MUMBAI - A major Indian-Sri Lankan film on Gotama the Buddha [1] was announced
at the picturesque seaside hotel Taj Lands End in Mumbai on August 27.
To be made by well-known Indian director Shyam Benegal, the film is to be shot
on a massive 400-hectare set outside Colombo. Mumbai-based Beyond Dreams
Entertainment and the Light of Asia Foundation of Sri Lanka are producing the
film.
This joint film, in the 2,550th anniversary year of the passing away
of the Buddha, is another indicator of how strife-torn Asian countries are
increasingly finding common ground in his heritage.
Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea and Japan lead in funding and supporting major
projects in India related to the Buddha's teaching, the most significant being
the historic Global Vipassana Pagoda close to completion in Mumbai (see
India rediscovers its Buddha roots, Asia
Times Online, February 24).
A respectful repository for the bone relics of the Buddha, the Global Pagoda -
the world's largest meditation hall encompassed in the biggest dome stone
monument ever built without supporting pillars - is evolving as one of the most
inspiring tourist attractions in Asia.
With members of Thailand's royal family, Chinese entrepreneurs, Thai artists
and members of the Myanmar junta coming to Vipassana meditation centers such as
Dhamma Giri near Mumbai (it receives more than 3,000 applications for its two
10-day residential courses each month), the Buddha's teaching for inner change
could be a significant aspect of the 21st century being Asia's century, or
India's century. Obviously, the world can't change for the better if the
individual doesn't.
Proof of increasing acceptance of the Buddha's universal teaching is the
word-of-mouth popularity of courses taught by Satya Narayan Goenkaji now being
practiced in more than 100 countries. Vipassana, the practical quintessence of
the Buddha's teaching, is being accepted by educational institutes such as the
elite Indian Institute of Technology, major corporate houses, India's nuclear
research facilities, and maximum-security prisons such as New Delhi's Tihar
Jail and Donaldson Prison in Bessemer, Alabama.
The attitudinal change toward the Buddha is emerging primarily through two
extraordinary Asians: Burmese-born, now Mumbai-based retired Indian
industrialist S N Goenkaji and his late teacher Sayagyi U Ba Khin, the first
accountant general of independent Burma (now Myanmar).
U Ba Khin (1899-1971) was the visionary who enabled more people outside Burma
to practice the Buddha's practical mind technology. He also used Vipassana in
enhancing public administration, such as removing corruption in various
governmental departments given to his charge by prime minister U Nu, by
conducting Vipassana courses in his office.
Goenkaji, 82, honored last May by the president and prime minister of Sri Lanka
in Colombo as a great ambassador of the Buddha's teachings, furthered his
teacher's mission by not just returning Vipassana to India, the country of its
origin, but also by tirelessly working with monks and scholars in Asian
countries to remove myths and misconceptions about the Buddha - most ridiculous
of which is that the Buddha was a reincarnation of a Hindu god and that his
teachings are pessimistic.
"This is a historic moment for South Asian cinema," Beyond Dreams Entertainment
Ltd chief executive officer Yash Patnaik told the media conference to launch
the film. "We are about to tell the story of a man - Gotama Buddha - who was
born in the Indian subcontinent and redefined the way the world thinks.
Buddha's philosophy is more contemporary today than ever before."
Patnaik is right about the relevance of the Buddha's teaching but is inaccurate
in calling it a philosophy. The Buddha's practical and experience-based
teaching is being seen as not an intellectual debating game for philosophers
and bearded sages, but as a pragmatic, realistic path to benefits here and now
- as outlined by research papers being published by practicing psychiatrists,
physicians and technology pundits - with the aim of the practice being to
liberate oneself from being slave to one's own mind, vanquish the dangerous
inner demons of impurity within, and develop wisdom to live a wholesome life
full of compassion to oneself and others.
The changed outlook toward the Buddha's teaching can be ranked as one of the
most important paradigm shifts in human thought in past five decades, with the
meaning of spirituality itself now gradually transformed from being dismissed
as vague, unrealistic, religious ideals to being seen as a rigorous, mental
workout very much needed in corporate boardrooms, newsrooms to classrooms, to
cope with the ever-changing realities in one's world.
Vipassana, for instance, involves summoning courage to cross many deep mental
and physical pain barriers, dissolving the ego and developing the emotionally
self-dependent realization that our thoughts, words and actions are responsible
for our happiness or unhappiness, not others. "If you look for faults, look
within; if you look for virtues, look for it in others," says Goenkaji.
Also being practiced by astounded scientists as a living quantum physics,
Vipassana involves objectively observing the changing bodily sensations, the
sub-atomic, biochemical flow that arises and passes from the mind interacting
continuously with the body. In reality, we react to the pleasant or unpleasant
bodily sensations that arise from contact with objects outside.
It's only the apparent reality that what someone said or did, or something
outside, is responsible for us to smile or frown. Vipassana smashes delusions
such as overtly or covertly craving attention from others.
Director Shyam Benegal, winner of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award that the Indian
government gives for lifetime contribution to cinema, said that it is essential
to tell the story of the Buddha today when terrorism and tension is rife.
"People relate Mahatma Gandhi with the message of non-violence, but it was
Buddha who first preached it."
Note
1. According to the Vipassana Research Institute, "Gotama" is the correct
spelling, not "Gautama", of the family name of Prince Siddhartha, who became
the Buddha.
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