Podcast Episode 92: Chris Fields

Alison: Hi, Jean.

Jean: Hi, there.

Alison: How you doing?

Jean: I’m great. Would you just do me a favor?

Alison: Sure. Yeah.

Jean: Just say the line. Just say the line.

Alison: Just say it..Leave yourself alone. Leave yourself alone.

Jean: Exactly.

Alison: Jean is so teasing me because, as you guys know, I act. And today we are interviewing Chris Fields for his book, Leave Yourself Alone, Zen and the Art of acting.

Jean: Good job.

Alison: And I have to say, I’ve known Chris, actually, Chris’s father and my father worked at the Daily News together.

Jean: I did not know that.

Alison: They worked at the Daily News together. And my father had passed away, and Chris’s father, and we found this out just on the lark when I was in a play of his. I said, what does your father do? He goes,  he was a reporter. I’m like my dad was a reporter. I’m like, where did he work? The New York Daily News? My dad worked, and it turns out that Sy Fields was my parents’ friend.

Jean: what a small world.

Alison:  Right, and when I called my mom and said, hey, you’re not going to believe who is directing my play,  chris Fields, the son of – oh my God. Sy I loved… So they all knew each other. Isn’t that funny?

Jean: Yeah.

Alison: And here we are in LA. But anyway,

Jean: I love that.

Alison: Yeah, I love that that there’s just connections. I’ve been in a bunch of plays at the Echo Theater Company. It’s a really innovative-  they do new playwrights, new plays. Uh, world premieres, California premieres, LA premieres, he’s the artistic director, of it. And I have to say he’s an excellent director because he does leave you alone. Yeah. And he questions you like, what are you what’s going on for you here? What’s happening? What are you thinking about this? Like he’s not going to, like, stand over there, which is a relief. And so when he said, I wrote this book, I thought I’d love to read it, and now we’re going to interview him on it. But you’re not an actor. What did you make of the book?

Jean: Oh, I thought his book was brilliant.

Jean: I love how he tried, you know, acting with spirituality. I mean, it’s such a beautiful pocket book of wisdom for just living life in the zone. In the zone, meaning in the flow. Not overly thinking.

Alison: Yep.

Jean: You know, and not overly living in the mind that that kind of puts puts us all in a box. It’s just like, let yourself be. And I love the title of his book. I thought his book was so great.

Alison: Yeah, yeah. And he’s a funny, interesting guy. So I’ve never known him in this way. So it’s going to be cool to interview him, right? Okay, here we go.

Jean: Okay.

Alison: Hi, Chris.

Chris: Hi, Alison. Hi, Jean.

Alison: How are you doing?

Chris: I’m doing okay. Every day is a good day, as we like to say.

Alison: That’s excellent. We really enjoyed this book.

Chris: I’m so glad.

Alison: Leave Yourself Alone – Zen and the Art of acting. I don’t I don’t think this book’s about acting, though. I think it’s about how to live your life in a in a way where you don’t want to bang your head against a wall.

Chris: Yeah, that’s a good way. I, you know, I just after a while, I think the road just narrows down and you realize it’s all about… I mean, I don’t want to be pretentious, but it’s all spiritual.

Alison: Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Chris: You know.

Alison: Acting is a spiritual path.

Chris: Yeah. For sure. I mean, the more you do it, the more you realize, oh, you know, it’s…. I mean, look, there’s I don’t want to come off sounding zen and I don’t want to come off sounding pretentious or pretentious, but, you know, everybody wrestles with their ego, right? So actors are wrestling with their egos all the time, you know, and when you realize when you it can be a very profound thing or it can be a simple thing when you realize it’s not about you. You know, then you’re freed up to really act well, and you’re also freed up to be of service. I mean, you know, I talk about it in the book. The model for me is always it started with music. I mean, and I talk about there’s an example in the book, it’s like you don’t sit there and go, gee, I need to make Brahms more interesting. Or if I if, if I do this, Beethoven’s going to be better. I mean, but, you know, there’s this thing in the theater and in acting where it’s like, it’s, it’s about me making it better or improving it or-no, not really. Not no, not really. Not at all. It’s really not about that, you know. So you know, what are you left with?

Alison: So so it’s about it’s about leaving it alone.

Chris: Well, you leave yourself alone, you know. Look, you know, Toscanini, these great musicians in the early part of the century, they called them literalists. And these, they kind of went against the romantic tradition where everybody was embellishing stuff and really kind of making, you know, the romantic approach. And it’s a very similar thing. It’s just about, you know, it’s about getting out of the way. You know, the other night in class, I said somebody was working. I forget the playwright, but I said, oh no, it was actually Joan Didion. They were working on a piece by Joan Didion, and I said, let Joan Didion do the heavy lifting. You don’t have to do the heavy lifting. You know, Shakespeare’s going to do the lifting. You don’t have to do the lifting. You know, in music, what you do is you learn the piece and it’s technical and you learn the notes, and you know that at a certain time, as you get the notes into your body, you’re going to respond to them. And that’s what you call making music. But it’s not really an intellectual thing. You know, an image might come to you or a memory might come to you, or they surely do, but you’re going to respond to the music, you know? And again, I think I talk about it in the book. And if I, if I didn’t, my teacher was great. He would do this thing where I would work, work, work, work, work on the piece. And then he was this little Russian guy. He was so cute. And then he would walk across, he would walk across the room and he would take the music and he would turn it away. And then he’d say, okay, now make music.

