In the early 1970s, the renowned meditation master Chogyam Trungpa, known to his students as Rinpoche, wrote a folk play called Prajna that was produced in Boulder by the Mudra Theatre Group. Nearly 30 years later I discovered the play in the archives of the Philadelphia Shambhala Center and received permission from Trungpa’s widow, Diana Mukpo, to rewrite the play for contemporary times and direct it for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, employing a mixed cast of meditation practitioners and trained actors.
Prajna is a Sanskrit word translating into wisdom or, more particularly, transcendental knowledge arising from intuitive insight.
The events of the play begin with the entrance of a Chorus of New Agers carrying brooms. They ceremoniously sweep the stage and reverentially turn a table into an altar adorned with fruit and flowers. They are pleased with their religiosity, until startled by the piercing sound of the shakuhachi, or Japanese bamboo flute, marking the entrance of Avalokiteshvara, the male embodiment of the bodhisattva of compassion. Avalokiteshvara introduces them through song to the Heart Sutra, the premiere Mahayana Buddhist teaching on shunyata or emptiness. (The Sanskrit word shunyata embraces the truth of complete and total interdependence of all beings, leading to the realization that all beings are empty of autonomous existence; and the further realization that all beings are empty of a permanent underlying substance that can be called a self.)
The Chorus learns to sing the Heart Sutra melodiously in its entirety, culminating in repetition of the mantra: om gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhisvaha (wonderfully translated by poet Allen Ginsburg as, “Gone, gone, totally gone, totally gone over the top, wakened mind, so, ah!). The Chorus strips the altar of adornment, and the shakuhachi cuts the air.
Two scenes follow. In the first, a character called The Philosopher, smartly dressed in black, aggressively clings to his weighty concepts, symbolized by a rock he cannot lift no matter his prodigious effort. Surrounding the Philosopher with shunyata, symbolized by bamboo poles, the Chorus pacifies his aggression. His mind becomes light, and he is startled to discover he can lift the rock. In the second scene an attractive Market Trader clutches her people and possessions, symbolized by a carrier bag full of stones, desiring more and more acquisitions of dotcoms. The Chorus literally pulls a rug out from under her, and the stones go flying. She is bewildered how she can feel free without her accumulations. (In Trungpa’s folksy play, this character, filled with craving, is a Fisherman greedy for more and more fish.)
The bodhisattva of compassion reappears in female form as Tara. The Chorus places a single flower upon the altar.
Here is the crux of my adaptation of the play. As a way of theatrical exploration, I wanted to insert a period of silence into the production during which the actors would sit in meditation – basically, not acting — which I thought had possibly not been tried before in the theatre. I was curious and apprehensive to see how the audience would respond. Would they become restless, laugh, cough, whisper, complain aloud, or bestir themselves to leave the theatre? I wanted to discover what might transpire when the performance on stage is non-performance; or, if I dare say, if the performance on stage is emptiness.
I was inspired by American composer and Zen practitioner John Cage who wrote 4’33” in which musicians arrive on stage with their instruments and proceed not to play for 4’33”, allowing the music to be whatever sounds arise naturally in the space. In honor of Cage, I decided to go for 4’33” of non-doing.
Persuaded by Tara, the actors of the Chorus sat down on the stage floor in cross-legged posture. They were joined by the actors playing the Philosopher and the Market Trader. The cast remained in stillness unmoving for four and a half minutes. Ending the play, the Chorus unselfconsciously, naturally swept the stage, and the shakuhachi played pristinely into darkness.
Prajna ran for an allotted four performances. With minimal marketing but with the boon of a preview article written by the Religion Editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, all performances were sold-out. I sat in the theatre lobby every night, waiting to see what would happen at the John Cage section. What happened is the theatre turned to quietude. No one coughed, fidgeted, talked, or walked out. I listened to the audience as they left the theatre. One night, one person said, “My favorite part was when we all meditated together.” Eh ma ho!
Our final scheduled performance was a Monday in September. That evening, the show began at 10pm and came down just before 11pm. It was the latest-running show that day of the Fringe. Prajna could well have been the last theatre event that day along the Eastern corridor from Boston to D.C., since Monday is by and large a dark night in the theatre even in New York City.
As it turned out Prajna was the end production of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival that year. Although the festival was slated to carry on for another week, all further shows were cancelled the next day. The next day was September 11, 2001, and the theatres closed.
What is the meaning or is there a meaning? What did our Prajna bring to the situation? I have asked these questions of friends from time to time. One answer I especially liked was that our audience members were fortified for the days that followed. Yes, perhaps, and there is something else. The plane that was flying over Pennsylvania, the plane closest to Philadelphia, did not accomplish its mission of destruction. The passengers on board flight 93 agreed to practice the transcendent wisdom of prajna, enabling the plane to come down in a field in Pennsylvanian rather than destroy the inhabitants and home of the federal government. Theirs was wakened mind totally gone over the top!