"Killing Buddha" - the movie (video)

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

(CFL) Betsy Chasse, co-writer/producer of "What the Bleep Do We Know?!," on her latest independent film, "Killing Buddha."

There is a horrific Mahayana Buddhist expression that -- going against the very heart of Theravada Buddhist sentiment -- runs: “If you see the Buddha on the road, [blank] him.”
     
There are, after all, only five heinous deeds with fixed karmic results: (1) intentionally harming a buddha, (2) matricide, (3) patricide, (4) killing an arhat, (5) or causing a schism in the Sangha.
  
The consequence is rebirth in the most dismal subhuman plane of existence (avici) in the very next rebirth. Cultivating the intention to perform one of these unimaginable acts is mental karma that goes on to become a verbal act of encouraging others. What does it mean?

It is meant to be facetious, ironic, and shocking: “Do not follow teachers; do not set up others on a pedestal; depend on yourself; be a light/island (dipa) unto yourself, taking no teacher other than the Dharma itself as an idol or savior.”
   
An American famous for creating “What the Bleep Do We Know?” is setting her sights on Buddhism. Betsy Chasse was perplexed by the message “You are the one you've been waiting for.” But it came to her through what has become a Mahayana commandment of sorts:
  

Linji the shocking iconoclast

“Embrace Nothing. If you meet the Buddha, k*ll the Buddha… only live your life as it is, not bound to anything.” This saying is attributed to iconoclastic Linji, the 9th century founder of the Linji School of Chán (Chinese jhana) Buddhism.
   

Linji's famous sayings

“Followers of the Way [of Chán], if you want to get the kind of understanding that accords with the Dharma, never be misled by others. Whether you're facing inward or facing outward, whatever you meet up with, just kill it! If you meet a [fully awakened] buddha, kill the buddha. If you meet a patriarch, kill the patriarch. If you meet an arhat, kill the arhat. If you meet your parents, kill your parents. If you meet your kinfolk, kill your kinfolk. Then for the first time you will gain emancipation, will not be entangled with things, will pass freely anywhere you wish to go” (Burston Watson, 1999, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi: A Translation of the Lin-chi lu, p. 52).

  

“Those who have fulfilled the 10 stages of bodhisattva-practice are no better than hired field hands; those who have attained the enlightenment of the 51st and 52nd stages are prisoners shackled and bound; arhats and non-teaching buddhas are so much filth in the latrine; bodhi and nirvana are hitching posts for donkeys” (Ibid., p. 26). 

    
The Next "What the Bleep?!"  
Chasse wants help. She is asking the public (through crowdfundinglive.com) to participate in this project at any level. Watch videos from the set, look at behind the scenes footage, chat online with the cast and the film makers, and more. She is exchanging these enticements for funding.
   

While distributing What The Bleep Do We Know?! Chasse was honored to travel the world talking about the film. The most common question people asked was, “How did a broke, out of work, spiritually unconscious, material Valley Girl who was into sex, tequila, and expensive shoes end up being a writer, director and producer of What the Bleep Do We Know!?”
   
Sometimes it takes the most unlikely of people in the most unusual of circumstances to create something that touches the world like “Bleep” did. The story Chasse told was so funny and resonated with so many people that she decided to write a film about it, a comedy called “Killing Buddha.” 
  

About-Team-Financial-Media-Updates-Funders-Comments

  

Synopsis

When life is chaotic we are forced to change. This is a lesson successful film producer Sara Wells reluctantly learns when her seemingly perfect life comes crashing down. Desperate for work, she takes on a documentary project about spirituality and the new thought movement. Will “Killing Buddha” mark her triumphant return to the riches she thinks her life once contained?
  
Or will she and her mismatched crew of seekers, believers, and cynics find that ultimately it’s not what you have and what you believe in, but who you become that counts? Think “Bridget Jones gets hired to shoot a documentary about finding the meaning of life.”
   
Funny and lighthearted, “Killing Buddha” is a mainstream comedy that is set to include interviews with some of today's greatest pop spiritual teachers -- Deepak Chopra, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, and others interacting with the actors as they shoot this “film within the film.”
   