Alison: Wow.

Chris: And it’s the same thing with acting. It’s the same thing with anything, really. You know, just get out of the way.

Jean: Yeah, I, I think that advice is so profound and so simple, and it has an elegance to it. And, um, so Chris, what got you interested in Zen and what does Zen mean to you?

Alison: Yeah.

Jean: So those two questions.

Chris: Well, first of all, just let me respond to what you said. Yes, yes, yes, I couldn’t, but it’s also really hard, it is really hard.

Jean: You know, and that’s the thing with, uh, spiritual mastery, it sounds like, oh, that’s going to be.  It’s going to be all light and tulips and lollipops. And it is… It’s why it’s a mastery. It’s a practice. Practice.

Alison: Yes.

Jean: Some days it just is not there at all. Months it’s not there. And you just stay in the practice.

Chris: Yeah. There’s a couple of famous Zen stories. One is where guys polishing a tile and the guy says, what are you doing? He said, my practice, he’s polishing a tile. He’s just polishing a tile. You know, there’s tons of Zen stories.  I was doing a workshop of a play at the O’Neill conference called An Undivided Heart.

Alison: Mhm.

Chris: And it was and again, I talk about it in the book, but, um, it was about toxicity, both literal and physical. And Alison, you know it well, because I directed you in it.

Alison: I know I loved it.

Chris: It was great. And that hook that was the this is, this is grace. But do you see Grace?

Alison: Yes. Hello, Grace, The cat.

Jean: Is she a Maine coon?

Chris: No, she’s a Norwegian Forest cat, She’s try to steal the show, but there was a.. Do you remember he goes to the priest. There’s a priest who’s looking for a bad priest and is in a spiritual crisis. And. And the priest’s brother is a Buddhist. And the brother sends him to his teacher and he goes to the teacher and she’s giving a talk and she talks about it’s a very famous cone called Nansen’s cat.

Alison: Right.

Chris: Knife in one hand, the monks were arguing and the teacher said, knife in one hand, cat in the other. Save the cat. Save the cat. As a response to the arguing, monks. Eventually what happens is he talks to the teacher and the teacher says, no, you don’t have it. You don’t have it, you don’t have it. And at the end of the play, he goes to the hospital, the teacher’s dying, and he says, I’ve figured out your riddle. And she goes, what are you talking about? What’s the thing about the cat in the knife? And she says, what, what, what what’s the… And he says, take me. And that used to make me sob. I still get emotional, you know. Take me. And then she says to him at the end of the play, she says, you know, you’re going to pray and I’m going to I’m going to meditate. We’re going to keep doing this. And she has a great line. She says, we could shine off each other forever.

Alison: Yeah, yeah.

Chris: Which is just the most beautiful line. So that hooked me and I didn’t, I just and then once I was driving up the PCH in the rain after Christmas, I was going up to Big Sur. I was being very California spiritual. And, um, and I was listening and I was, NPR was on, it was great. And they had Alan Watts. Oh. So I’m like listening to it going, I got to do this. And then I did another play and I was directing a play down at South Coast Rep. And, um, there was a. This guy has an occasion to go see his Zen teacher and his Zen teacher tells a very, another famous story which really hooked me, which is the story of the fisherman and the boat. And the fisherman is out and out of the mists in the morning, you know, humble fisherman, little boat…. Out of the mist comes another boat rams into him. It’s a mess. And he gets so pissed off. And for the rest of the day, he’s just harboring that anger at this other guy. And he’s going in at the end of the day. And what do you think he sees? He sees that boat and he heads to the boat, and he’s going to hit the guy with his oar. And he gets to the boat and there’s nobody in the boat and in the in the in the play.

Chris: Eventually he says, uh, says there’s never even if there’s somebody in the boat, there’s nobody in the boat. There’s never there’s nobody in the boat. And I realized I’ve been carrying an oar around for a very long time, you know, and whether I was looking to hit you or hit myself, I had an oar in my hand. And what literally happened was, um, I, I went online…. I saw Zen Center of Los Angeles and I didn’t know what that was. So I went down on a Sunday morning and there was a teacher there. This wonderful woman. And whatever she had, I wanted. And I, and I started meditating. I’ve been meditating, you know, I guess it’s going to be 20 years, you know, at this incident. But that’s what happened. And I went down. And then what was really amazing was I stayed for the morning. I never tell people this. And there was a talk and there was this woman there and she said, you know, I went to see this play last night at South Coast Rep and it had all this, and, and I said to her that I, I directed that… So and I’ve been coming back every, you know, it’s like, it’s like a puzzle piece, it’s like I was waiting all my life to, to do.

