Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Nirvana

Today is a day of invention. While doing my academic writing, I stopped to create a new dessert: 0% Greek yogurt with a swirl of butterscotch extract. I am in heaven.

Butterscotch flavor reminds me of my favorite aunt, who passed away when I was in college. She always packed a cookie box at Christmas with butterscotch haystack cookies. I think of her often and with love, and sometimes on dance performance days. She never missed a show of mine as a child or teenager, and I did a lot of shows! She always came, and brought flowers and compliments and I felt like a star! One of the things about dance performance, is that like a delicate, natural sweet, it picks you up, gives you more energy to share, and tinges life with a glow.

When you perform, you get a rush of adrenaline and a lightness. I think of it as a kind of nirvana. Because nirvana isn't some remote thing, Buddhist teachings say, but something much more tangible and accessible to us than we might think. And it and is a happy place found through restraint, like my sugarless dessert invention.

Performance is an ephemeral, shimmering experience. You plan and rehearse and it's there and it goes. I sometimes struggle with the placement of my ego as a performer. I have difficulty making eye contact, because I don't want to feel like an egoist. Recently, I was rehearsing my drum solo and my teacher turned the tables on me. She said, "Look at us, we love to be looked at; we're all egoists in the audience." That made me laugh, but it reminded me that the audience needs what we give.

In high school, I performed modern and ballet. At one recital, it was bittersweet because though my favorite aunt was coming that afternoon to the later show, my family had to miss it because my sister was graduating from college! After the early afternoon show, I stood alone and a bit lonely as my fellow dancers were greeted by their families and guests. At that time, an old lady in a wheelchair came over to me. She said, "Every time YOU were onstage I watched you, and you made me feel like I could dance again." It was just what we both needed, to let our clinging to our realities drop away and share in a larger experience.

Jack Kornfield writes, "There is an end to suffering, says the Buddha. Not an end to all pain, but release from its power. That is nirvana." I think of that special moment each time I perform and set my intentions to do the same for someone. To tinge life with a little swirl of nirvana.

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