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compassion
September 2009 
Mind Mirror [3] (compassion)
Posted on Dec 11th, 2007
by 
gary
gary
Here's another meditation. Watch actors in groups of two or more, when they're not saying or doing anything, and see if they're (compassionately) making the other actors look good, and providing skillful means to play off of — or just thinking about how they look and what they're going to say next.
Movies can nourish our own compassion, as well. Typically, we hope it all turns out ok, and so identify beyond our self (which is what compassion means, feeling with), identifying with the other characters. Without such compassion, we'd be aware we're sitting in our chairs the entire time. And this is a secret part of the fun of watching movies: sitting there in our jeans and T-shirt, and at the same time being superstars, 33-feet tall, and sliding back and forth between the two realms. ("Great kiss! Please pass the popcorn.")
-=| excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to
Understanding Buddhism (second edition) by Gary Gach
(Alpha Books, 2004) used with permission of the publisher |=-
Movies can nourish our own compassion, as well. Typically, we hope it all turns out ok, and so identify beyond our self (which is what compassion means, feeling with), identifying with the other characters. Without such compassion, we'd be aware we're sitting in our chairs the entire time. And this is a secret part of the fun of watching movies: sitting there in our jeans and T-shirt, and at the same time being superstars, 33-feet tall, and sliding back and forth between the two realms. ("Great kiss! Please pass the popcorn.")
-=| excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to
Understanding Buddhism (second edition) by Gary Gach
(Alpha Books, 2004) used with permission of the publisher |=-
Access: Public
Yes, we sit there in the movie theatre and allow ourselves to be fooled and thus we can enjoy being and doing the things the actors are protraying. I think that fooling ourselves is a very good kind of pretending because it can lead us to actually becoming what we at first only pretend to be. It is sort of like wishing without worrying, this pretending practice.
I love movies that don't end with “the bad guy gets it in the end”. I like to see a win win with everyone evolving, even the bad guy and especially the bad guy. I think our society has a proclivity to want to demonize some personalities and feels comfortable doing that, but I think it is not helping much to do that.