Alison: Now, for someone that’s not familiar with Zen or you, how is there not a person in the boat? How can somebody walk around in today’s world and not feel there is somebody in the boat, because I feel like everybody’s walking around with an oar.

Chris: Well, you could also say you could say there’s nobody in the boat. And you can say, of course there’s somebody in the boat, which is a very Zen thing to say, you know. Um, but the point being, and again, you know, I talk about it in the book, I use the example of Harvey Weinstein.  you know, people, you know, my original example was Trump. And then I figured I’m going to take it. But but Donald Trump trumps. He is who he is, right? That’s what he does. That’s who he is. And that’s what he does. You know, doesn’t mean you have to take it. You know what I mean? Doesn’t mean you can’t resist or or politic or anything. But as soon as you realize, you know, every,  people are who they are and they’re going to do what they do.

Alison: Mhm. Right.

Chris: You know, I don’t know if that explains it, but, you know, in a way you could say, of course there’s somebody in the boat.

Alison: And then and then what though? And then what though?

Chris: Well, you know, you could say in Zen we say, and I am not a teacher, by the way.

Alison: Right.

Chris: I am not a sensei. So, you know, I’m a whole there’s a whole thing. There’s a I’m an instructor of meditation right now, but I’m not a sensei. I don’t think I’m close. And then there’s the Roshi who’s like the head teacher. Right. You know, but, um, what was I going to say? Oh, you know, we say that they’re, you know, they’re the three pure precepts and then they’re ten grave precepts. And the ten grave precepts are a lot like the Ten Commandments. Do not be angry. Do not kill, do not lie, do not criticize others. Uh, do not be deluded. Which means don’t be intoxicated or take intoxicants. Don’t be stingy, you know, uh, and, uh, and if you get serious about it, then you do a ceremony. It’s called jukai. And that’s like being confirmed. I was raised Catholic, so I always have the, you know, so you get confirmed and you’re kind of in, you know, in Zen, but when you study those precepts, you know, uh, you can, you know, you can take them literally, which is don’t kill, you know, but we all kill. I mean, you’re not, you can’t have lunch without killing, right? You know, you can’t we all kill all the time, you know, um, but there’s literal, you know, and then there’s, uh, and then there’s relational, um, you know, and that’s where we kind of live. You kind of live in the real world. I mean, there’s a, I don’t want to get, I mean, there’s, there’s a big thing in Zen, which is, you know, you can be all Zen and they call it Zen stink, which is, you know, you, you can live this, you can live and you can be… It’s like the, it’s like the stereotype, right? I can live in what’s called my samadhi and I can be all Zen. And that’s, I mean, the great teachers and everybody will just call you out on it and say, that’s nonsense, because you have to drive on the 405.

Alison: Exactly.

Chris: You know, you have to go to Trader Joe’s. You know, you have to, you know, you have to live in a world where, You know, Ken Paxton is running against James Talarico in Texas. You know, you have to live in that. So it’s all relational. So it says don’t kill. Look, if somebody was to go after my child to try to kill me, I, I, I, I fight back.

Alison: Mhm. Right.

Chris: You know, and do you know, um, the time of your life by William Saroyan?

Alison: Mhm.

Chris: Do you know the preface to the time of your life? I’m not going to grab it off the refrigerator and read it to you, but it’s just he says, whatever you do, really do it. And it’s just like Zen, you know, look, I, I say it in the book, you know, my teacher, my heart teacher, we call him the heart teacher was Roshi Goku. She’s retired up in Seattle right now with her husband, you know, and I went in to see her and I was a mess. And I said, you know, Roshi, just tell me what to do. Just just tell me what to do. And she looked at me and she said the next thing.

Alison: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chris: I don’t know if I don’t, I don’t think I really answered your question, but maybe I did.

Alison: I think you did. I just, I just I just want to make sure that people that are not an actor or aren’t into Zen realize that this book is for them.

Chris: Oh, great. Yeah.

Alison: You know,

Jean: There’s so much wisdom and life affirming practices. And just one thing, Chris, in there, just like you open up the page and it’s, uh, I’m like, oh my God…. That’s so great.

Chris: Oh, I’m so glad you feel that way. I mean, my gosh.

Jean: My book is Allison’s, you know, it’s earmarked constantly. I got you a new one, by the way, because this is yours,  i got you a new one.

Alison: Thank you.

Chris: Wow. Thank you so much.

Alison:   so I like here I have some of your quotes. I have to be willing to not know.

Chris: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that’s that, that’s the first, that’s the first pure Zen precept. And that’s also just just just in terms of life.

Alison: Yeah.

