Zen priest and actor Peter Coyote gives us a concise description of Buddhism and the pursuit of enlightenment as “[T]he wisdom that transcends likes and dislikes.” He also has conceived and conducts mask workshops that offer improvisational mask games as a way to see more clearly into a deeper wisdom available to us when we manage to put our small egoic mind on hold and get out of our own way beyond our normal attachments and habits. Woven throughout this deep dialogue is his description of the light-hearted parable of an overweight and out of work Lone Ranger and Tonto who meet Buddha and experience spiritual awakening. Here we explore the practice of meditation and how it can assist us in catching a glimpse of who we truly are. He says of the benefits of his 40 years conducting mask workshops is that the neutral mask makes it possible for, “the disappearance of your everyday self [along with] self-criticism, self-consciousness, and a sense of shame…[allowing for] absolute freedom.” It allows us to experience Buddha’s idea of no fixed self. He goes on to say that if we “want to recapture the feeling of lightness and freedom, we need to learn how to meditate and understand a Buddhist description of reality.”
