before in this blog, perhaps that's why we humans love to witness performances, to be entertained - it takes our minds off our awkward pasts and scary futures for a while.

I feel it's that shared presence in the now that creates all the performance energy that we play with.  If we or the audience get distracted by thoughts of the past ("I screwed this up last time...") or thoughts of the future ("geez I hope I play this next passage right for once"), the energy goes away.  The performer blanks out, and the audience loses interest.

In fact it may be impossible to maintain an intimate sense of relationship without a shared sense of the present moment.  That's what people are talking about, when they suggest that you "really listen" to your partner.  Be there, in the moment, and don't allow your mind and your ego to distract you with self-talk.

Possibly, the ability to be in the moment and in relationship with a roomfull of people goes by another name: Charisma!

Being in the moment, it would be nearly impossible to experience stage fright.  If there's no past and no future in your focus of attention, what is there to be nervous about?  Of course it's the same off the stage - you can't be anxious if you're focused on the moment.

Try right now to get into the present moment.  Close your eyes and wait intently for the next thought to come, like a cat waiting to pounce on a passing mouse.

OK try it now.  I will wait.

Most people are amazed how long it takes for that first thought to come up.  Your being present in the moment put you into the now, and shut down your "egoic mind" briefly.  The trick is getting into that present state for longer periods of time.

Artists will be intrigued as well to find that creativity always springs from somewhere deep within you - a part of you that is only present in the moment, and is generally obscured by thoughts of the past and the future.  I tried this out a few days ago.  While falling asleep, I focused myself intently on the present moment.  After I came up with solutions for a half-dozen problems that had been on my mind, I had to get up and write them down.  If I was that productive every day, I would be on top of the world!

So after finishing the rather deep and dense Stanislavski book (aren't you glad I read that so you don't have to?), I decided to take a breather from my constant reading of performance-related books, and read the immensely popular "The Power Of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. It's one of those books you pretty much have to read, at least if you live in my house. ;)

However, my brain has had the "performance filter" installed 24/7 for the past three months.  Every scrap of input that makes its way to one of my five senses gets evaluated for relevance to making performance better, or understanding it more deeply.  So I find that stuff wherever I look, and preditably the Tolle book is no different.  And I've only read chapter one.

Here's a quick and inexpert summary.  Mr. Tolle had a very mystical experience.  After feeling quite horrible and suicidal, he said to himself, "I can't live with myself any more."  Then he stopped, wondering if that meant there were two of him, the one who was feeling horrible, and the other one who couldn't live with that one any more.  At that moment, the horrible feeling self shriveled up and died, leaving him in a state of complete bliss.  He spent the next two years disengaged from the world, living on park benches, just being in a more or less constant state of inner joy.

Tolle describes this emotional pain and suffering as a result of identifying with your mind, instead of your being.  Your mind thinks, views the present with the filter of the past, and tries to ensure its survival in the future.  But you are not your mind!  Your constant thinking and negative mental chatter (remember the series on stage fright?) do not constitute your real, complete self.  And you can experience a state of inner peace and joy by turning off that mental chatter.

Now to the point - that is one reason that people love to be entertained, to observe and mentally participate in a performance.  It allows them to stop the mental chatter, and live in another world for a while.  They give over control of their emotional lives and their attention to the performance, and they get a break from the negative self-chatter, and the emotional anxiety of their lives.

And of course its even more powerful for a performer who gives him or her self over completely and successfully to the scene/song, and stays in it.  As I've often read and said, the performer will benefit even more from the performance than the audience.

I'm quite lucky - I have discovered that I have an easy time focusing on the now, and getting to a state of inner peace.  And it's not because I've ever trained myself in meditation.  I believe it's because I've had twenty years practice on stage, shifting myself into a new state of mind in order to perform truthfully.

So if you needed one more reason to learn how to perform better, there it is!  Inner peace and joy.  That's better than a poke in the eye.