Chris: Do you know I do you know the author, um, George Saunders, he wrote Lincoln in the Bardo and he was being interviewed, maybe it was, uh, Terry Gross, Fresh Air… Maybe it was fresh air, but, you know, he, he had a great he had a great he said this quote, this Longfellow quote that I’m going to find for you. And it blew my mind.

Alison: About Not knowing.

Chris: Sorry. Okay. Um, no. If we could read the secret history of our enemies. We should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

Alison: Oh, right.

Chris: Isn’t that great?

Jean: Beautiful.

Chris: So not knowing is. You know, you might have. You know, you might have cut me off in traffic. Okay. You know, you might. Somebody might be sick at home, right?

Jean: Sure.

Chris: You know, it’s really that simple, you know?

Alison: Mhm.

Chris: Somebody’s having a bad day, and they give you the stink eye.

Alison: And it’s sort of like that thing in our family. We say everyone’s got a bag of rocks they’re carrying, you know?

Chris: Yeah.

Alison: Everyone’s got a bag of rocks. And, you know, they carry it over the back. You don’t see it. And that’s just the truth. Because sometimes, um, I feel like now we’re living in a world where everything looks shiny and perfect, you know, on Instagram or Facebook and everything. And I don’t think it is at all. You have to be able to just, you know, people are people and everyone’s got their bag of rocks, you know.

Chris: Well, Rosie once said to me, she said, you know, you make a mess every day and then you clean it up.

Alison: Yeah.

Chris: She said, that’s what we do. We’re humans. We make a mess and then we clean it up. I mean, really, the book, when I say leave yourself alone…. Look, that was the most profound thing for me when I studied repetition with Fred Carmen, who I talk about in the book, and he was constantly saying, leave yourself alone. And that is that is so, so profound. It’s so profound.

Jean: Well, it reminds me of the chapter that you write on validation, that needing that validation from outside is, is such a sneaky energy and thought process. And it’s like when you recognize it like, wait a second, what’s going I’m, I’m actually seeking approval outside of myself. You know, and you talk about that in a very vulnerable way, Chris,  and I love that.

Chris: Well, I’m laughing. I’m laughing because I, you know, it’s like I had this moment, I don’t know, you know, I’m, I’m a little older now, but, you know, when I thought, really, have I been waiting my whole life for my parents to say to, to, to love me really, you know, so much therapy, so much meditation. So much you don’t have. And you’re like, you got to be kidding. I’m still waiting around for my mother to pat me, to tell me I’m cute and to push my hair off of my forehead. You know, my mother died a long time ago. I moved out way long ago. But yeah, well, that’s the Zen thing. Is the hungry ghost.

Alison: Yes, I love that.

Chris: The hungry ghost. Well, listen, you know, to to kind of pitch the Zen Center of Los Angeles, there was Taizan Maezumi Roshi, and his first Dharma heir was a guy named Bernie Glassman. And Bernie Glassman’s whole thing was his mission was to try to take care of everybody’s hungry ghosts. It was a ceremony. But wait, I was going to say something. It wasn’t about the Hungry Ghost. It wasn’t about, gosh darn it, but oh, I know what it is. I’m about to direct this play. Uh. Effing strangers. Let’s say it’s called Effing strangers. And you know what came to me the other day is this. You know, when you first fall in love or when you first It’s like it’s perfect, isn’t it? It’s just perfect. And it’s the best. And it’s replicating the love, i think, that perfect love with the parent and it’s ephemeral because reality is, is, you know, your parents are people too. There’s ambiguity and they’re not, you know, they’re not the perfect beings that you as a child, you think they are, of course, we all nod our heads, but the play is about that. The play is about people who are trying to maintain and replicate that perfect love.

Alison: Mhm.

Chris: You know, that perfect love. And it’s it’s it’s impossible.

Alison: Yeah.

Chris: It’s impossible. You know, and part of maintaining a relationship, I think, is accepting that, of course, you can’t have that. It’s not going to be that way.

Alison: You know – you saying that it brings up an emotion for me and it’s sadness.

Chris: Yeah.

Alison: Because ultimately it’s not it’s not the truth. It’s all just subject to what we’re thinking it should look like. You know, there is a should involved,

Chris: Well, you carry that with you, but then it’s all the stuff that happens in therapy, all the stuff that happens in meditation, or I talk about it with acting. It doesn’t even have to be anything. You just come upon it in your life where you realize people love in the way that they love, and they do the best that they can, or slash the only way that they can, and you accept it, or you try to accept it. And when you do that, okay, when I did that or when I try to do that, I let go of so much, you know, if that makes sense. Yeah. And, and I think there’s absolutely, you know, uh, you have to grieve and you have to mourn.

Alison: Yeah.

Chris: You know, but at the same time, isn’t it? You know, it’s kind of it’s kind of wonderful when you realize I’m just human, you know?

Alison: What’s the difference between a Zen model and avoidance or like, uh, like a spiritual bypass type of thing. What’s the difference between the two?

