Word: buddhism
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...most directors, shooting a film is a chance to be treated like a deity. For Khyentse Norbu, better known as Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, the reincarnation of a 19th century Tibetan saint and one of Himalayan Buddhism's most revered lamas, it's just the opposite. "Mostly when I come to Bhutan I'm supposed to play God," explains the youthful 41-year-old, "which has been such a frustration for me for so many years." What he craves, he says, is the chance to "climb down from my throne and speak to ordinary people. I wish I could...
...were shot in Bhutan. Then in 1998 he brought a small crew that included several of his longtime Western students to a Tibetan monastery in Bir, India, to shoot The Cup, a film based on the true story of the young resident monks' impious obsession with World Cup football. "Buddhism is their philosophy," read the posters. "Soccer is their religion." The Cup employed not a single professional actor. Most of the characters played themselves, and Khyentse Norbu shot the whole piece without ever fully explaining to the cast members that they were re-enacting their own story. "Everyone knew...
...colleges and retreat centers in Bhutan and India. But he also spends months at a time in isolated meditation. While he embraces the role dictated by his Buddhist lineage, he's no knee-jerk traditionalist: he views the ossified rituals and hierarchical structure of the clergy as threats to Buddhism's survival. Buddhism ought to be treated as a philosophy, he explains. "It's about how you look at your life. But sadly, (it) has become a religious theistic thing?a faith. And the young people are beginning to ask questions, 'Why should we circumambulate stupas? Why prayer flags...
...they wanted because the sutra he was about to teach was "very, very long and rather boring"; he then held them rapt for more than three hours. Film, Khyentse Norbu argues, is an ideal vehicle for transmitting Buddhist wisdom with freshness in the 21st century: "(For a long time) Buddhism has the tradition of using all kinds of mediums: statues, paintings, monasteries. And although it's difficult for people to accept, I see film as a modern-day tanka (a kind of Buddhist painting). Film has so much power because we're conditioned primarily by what we see and hear...
...made for TV (in vain, though a London stage version opens Jan. 18). Or sitting in a heavily guarded New York hotel as poet Allen Ginsberg shows him breathing exercises to relieve fatwa-induced stress. "How extraordinary it was," says Rushdie, "for an Indian by birth to be taught Buddhism by an American poet sitting cross-legged in a room full of men armed to the gills. There's nothing like life; you can't make this stuff up." With a life like that - speaking up, stepping across lines - a little vanity is forgivable...