Mourning Robin Williams

So many of us are sad at the death of the actor and comedian Robin Williams. To watch him perform was to witness an extreme display of life force. It seemed inexhaustible. It is shocking that someone that funny and that gifted would want to die. But there is something that exists at the root of humor and creativity that also exists at the root of sorrow.

I’ve often thought that comedians must be particularly lonely, especially those who perform standup. Unlike other creative forms that leave artifacts, comedy leaves nothing but thin air. It is so ephemeral. Writers may have their books and musicians their recordings, but comedians have only the moment where their mind meets the mind of the audience.

In meditation tradition, such moments are sometimes called “cutting through.” You experience cutting through many times during your practice: You are sitting there focused on your breath and then somehow drift off into thoughts of sex or dinner or the recycling. Then something cuts in. It says, “Hey, you’re thinking. Come back.” On another level, cutting though takes the form of increased clarity and you have the growing experience of insight cutting through time and again.

To see Robin Williams on stage was to see cutting through in perpetual motion. Physically, verbally, emotionally, he cut through again and again—to make us laugh, but also to touch and amaze us..

A sense of humor is itself a kind of cutting through. It is a way of playing with the phenomenal world, seeing things on the spot, and shifting the energy of a situation again and again. It requires you to be an open channel. (In fact, I’ve noticed that great dharma teachers almost always have a great sense of humor, a kind of turn-on-a dime playfulness with whatever arises. My own teacher, Sakyong Mipham, is pretty hilarious.)

It is not easy to be an open channel. There is a lot of uncertainty and pain. It takes so much courage. It is so lonely. Maybe that’s one reason Robin Williams suffered so much.

Obviously, I am making this all up. I have no idea what he experienced or the nature of his demons. Still, I see a star that shot through the sky, fiery and crazy-bright and ultimately, perhaps, consumed by its own light.

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categorized in: open heart project