Chris: Well, you know, I think what you’re talking about is, you know, and I, and I was kidding about it before. You know, you can be, you can have what’s called the stink of Zen, you know, in a kind of stereotype is, you know, the three pure precepts are,  do no harm, bear witness or deep, deep listening and then right action. Yeah. And if you think about it, that’s a universal.  You know, do no harm really, for me, is now I’m not really answering your question, but I’ll get there, but it’s like you’re not reactive.

Chris: You know, my teacher said to me, Roshi Goku said,  “try not to react- respond, and wisdom is in the response.”

Alison: Mhm.

Chris: And don’t respond until you actually sit with it, which is bearing witness and listening to it. And it makes perfect sense. I mean, there was a teacher down there who said a great thing. Uh, this guy, uh, Sensei Nagy, he was great. He was a real character. But he said one day he said, look, you get presented with a hook every day… Don’t take it.

Alison: Wow.

Chris: Words to live by.

Alison: Wow.

Jean: Mhm.

Chris: There’s a hook every day. Every day there’s a hook. But you know, what you’re talking about is, you know, the stereotype of, you know, when you meditate, there’s a thing called samadhi. You know, I’m kind of meditating now. And the stereotype is that’s where Buddhists live. But as I said, you know, and, and the real teachers will tell you, you gotta, you know, I got to pick my kids up from school. You know, I gotta, I gotta clean the, I gotta clean the toilet.

Alison: Right.

Chris: So that’s, that’s part of it too. That’s very much Buddhism.

Alison: Mhm.

Chris: It’s really Buddhism. I mean, I was taught that, you get taught that in the sense it’s like, you know.

Alison: This is something else you say being in the moment with the partner, really listening, really responding, and emphasize it over and over again. Leave yourself alone. Put your attention on the partner.

Chris: Right.

Alison: Which is,  you know, I’m married, I have kids, I have friends, and sometimes my attention is totally just on me.

Chris: Of course.

Alison: and to try to focus that and listening to that, it’s tricky…Because I think I’m right sometimes.

Chris: Of course you are, Of course you are right. Of course you are. Well, it’s, you know, you can consider yourself to be of service, you know, that’s another way of saying it.

Alison: Right.

Chris: You know, I’m to be –  how can I be of service? So in terms of acting, in terms of life. How can I be of service to this relationship? And I mean, it’s it’s an aspiration. I mean, it’s impossible. You know, there’s a part of me, I’m a I’m a small little tattooed man running through the forest with an axe. You know what I mean? It’s it’s it’s like, catch me on a certain day and I’m out there, you know, in a loincloth running through the forest at night with a knife in my teeth, you know?

Alison: That’s funny. And, um, when before. And, you know, you direct a lot like what you’re talking about. You really don’t direct in a way of like, move there. Do this. Pick up the thing. You’re like, okay, go ahead, go ahead. And you let and then you ask some questions.

Chris: Yeah.

Alison: You ask some questions of the actor. And before you said, let the playwright do the heavy lifting. Right? Or let the let the composer do the heavy lifting. So in life, if I want to take this and apply this to my life, who then is doing the heavy lifting. God? The moment? Like, who am I relying on to leave myself alone? Does that make sense? Do you understand my question?

Chris: Yeah, I think so. I don’t know if it’s you know, I wouldn’t I don’t know if it’s a formula. You know, when you when you thought that when you said that I thought about, you know, in the morning, you know, I, I used to do this a lot more, but I think what am I going to apply to my life today?

Alison: Mhm.

Chris: Am I going to apply, you know, you know, and I see, well, there’s an opportunity for me to be a schmuck and there’s an opportunity for me that’s for me to be, um, this or to that, or am I just going to, or am I going to try to be humble? Or am I going to try to be of service or am I going to try to listen? You know, there’s a, there’s a really great book, uh, it’s called How to Train an Elephant to Dance. And it’s by a woman. She’s a roshi, and she came from the Zen Center. She’s an amazing woman. Her name is Chosen Bays, Jan Chozen Bays, and she’s up in. I think she might be in Seattle. Chozen and that book is 52 weekly exercises on mindfulness. Wow, you guys should read it. You guys would love it. And I’ve heard her talk and she’s also she was a, she’s a, she’s a pediatrician and she’s worked with abused children for 40 years.

Alison: Wow.

Chris: And she’s also a Zen master and she’s really special. But in this book, she has a whole chapter on listening. And she talks about absorptive listening and listening like a sponge, you know, because I realize most of the time I’m waiting for you to finish so that I can impress you.

Alison: Yeah.

Chris: You know what I mean? Or, or you say something and it’s really, it’s really provocative and stimulating, and I can’t wait to respond to that. And in the meantime, I haven’t listened to the four other sentences you’ve said after that.

Alison: So. Exactly.

Chris: So how do you apply it? I don’t know, I think you try not to, you know, after look, after I meditate in the morning, I pray, I still pray, I don’t know who I’m praying to or what I’m praying to. I don’t think it matters. I really don’t.

