Why does playing a role feel so good? On stage, at work, or on social media — when we act as someone other than ourselves, our hearts feel lighter.
It’s strange when you think about it. We say we want to “live authentically,” yet we feel comfortable when being something we’re not.
Perhaps it’s because we’re overwhelmed by the very thing called “authenticity.” We wear the armor of “how we should be” or “how we want to be seen,” and call that the self. But when that armor grows heavy, we can’t help but slip into another role — otherwise, we suffocate.
When I act on stage or in a game, I forget the “self being seen.” I take off the armor of expectations and find freedom inside a role given to me. In that moment, my heart feels light.
Yet in that lightness, I realize: I can only live within the forms given to me. I can never be truly free.
That’s why the call of Amida Buddha — “Namu Amida Butsu” — seeps so deeply into my chest. It’s the voice that embraces me as I am: unable to laugh well, living by performing, layering temporary selves for someone, for something.
I cannot reach the state of “no-self.” I may grasp the idea of “emptiness,” but I cannot feel it. Still, in that fleeting moment of acting, I sense that “I am nevertheless being lived.”
Perhaps that comfort comes from “being embraced even within falsehood.” And it is precisely that falsehood itself that Amida Buddha saves — entirely and tenderly.
Today again, I live with my clumsy acting. “Namu Amida Butsu” stays near — so close, so mercifully close. How grateful I am.
日本語版note：
役を演じる心地よさ——偽りの中にも抱かれる私
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