With perfect synchronicity
the local Regent cinema
puts on a Buddhist movie night.
I've been debating Buddhist lore
with my Zen friend, and he with me.
He chides me for my Pagan path
as sad irrationality,
and wonders what I need it for.
He tells me that there is no God.
I tell him God is everywhere;
the movies I've just seen agree.
It's tempting for me to point-score.
But all religions, I can see,
Movies: Brilliant Moon: the life of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and Un Buda: a fictional exploration of Buddhism in the Argentina of the recent past. Only the second specifically suggests what I say in the poem they both do. (Poetic licence to fit the brevity of the form.)
Images: (1) Khyentse. Image from Wikipedia Commons (2) Un Buda movie poster
Images: (1) Khyentse. Image from Wikipedia Commons (2) Un Buda movie poster
I'm a little surprised your Buddhist friend gives you grief...most I have known seem a little more of the "live and let live" variety...interesting that he worries about your Pagan ways...when you could just as easily ask why he needs the Buddha but that would be rude...funny how that works.
ReplyDeleteWhat us interesting to me is that he has an issue with belief in deities, fairies etc, — yet some strands of Buddhism are very magical-thinking (demons and all!) while some Pagans do not take LITERALLY the beliefs he criticises. (Personally I am a pantheist and see the Divine spark of life in everything,) I do often think that if I wasn't Pagan I might be Buddhist, as I like some things about some versions of it very much. And both films were lovely!
DeleteAmen. Neat to frame this universal exploration in a conversation between friends.
ReplyDeleteThere was an actual conversation, Susan, and then that coincidence of the movies immediately following. Sometimes the Universe gives one the material! :)
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