Alison: Right

Chris: But I pray I, I say, let me be kind today. Let me be soft. Let me be compassionate. I talk about compassion in the book.

Jean: Yes.

Alison: Which I think, well, first what you said, um, what you said when I was saying, who does the heavy lifting? Maybe it’s that set intention that you start the day with. Let that intention do the heavy lifting. Like keep going back to that.

Chris: It’s also trying to, you know, trying to I don’t know, it’s hard, man. It’s hard, you know? Yeah, it’s it’s hard. I mean, what do you try? I mean, what comes to me is you try to meet the world on the world’s terms, not my terms.

Alison: Oh that’s good. I like that.

Chris: You know, but you know, I’m carrying myself around, you know, and I didn’t talk, i don’t think I talk about it in the book, but in Buddhism we talk about there’s the little self ego and the big self.

Alison: Mhm.

Chris: And when we talk about is we all know what the big self is. The big self is my compassionate self, the self that wants to do the right thing, the self that wants to be a good partner in a relationship, you know, the self that you know is humble, blah, blah, blah. And then there’s the small self. You know, as I said, the little tattooed man in the forest, you know, or you know, you know, what I always think about is the Bugs Bunny cartoon where Bugs and Daffy Duck are going to Pismo Beach and they, and they come up by accident to the treasure. And Daffy Duck sees all the treasure and he keeps going, it’s mine, mine, mine! I’m independently wealthy. I’m socially secure. And he keeps, he keeps hitting Bugs on the head, you know? Mel Blanc said that his idea for Daffy Duck was that when he was a little boy, he got a birthday cake and they cut a piece and they put the piece on the plate for him, and he thought his piece was the cake and that that little slice was for everybody else. And that was his idea for Daffy Duck. And that’s, you know, am I going to be Daffy Duck today or am I going to try not to, you know?

Alison: Right. Yeah. Am I going to share the cake?

Jean: Right.

Chris: Am I going to share the cake or try not to be, you know. Look, it’s hard because what do you apply to the world? What do I slap on to the world?

Alison: Right.

Chris: You know, you’re talking about, you know, when you kind of or at least for me, when I got a notion of how literally self-centered I am. And I’m not talking about being arrogant, i’m talking about self-centered.

Alison: Correct.

Chris: Self referential, you know, I’m hungry. I’m tired what I want. Yeah. This is, you know.

Alison: Right.

Jean: But I think that’s so liberating. Also, Chris, that you accept that and own that that that’s where we start.

Chris: Yeah.

Jean: Going, okay, I, you know, I, it’s all about my hair color today.

Chris: Yeah. Well, it’s sort of  what does Hamlet say? Hamlet has a great line,  (filled in by AI Search on Hamlet’s quote- not Chris’ actual words ) “I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious… What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven?”   You know, And then there’s a Shanley play. Where, where the girl goes, you’re lucky you don’t fall down. You’re lucky you don’t stutter.

Chris: You know I don’t. I don’t have the answer. You know, I try not to do too much, you know, I try not to make a mess today, I guess.

Alison: Do you feel peaceful, Chris?

Chris: Yes and no.

Alison: Yeah.

Chris: You know, I’m I’ve slid over into some workaholism in the last, you know, half a dozen years, so, you know, I have to watch out that I’m feeling good when it’s, you know, because I’m typing an email at 12:30 at night. Yeah. As opposed to like, why don’t you just get in bed and read?

Alison: Yeah. Right.

Jean: And and so now you have this great theater, the Echo Theater in Echo Park, California.

Alison: It’s amazing theater.

Jean: I have had the privilege of seeing some wonderful plays there with Alison in it. And I’ve seen you direct, Chris. And it’s, it’s a real gem.

Alison: Yeah.

Chris: Oh, thanks.

Alison: It’s always very interesting. It is always something going on. You cannot say that the Echo Theater is dull at all.

Jean: At all.

Alison: You will leave there and be talking the whole way home in the car. It’s it’s it’s very exciting. And this, um, this is, I think for someone that is not an actor, you can take anything that this book is about and change the word acting for life.

Jean: Yep.

Alison: And it’s, it’s like, it’s like perfect, I think. Um, I was, um, I’m just amazed at all the things that you have –  like the first name, the first thing is the thing or activity itself.   The second immediately follows me saying the thoughts in my head is an identification of the individual elements. It makes it an object of reflection that I get. This is so good, Chris. How long did it take you to write this?

Chris: Oh, about 3 or 4 years.

Alison: Really?

Chris: Yeah, I would, I would, uh, you know, you know, my dad was a writer, right? You know, and you told Jean the story. I don’t want to tell the story, but you probably told Jean our story a little bit. But so writing was kind of a bit of a minefield for me.

Alison: Yeah, sure.

Chris: You know, because both my parents were writers. So I would meditate and then I would, um, and then I would try to write 200 words a day.

