Sunday, February 19, 2006
Just watched the Arts Central show Samsara. In a nutshell its about a Tibetan monk (Tashi) who cannot decide if its better to remain at a monastery practicing Buddhism in a vacuum or to leave and live the world as it is. Of course he leaves in the end, falls in love, have a child and only to realize that he wants to return to the monastery, and thus life comes a full circle, except he now has to leave behind his wife and children.
This blog believes that the most telling aspect of the show is not the Buddhism part, but rather the application of Buddhism to reality. It always seems easy to forget about the complexities of life when discussing religion. Tashi's reason for leaving is that he cannot possibly know how to how to practice the Buddhism if he do not know what is on the ther side of the wall, ie how to live and enjoy life. Afterall, you need to have something to renouce in the first place.
But towards the end, the question changed in tone and form into whether is it better to satisfy one's infinite desires under the guise of attempting to understand the world as compared to conquering and mastering just one of them? Truth is i think i will never know. The show itself side-steps this question with another question, 'How do you ensure that a drop of water never run dry?' (That is the exact translation.) The answer is deceptively simple, 'Throw it into the sea.' In a very Buddhist way of speaking that is true, detachment is always encouraged, however, that is in the vacuum of ideology. The point of the movie in the end is that religion is one thing that cannot be followed blindly and without application to life. While it maybe all well and fine to say that if I do this and this, I will get that and that - we must still realize that religion is nothing if we do not keep in touch with reality and the vice visa is never true.
11:35 PM
