any Buddhists out there? Where you from?

A

allrawpaul

New member
I am a Buddhist (tibetan mahayana) . I am not a great practitioner, as I suffer from countless delusions and attachments, but I subscribe wholeheartedly to the Buddha
Dharma and would like shoot the shinto with other Buddhist screenwriters, if I am not the only one. I am not yet published, so really I am just a wanna- be. "Gain and victory to others! Loss and defeat to myself!"- Buddhist mind training slogan. May you have happiness and be free from suffering! Paul.
 
That would be me

That would be me

Like you, not a great practitioner.

I include buddhism in my scripts when appropriate, or at least some principles, including one short that has a Tibet monk, and one feature that includes Tibet and Tibet monks.

Let's swap stories.

A

www.alexwhitmer.wordpress.com
 
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I have followed Zen practice off and on, for about ten years, now.

I find that many films that touch on Buddhism seem to distort, a lot. The Golden Child comes unpleasantly to mind...

...although I thought Little Buddha and Kundun were very impressive.
 
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Possibly the greatest difficulty one encounters when trying to slip Buddhist principles into a screenplay is that to be accurate and real you have to start with the 4 Noble Truths, and the concepts of emptiness and not-self. Because the concepts are difficult to understand rationally and must be reallized experiencially, through practice, only a practitioner or a student of world religions can follow dharma talk. Therefore everything often gets watered way down for the american, christian audience and the amazing wisdom of the Buddha has no chance of being fully appreciated. I have a story that starts off by describing the life of the buddha and all his major revelations. Unfortunately, the film ends up being 4 hours long, and most of the audience is quickly lost or asleep. Of course all of the Buddhists and religious scholars in the audience love it, but since you can count them on one hand... I am going to write the script anyway, because I dont have to make my living as a writer, and because it should theoretically be a good read, for the few hundred people who could eventually happen to find themselves in possession of it.
 
Could it be structured in the form of serialized episodes and distributed as DVDs? I believe that model has worked for a number of Evangelical Christian content creators.

I am not remotely a scholar on the subject, but I suspect that you are drawing on source material that - suitably interpreted and communicated - will sieze your audience and lead them to wakefulness.

Maybe it's impractical to communicate a great number of Truths, in one sitting. Maybe one, clearly taught, will do.
 
Hey guys,

I happen to be Buddhist. I sit daily and attend my Sangha regularly. As for Buddhist scripts I wrote a feature that was heavily influenced by Buddhism, with a Sangha, Roshi, students, et al. Still shopping it around. My agent got it to a few solid studios and it received recommends all around. The budget was simply too high, so back to the drawing board.

In gassho :)
 
Excellent though Sad Max. ( If you want to Buddhfy your name, Sad/Placid/happy Max would be excellent. Impermanance, the first law of existence. We are allways changeing. There is no steady state of sadness peace, or happiness.) Just dont want to see you sad Max. :) I agree that focusing on one key concept at a time, like compassion or loving kindness, wouldnt lose the audience and everyone could benefit. Alvarez, congrats, thats excellent to finish the script and get so close to a sale! Too many exploding helicopters and buildings? What killed your budget?
 
Greetings!

I am not "a Buddhist", but the teachings of Buddhism have been very influential to me, and I don't find Buddhism incompatible with my own life/beliefs/cosmology.

It seems that you imagine the approach to including Buddhist teachings in films is to include Buddhist teachings in your films, but I'm not sure that that is the way to go. As you say, the concepts must be "realized emprically". Rather than attempting to explain concepts, it may be better to provide experiences. I think a movie like, say, "Being There" provides some good Buddhist lessons without "teaching Buddhism". Or even something like Hesse's "Siddhartha" provides many, many, powerful experiences with Buddhist concepts without ever really "teaching".

We learn best through experience, and through anecdotes, and film is a powerful medium for "learning by experience", not so good for "learning by rote". So I would say: think about skipping the dharma talk and the need to explain major revelations in words, focus instead on providing experiences a viewer can live.
 
allrawpaul said:
Excellent though Sad Max. ( If you want to Buddhfy your name, Sad/Placid/happy Max would be excellent. Impermanance, the first law of existence. We are allways changeing. There is no steady state of sadness peace, or happiness.)
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All true.

Sad Max is the name of a character from a short story of mine. Not actually a description of my emotional state :laugh:.
 
It's back!

It's back!

Thank you, Mods, for dis-deleting (?) the thread, and thank you for chiming in on your take on the matter of making decisions on what goes, or what stays. I also see you deleted one post, that in my opinion, probably sparked the decision to zap the whole.

I agree whole-heartedly politics and religion don't belong here, but debate over there purpose or their effect in film does. Stupid comments like 'that fat guy' are best entertained in the privacy of one's own ignorance.

All that said, and the drama behind us, back to the thread at hand. How does one impart a message in film?

As writers, there will always be a little of US in our characters. Our own beliefs or our own phobias will creep into our stories one way or another. The finesse is getting a part of us, or our message, across in a way the audience does not feel preached to.

a

www.alexwhitmer.wordpress.com
 
I feel that often the message can slip in somewhat sublimely, as long as the writer is writing what s/he feels is important to her/him from a religious or philosophical standpoint.

Therefore, being truthful to your own writing can give way to great things, perhaps without even expressly trying to impart something 'great.'
 
Lajos Egry offered the idea that one should begin by defining a truth one wishes to communicate, and then construct a story that proves that truth.

ie Star Wars' truth might be, even the least likely of us can become a hero.

Moby Dick's truth might be, obsession destroys itself, and its object.

etc
 
somebody chosen to be a king
gets disappointed in the realities of life
rejects the conventional desires of the masses
seeks another path
discovers spiritual truths
dedicates himself to share and better humanity

all these "dramatic beats" can be used in many kinds of stories be they directly about buddhism or not
 
I'm glad this thread is back, it gives me a chance to eavesdrop and learn about Buddhists. Basically I don't know crap, except that when you are in a Chinese restaurant, Buddhist's Delight doesn't have any meat. What a disappointment that was.

So... who would win a fight between a Buddhist monk and a Shaolin monk?
;)
 
Bodhidharma (the adept who brought Zen practice to China) is credited with having taught fighting techniques to the Buddhist monks at the Shaolin monastery, whom he found to be over-focused on their academic pursuits, and thus physically unbalanced and out of shape.

The Shaolin Buddhists were unpopular with a number of successive Chinese governments, particularly the Qing, who suspected them of disloyalty, and destroyed their monastery, more than once.
 
You see, there is part of my problem. I thought the Buddhists were non violent. Do I have them completely confused with some other monks?
 
Sad Max said:
The Shaolin Buddhists were unpopular with a number of successive Chinese governments, particularly the Qing, who suspected them of disloyalty, and destroyed their monastery, more than once.
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What a cool story idea! I don't think anyone has done it yet! I got my next project! Thanks man!
 
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