Alison: Oh, nice.

Jean: Yeah.

Alison: That’s great.

Jean: Show up.

Chris: And yeah, just 200 words a day.

Alison:  like the Artists Way, just to set aside, you know, that’s really great. It’s really great.

Alison: Yeah. if you had something to tell someone that knows nothing about Zen or nothing about this, a listener that’s just interested but knows nothing, what would that be?

Chris: Well, if they’re interested about Zen. Zen meditation is actually very simple, you know, and I talk about it in the book. It’s really simple.

Alison: Yeah.

Chris: Um, if they’re interested in meditating, I would say you could, you should find, uh, a Zen center and go and sit with people. Or there’s a book by John Dyson books called Zen Meditation in Plain English. Uh, you know, I’m getting a little in the weeds here, or, you know, there’s a book by Joko Beck. Charlotte Joko Beck, who also came out of my lineage at the Zen Center of Los Angeles. And she has a book called, um, um, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, Charlotte Joko Beck, it’s called Everyday Zen every day is in and that’s a great book. And I knew I was really hooked. I read that book and she said in the book, my Zen practice is fighting with my daughter.

Jean: Mhm.

Alison: Mhm. Yeah.

Chris: And her thing was, everything is your practise– everything is, you know, we say and saying everything is your Zen practice everything. And it’s what you talk about with the book. Everything is a spiritual opportunity. Everything is, you know, I talk about that with, look, going to Trader Joe’s not to be precious, i go to Trader Joe’s a lot, but, you know.

Alison: But you’re not alone.

Chris: Well, my kids, my kids got me the Trader Joe’s Cookbook, which is a very good book, but there’s a plug. But, um, but going to Trader Joe’s, the parking lot is a spiritual opportunity. You know, that parking lot is absolutely mayhem. So it’s like I said to myself, okay, I’m just going to be a twig. Me and my car, we’re just a twig. And this is I’m just going to float around the parking lot. I’m just going to float around. I’m just going to float around the parking lot. Everything is, you know, again, I don’t mean, but everything really is, you know, everything is practice. Everything is a spiritual opportunity. I mean, look, the great thing about Zen is we say, whatever you do, do it fully.

Alison: Right? Yeah.

Chris: When I ask Rosie to be my teacher, I said, and that was like a big deal. I was really nervous. And she was really formidable. She’s a really formidable woman. She’s so. She’s amazing. She’s extraordinary and adorable, but really tough  and funny. But you know, I said, what do I do? I said, you know, what do I do? And she said, the dishes.

Alison: Yeah.

Chris: And I was about to, like, go, ah. And I looked at her and she was not kidding. But the point being is you really do the dishes the next time you do the dishes. See where your mind goes.

Jean: Yeah. Right. Right.

Chris: You’re like doing the dishes, you know, and you’re putting up people in the post office. You got your post office. You put those pictures up in the post office, you know? You know what I mean? It’s like I’m doing the dishes and I’m yelling at my father. I’m doing the dishes, you know, and I’m thinking, why didn’t I, you know, when I was 23 years old, why didn’t I, you know, you know, as opposed to really doing the dishes.

Jean: And feeling the soap and feeling the…

Chris: So we say, you know, when she said, do the next thing what you really do, you really do it. Yeah. And that’s so hard. And that’s the thing about acting or playing music or driving on the 405 really driving. Do you ever drive somewhere and you’re like, I don’t remember how I got here.

Alison: Totally. Chris. Yeah.

Chris: You’re like, you’re like, that’s scary.

Jean: Yes.

Chris: I just drove to I just drove to, you know, the Pacific Palisades. And I remember one red light. I mean.

Jean: It is so true.

Chris: It’s really true. It’s like, what, where am I?

Alison: Very scary.

Chris: Where am I? About not being. If you’re really in the moment, you’re really. And that’s for life.

Alison: Yeah.

Chris: You know. Really? You know, she, you know, Jan Chozen Bays, she has a book. She’s also an authority on eating. She has a book on eating. And she talks about the intimacy of eating and how we chew. And also, Thích Nhất Hạnh talks about that in his book On Anger. He talks about how we how we stack bytes and how we eat angry and how we’re, you know, it’s all of that. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s, you know, so how do you practice it? It’s the, everything is an opportunity. I mean, again, I keep saying I don’t want to be precious, but if you, if you really shine that light on it and it’s an opportunity to get the to get the fuck out of the way.

Alison: Yeah!

Chris: Get out of the way! No! Get out of the way!

Alison: I love that. The Trader Joe’s twig. I love that. Yeah.

Chris: Yeah.  I try to apply that waiting online? I mean, waiting online is a spiritual exercise too.

Jean: Yeah, sure…Not going on your phone.

Chris: Think about that. Yeah.

