Summer 2000

The Tao of Mandolin
Proffered anonymously

"Where are you going?" my wife asks, as I start up the stairs to my "room."

"I'm going to play."

I love to say that. I love that I am a musician so that I can get away with saying, "I'm going to play." Few adults get to say those words! Kids say them all the time, and we think nothing of it; in fact, that's what we expect them to do.

I was teasing a five-year-old boy several years ago. I like to ask kids adult questions, very seriously, and watch their reactions. "So, are you married?" I'll ask. "Do you have any kids?" They love these teasing questions. This little boy was a visitor in my house. I asked him, very seriously, "So what do you do?" He looked at me like I was insane. "I play!" he answered, very seriously, his tone implying that I was stupid to ask such an obvious question.

What a great answer! At five, play is indeed our job. That little boy is now about 23, I imagine. If I asked him that serious question now, his answer would probably be a very serious one about work.

Unless he is a musician!

What do I do? I play.

Almost everyone allows some play in their lives. We all must work and have discipline, but we all realize that we need play. As Deng-Ming Dao writes in his book "Everyday Tao," followers of Tao treasure fun and play.

"Through play," he writes, "the letting go of our restrictions, the lighthearted association of disparate and 'irrational' elements, the turning over of established order, we open the way to our own creativity." We should take play seriously, he says, because we can find Tao outside the borders easier than inside. "If you want to be with Tao," he concludes, "it is better to put aside all that is 'important' and 'significant' and just play. Be natural. You'll arrive at Tao a lot sooner than if you make a 'special effort.' "

I have times when I work hard at playing the mandolin. And I grow a lot when I do that, conscientiously, with focus, with discipline. But I also grow by letting go and just playing.

We should not feel guilty that we play. On the contrary, it is a blessing that many adults deny themselves. Play is there for the taking, just as it was when we were children, when playing was our work.

Play your mandolin today, as innocently as a five-year-old boy at his play.

(quotations from Deng-Ming Dao, "Everyday Tao," HarperCollins, 1996, p. 144)

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