Posted by zenhussy on December 7, 2003, at 11:49:37
In reply to OK, Any Buddhists in here??, posted by NikkiT2 on November 28, 2003, at 19:03:01
Nikki,
Sunday's New York Times has an interesting article that pertains a bit to this conversation.
Here's a snippet:
Groundhog Almighty
By Alex Kuczynski
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/07/fashion/07HOG.htmlAngela Zito, a co-director of the Center for Religion and Media at New York University, screens the film for students in her Buddhism class. She said that "Groundhog Day" perfectly illustrates the Buddhist notion of samsara, the continuing cycle of rebirth that Buddhists regard as suffering that humans must try to escape ....
"Groundhog Day," Dr. Zito said, is a cinematic version of the teachings in Mahayana Buddhism, known as "the greater vehicle."
"In Mahayana," she said, "nobody ever imagines they are going to escape samsara until everybody else does. That is why you have bodhisattvas, who reach the brink of nirvana, and stop and come back and save the rest of us. Bill Murray is the bodhisattva. He is not going to abandon the world. On the contrary, he is released back into the world to save it."
Wow. So can anyone (a newspaper reporter?) be a bodhisattva?
"I would call that a Napoleon complex," Dr. Zito said with a sniff. "There is only one bodhisattva, and that is the Dalai Lama."
~~~~~~~~~So even watching Groundhog Day is an exercise in Buddhist teachings. Who knew?!!
Thought you might enjoy this.
Read up on Mahayana Buddhism and go rent Groundhog Day. Spirituality can be fun. = )
zh
poster:zenhussy
thread:284850
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faith/20030908/msgs/287413.html