Chris: Think about that. Think about think about how you wait. You ever wait online and you go, this person doesn’t know how to wait online. You ever do that? You’re like standing on the line and you want to go listen. Listen, could you just could you just I mean, you know, what do you what? Get up there, what are you what are you doing? You know, and then. And then you become aware of yourself. You know, Bernie Glassman, again, was one of the teachers. He said, you know what’s a really good spiritual practice? He said, you get up in the morning, go look in the mirror and laugh at yourself. Just laugh at yourself, right? Just have a good laugh at yourself. You know.

Alison: It’s like, A Course In Miracles –  don’t forget to laugh. You know.

Chris: Well, my first shrink, the great Harry Gershman, the great, wonderful, wise Harry Gershman. I said to him, I had that conversation with Harry when I was a young man. The same one I had with Rosie, like 30 years later. Like, what do I do? And I said, give me, you know, what advice do you have? Your grandfather, he was a big mucky muck. He did this, that, the other thing– I said, What do I do? No, I said, what, what advice do you have? And he said, never lose your sense of humor.

Alison: Yeah.

Chris: And I looked at him, I went, are you kidding me?

Alison: Yeah. How much have I paid you?

Chris: Yeah, right. For that.

Jean: Is That’s all you got?

Chris: Exactly. Yeah.

Alison: Chris, thank you so much.

Chris: Oh, well. Thank you. Thank you. I just I feel like, you know, what’s going to happen is I’m going to think, oh, oh, I got to call them back 7:00 tonight. I’m going to I’m going to want to call you back and go, listen, you asked me this question and I didn’t answer it. But thank you so much. You made my day. I mean, it just.

Alison: This was really fun.

Jean: You made my ours as well.

Chris: Oh, thanks.

Jean: Great to talk with you in person.

Chris: Well, sure.

Alison: Yeah, yeah. And we have two final questions for you. Mhm. Are you ready? What do you think the name of our podcast is inside wink. What do you think that means?

Chris: I think it means we’re all in this together.

Alison: Mhm.

Chris: You know, it’s the inside wink where it’s. We’re all in this together. We know. Yeah, we know. We’re all in this together.

Alison: That’s perfect. Chris.

Jean: Beautiful.

Alison: That’s perfect.

Chris: Oh, good.

Alison: And you get the last best question.

Jean: Uh, okay, so something that was keeping Allison and I up all night because we were so wondering, do you prefer cake, pie or ice cream?

Chris: All of them.

Jean: Okay.

Chris: I like cake with ice cream. Look, there are five main food groups. I’m going to leave you with this. This is my wisdom. You ready? Pizza, donuts, French fries, potato chips and ice cream. But no, seriously, ice cream and cake. Yeah. What do you prefer? What do you like, Jean?

Jean: I’m going to say cake.

Chris: Yeah, cake.

Alison: I like the I have said this before, the turducken. I like all of it.

Chris: I just think ice cream with cake is just so…, you know.

Alison: That’s true. Me too. It’s delicious.

Chris: We could go on the Orson Wells Diet together and, you know.

Alison: Get out of your way. Leave yourself alone.

Chris: There you go. There you go.

Alison: Thank you so much, Chris.

Jean: Yeah. This has been great.

Chris: We’ll see you guys. Thank you so much.

Alison: Bye bye.

Alison: That was so fun.

Jean: That was beautiful.

Alison: He’s very smart. Like he’ll be like –  have you read Fragshonshive, by?

Jean: And you’re nodding. You’re like – yes!

Jean: And I’m going-  who???

Alison: I knew some of them, but I love the fact that you can read this book no matter where you’re from, it’s very short. Yeah. And, um, it’s, it’s a nice, it’s a nice reminder.

Jean: That was well said. Yes. It, it really, um, yeah, I can’t say it any better. It’s a nice reminder.

Alison: And that, and I think to, to keep in mind that that this is an opportunity. Like, I know sometimes when someone irritates me or bothers me, I kind of want to jump on it because I’m good in a fight. I can, you know, keep my own. But really it’s an opportunity just to listen. Yeah, it’s an opportunity to listen.

Jean: Yeah. And respond thoughtfully.

Alison: Right. And I think that right now is, is something that we could, we could really use. Do you know, like just listening.

Jean: Because we’re all breaking free of a lot of conditions that we think about, beliefs that we, we hold so dear and, and judgments and, and this really gives us some space to go, Okay, hold on a second. Let’s let’s be with this.

Alison: And I have to say, in our friendship, I feel like you really listen. You really take it in and listen. Which I just find so beautiful. Jean, I really appreciate that you really listen from your heart. And I can pretty much say anything, and you don’t judge. So thank you for that. Thank you so much.

Jean: I feel the same about you, Alison

Alison:  Well..I love you. All right. Have a great day. Have a great day and pick the book up because it’s really good. Yeah, it’s really good.

Jean: Leave yourself alone.

Alison: That’s right. Are you telling me….

Jean:  I just want to fix your hair?

Alison: No. Leave yourself alone. Goodbye.