The Dude and the Zen Master by Jeff Bridges, Bernie Glassman Page B
Authors: Jeff Bridges, Bernie Glassman
Ads: Link
mean, you practice getting into that groove, into that spot. Isn’t that meditation?
There’s another way of looking at practice. A doctor might say,
I practice surgery.
That’s a little bit different, isn’t it?
B ERNIE : For me, I’m practicing when I’m in a place of no subject-object relationship. I could be working, but if I’m just totally in my work it becomes play.
J EFF : In that instance, practice and play become the same thing, right? In acting, rehearsal might be thought of as a practice. But when I’m rehearsing, that’s the time to also really get down and play. Just get into the thing, see where it takes you. As Sidney Lumet said when we were going through
The Morning After
day after day, it’s like peeling the onion. Each time you do it you’re going to find new things. You practice freshness, practice playing.
B ERNIE : So can people just play their life, or do they have to practice their life?
J EFF : Or indicate their life? Or rehearse their life?
B ERNIE : In my terminology, if you bear witness, which means you’re living it, then you’re playing. If you follow your ideas about what you’re doing, you’re practicing. I like to work with people in their lives, whether at the workplace, their home, whatever. So how do you get them to play their life, to totally plunge in, do what you did with Sidney Lumet, do the whole movie? Say you’re doing your life, and now it’s changed a bit. You’re not stopping every three seconds to say,
Did I do it right? What’s a better way of doing it? Did those people do it right? Are they screwing up?
You’re just fully living your life. For me, that’s play. And I think we can train to do that, and that training is the practice.
My experience is that when you really play your life rather than rehearse it, it’s beyond joy and sadness, you just feel much more alive. When you’re in a planning mode, all kinds of stuff come up:
I should have done this, I should have done that, why didn’t I do that?
If at some point you decide you want to teach acting, I’m sure you’ll teach people to be alive in their acting. That will be a practice. And I think certainly in Zen or Buddhism in general, the role of the teacher is to try to help a person be alive in their life. And they have to practice.
J EFF : Those knots we were talking about earlier can be invitations to practice. We’re busy playing, only now our clown gets knocked over or life hits us in a bad way; those are all reminders to practice.
9.
WHAT MAKES A MAN, MR. LEBOWSKI?
J EFF : Just like in life, there are many paths to acting, many ways to do it. There are some actors who want you to call them by their character’s name. They don’t want any kind of involvement or engagement with you outside of the role. A lot of great actors are like that. My school is more like,
I want to know the person in real life
. I want to know who that person is, and I find that informs the work.
There are two words that mean kind of the same thing, but also different. For instance, there’s
hot
and
cool
. There’s
Hey man, you’re cool!
And there’s also
Hey, you’re hot, man
. They’re both good things, but kind of different. So you’ll get someone like Scott Cooper, who directed
Crazy Heart
. He was so encouraging and genuinely excited. Then you get the Coen brothers. They’re not particularly demonstrative. They’re masters, funnier than hell, but kind of cool. That’s their style, you know what I mean?
Movies throw together all these different kinds of people who’re trying to do their art and it’s all workable. The weirder the approach sometimes, the groovier. Like the bit of sand in the oyster that creates the pearl. If the grain in the wood is perfect, it’s not as interesting. When you get a burl, for instance—God, it’s wonderful!
B ERNIE : I feel fortunate that I was able to study with a wide assortment of teachers, with very different styles and ways of doing things. Then
There’s another way of looking at practice. A doctor might say,
I practice surgery.
That’s a little bit different, isn’t it?
B ERNIE : For me, I’m practicing when I’m in a place of no subject-object relationship. I could be working, but if I’m just totally in my work it becomes play.
J EFF : In that instance, practice and play become the same thing, right? In acting, rehearsal might be thought of as a practice. But when I’m rehearsing, that’s the time to also really get down and play. Just get into the thing, see where it takes you. As Sidney Lumet said when we were going through
The Morning After
day after day, it’s like peeling the onion. Each time you do it you’re going to find new things. You practice freshness, practice playing.
B ERNIE : So can people just play their life, or do they have to practice their life?
J EFF : Or indicate their life? Or rehearse their life?
B ERNIE : In my terminology, if you bear witness, which means you’re living it, then you’re playing. If you follow your ideas about what you’re doing, you’re practicing. I like to work with people in their lives, whether at the workplace, their home, whatever. So how do you get them to play their life, to totally plunge in, do what you did with Sidney Lumet, do the whole movie? Say you’re doing your life, and now it’s changed a bit. You’re not stopping every three seconds to say,
Did I do it right? What’s a better way of doing it? Did those people do it right? Are they screwing up?
You’re just fully living your life. For me, that’s play. And I think we can train to do that, and that training is the practice.
My experience is that when you really play your life rather than rehearse it, it’s beyond joy and sadness, you just feel much more alive. When you’re in a planning mode, all kinds of stuff come up:
I should have done this, I should have done that, why didn’t I do that?
If at some point you decide you want to teach acting, I’m sure you’ll teach people to be alive in their acting. That will be a practice. And I think certainly in Zen or Buddhism in general, the role of the teacher is to try to help a person be alive in their life. And they have to practice.
J EFF : Those knots we were talking about earlier can be invitations to practice. We’re busy playing, only now our clown gets knocked over or life hits us in a bad way; those are all reminders to practice.
9.
WHAT MAKES A MAN, MR. LEBOWSKI?
J EFF : Just like in life, there are many paths to acting, many ways to do it. There are some actors who want you to call them by their character’s name. They don’t want any kind of involvement or engagement with you outside of the role. A lot of great actors are like that. My school is more like,
I want to know the person in real life
. I want to know who that person is, and I find that informs the work.
There are two words that mean kind of the same thing, but also different. For instance, there’s
hot
and
cool
. There’s
Hey man, you’re cool!
And there’s also
Hey, you’re hot, man
. They’re both good things, but kind of different. So you’ll get someone like Scott Cooper, who directed
Crazy Heart
. He was so encouraging and genuinely excited. Then you get the Coen brothers. They’re not particularly demonstrative. They’re masters, funnier than hell, but kind of cool. That’s their style, you know what I mean?
Movies throw together all these different kinds of people who’re trying to do their art and it’s all workable. The weirder the approach sometimes, the groovier. Like the bit of sand in the oyster that creates the pearl. If the grain in the wood is perfect, it’s not as interesting. When you get a burl, for instance—God, it’s wonderful!
B ERNIE : I feel fortunate that I was able to study with a wide assortment of teachers, with very different styles and ways of doing things. Then
Similar Books
