Makes the Other One Look Good

Refuge a film by John Halpern.  With Martin Scorcese, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Ani Tenzin Palmo, Oliver Stone, David Chadwick.  **1/2

Zen in the West a film by Daniel Luke Fitch.  With Henry Shukman Roshi, Yamada Ryoun Roshi, David Loy Roshi, Reuben Habito Roshi, Venerable Dr. Parravati.  Part of BuddhaFest Online.  ****1/2.

Fifty years ago a friend told me a joke that is far too stupid ever to tell again, but I’ve always loved the punch line.  A man walks up a stairway and through a door, which slams shut behind him; he finds himself standing outside on a fire escape, where a small neon sign blinks the words, “You have just been screwed at Grandma’s Whorehouse.”

I’m starting to think that, in my excitement to get seven Buddhist movies for thirty bucks by signing up for Tricycle’s Buddhafest, I have just been screwed at Grandma’s Whorehouse.  I’m not much of one for Wisdom Talks (my membership entitles me to seven); I’d rather the teacher would type the talk out and let me read it.  I can do that so much faster than watching her give it.

And as I began to watch the second of the films, Refuge, I had an uneasy feeling when two of the talking heads to pop up were Martin “The Eyebrows” Scorcese and Oliver “How Come I Look Sane When My Movies Are So Crazy” Stone.  They didn’t have much to say.  But what struck me was how great they looked.  Have these guys been working out?  Maybe had some work done?  Then the Dalai Lama appeared—at last, someone who knows about Buddhism—and I thought the same thing about him.  Wow.  Those mornings on the treadmill have done wonders for this guy.  Then I thought, wait a minute.

All right.  Tricycle didn’t say they were new movies.  They just said seven movies.  My bad, as the young people say.  I looked up Refuge on IMDb, and the date was, 2006.  Really?

Buddhafest is not exactly the Sundance Film Festival.

Then there’s the whole question of the movie’s focus.  It obviously centers on Tibetan Buddhism, so what is David Chadwick doing here (also looking extremely youthful).  He is the author of a wonderful biography of Shunryu Suzuki, a famous Zen teacher, but that doesn’t make him an authority on Buddhism, at least not Tibetan Buddhism.  So why David Chadwick?  Tibetan Lamas shuffle in and out of this movie like bit players, several of them having been toppled in recent years by sex scandals, but what the hell, nobody knew that in 2006 (though Tricycle knows it now.  Did anyone from Tricycle watch this movie?).  But why so many?  Who are these people?

One of the Lamas has actually directed a film.  Ah ha.  Maybe it’s a movie about film directors who are kind of interested in Buddhism (Scorsese), consider themselves Buddhists (Stone), or actually are Buddhists; all three have made movies about Tibetan Buddhism.  In the meantime the background narrative is going on about how people in the West are drawn to Buddhism because they’re tired of their own religions, and they’re looking for something they can take refuge in.  We see crowds of Western people wandering around aimlessly (apparently representing their religious confusion), then see Tibetan Buddhists spinning some prayer wheels, looking focused (though what those wheels have to do with religion I do not know).

Unfortunately, rather early on, The Dalai Lama makes his famous statement that Westerners looking for religion will only be confused if they come to the East.  They should stay in their own tradition.  Oh please, your eminence, not that.  The blue suit on Sunday morning, stifling steam heat in the winter, dead still air in the summer, quavering voices singing off key to dreadful hymns, sermons that go in interminably.  I would so much rather sit and stare at a wall for hours at a time.  Which is actually what I do now, as my spiritual practice.

We can easily think of all kinds of authoritative Westerners who might contradict the Dalai Lama on this point, like Lama Surya Das and Pema Chodron.  They do not appear, unfortunately.  One of the most eloquent Westerners in the movie is Ani Tenzin Palmo, the British woman who famously spent twelve years meditating in a cave.  She emerges as a strong voice.  But she didn’t specifically address what the Dalai Lama said.

The intentions of this movie were good.  It just didn’t inform itself very well.  And it didn’t look far for its talking heads.  (And the background narration is just plain dumb.)

On the other hand, it seemed so unfocused that it led me to reconsider (and actually rewatch) Zen in the West.  All of my complaints still apply: it focuses largely on one organization, Sanbozen (I don’t think that anyone from outside this organization appears in the first hour); it overemphasizes the experience of kensho; it then scrambles at the end to find a few other voices to be heard, like Joan Halifax and Bernie Glassman.  And everybody’s a Roshi!  On the other hand, it does consult a variety of people around the world who are in Sanbozen; the statements they make are eloquent and build on one another; the footage especially of Japan is beautiful to see, and the people who get the most airtime, Henry Shukman and Yamada Ryoun, are modest insightful men who have a lot to say about their practice.  My initial criticisms were too harsh.  I must have been having a bad day.  Zen in the West is a movie worth seeing.

I’m not sure it’s worth thirty bucks.  My examination of Buddhafest will continue.