7. Right Mindfulness
In a business of perception, Right Mindfulness may stand apart as one of the most neglected concepts in a professional acting career. We are asked to hype things beyond recognition, airbrushing the truth to a nearly unrecognizable state. And there’s a real argument that if you don’t do these things, you’re not using a major tool in the proverbial toolbox. So much for seeing things as they are, the basis of Right Mindfulness.
It can all lead to a dubious relationship with reality, and I can see how ignoring Right Mindfulness has hurt me at times. My path has been a strange one: I have had experiences that flirted with stardom, from high powered meetings for leading roles with A-list directors, to being pursued by paparazzi through the streets of London and Tokyo, and yet on any given day a few people may point at me on the subway, but that’s about as far as it goes right now.
Still, it becomes tempting to think, “but I am this other thing,” when it is not the reality. It may be a reality, and while the things I alluded to did happen, they do not represent the whole. A healthy dose of clear consciousness to see things as they are is always welcome. It can relieve frustrations and make space for professional progress and personal happiness.
Years ago, I was fortunate enough to work with a wonderful actor who had once enjoyed great fame but had fallen to distinct B-list status. He never stopped smiling on set, and his good humor was infectious. Over drinks one evening I asked him bluntly why he was so happy, and he told me that he gets to make his living do what he wants to do, he has a wonderful family and home, and considered himself the luckiest guy on the planet. He knew he was no longer a hot commodity, but he didn’t care. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was looking at a portrait of Right Mindfulness.
And if you look at the four foundations of mindfulness: contemplation of the body, of feeling, of state, and of the unknown, you’re reading the basis of every discourse on acting that’s ever been written, from Aristotle to Stanislavsky. We all might want to spend a little more time here on step number 7 of the Eightfold Path…
Tomorrow, Right Concentration, something that is being challenged to no end by modern technology.