Why make the film?

“Killing Buddha” is a reminder that everything we seek can be found within ourselves. More

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The Metamorphasis of Buddhism Strengthens the Global Sangha

Whenever Buddhism has taken root in a new land there has always been a certain variation in the style in which it is observed. The Buddha himself taught differently according to the place, the occasion, the situation of those who were listening to him. So, all of us have the responsibility to take the essence of Buddhism and put it into practice in our own lives.

~ His Holiness the Dalai Lama

James: There is so much discussion over Buddhism in the west. There are many from the East who feel that they have a corner or the "true" Dharma/Buddhism and that "Western Buddhism" is diluting the "True Buddhism." Yet as HDL states above, the Buddha taught differently according to the place (which I'm 99% sure meant the culture as well).

The fact is that there many different styles of Buddhism in Asia which has been the cradle of Buddhism. Under the greater umbrella we have the main traditions: Mahayana, Theravada and Vajrayana--all slightly different but sharing the core keystones of the Dharma taught by the Buddha. Then breaking it down further there are differences between Theravada (for example) in Thailand and in Burma (Malaysia).

I think of what Jack Kornfield said in the recent issue of the Buddhadharma magazine.

He spoke of studying Theravada under the Venerable Ajahn Chah and learning so much from him and that "forest style" of Theravada found in Thailand . Then he speaks of studying Theravada in Burma (Malaysia) under the Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw and studying the Dharma from a totally different point of view but still as valuable as the teachings of Ajahn Chah. Both teachers neither changing the core teachings of the Buddha beyond recognition but providing a different angle of the great, multi-faceted diamond that is the Dharma.

It's ironic that (according to Kornfield) monks in Burma will say, "In Burma we have always been the carriers of the true way" even though the ascendancy of Theravada Buddhism began only a few hundred years ago.

James: I have to giggle when I hear such dualistic thinking when Burmese Theravada Buddhism is a realtive child compared to some other traditions!! I guess it's kind of the like the egotisitcal thinking that the immigrants who have been here for a couple generations are more American then those who've only been here for a few dozen decades.

Kornfield goes on:

So, infact, the history of the Theravada, and the history of Buddhism in generally, is actually a weaving of a number of different strands.

James: And that I believe is what is happening within the growing "Western Buddhism."

Sadly not all great teachers feel this way. Eido Roshi states in that same Buddhadharma issue that, I am well aware that a few people reject the traditional ways, but still some people love them, and these people are the ones who have real devotion toward Buddhadharma. That is all I have to say.

James: I hope that Roshi is refering to the main tenets of Buddhism such as the four noble truths and the eightfold path, etc. rather then the cultural attachments of a particular tradition or school from a certain country.

Stephen Batchelor had a more inclusive viewpoint on the matter:

But there is an important distinction between being rooted in a tradition and being stuck in a tradition. To be rooted in a tradition like Buddhism is absolutely necessary, but it's also possible to become attached to certain doctrines, to certain ways of doing things, that do not allow you to grow. They become another form of attachment. From rootedness, we need to be able to respond anew to what the world presents us.

James: Editor Jeff Wilson of the magazine Tricyle: The Buddhist Review provides another interesting example of the diversity within Buddhism and in this particular example the place of meditation within the different styles of Zen:

In America, many people are interested in meditation and that is one reason that Zen teachers discuss it. Asian teachers who like to have Western students talk a lot about zazen to them. When they teach in Japanese, most do not emphasize zazen unless it is in a monastic situation.

In Japan, where virtually all Soto Zen practitioners live, Soto Shu emphasizes moral behavior, respect of elders, charity, and chanting in front of the home altar. Meditation is not a central practice and is generally only performed by a minority of the clergy, who are themselves a very small minority of members.

Yes, it doesn't look like the Theravada in Thailand or maybe Burma and yes, the Zen maybe not exactly look like that found in Japan or Korea but that does not mean that the Theravada, Zen or Tibetan Buddhism blended into American culture are not actual "Buddhism."

Insiting on one way of practicing the Dharma is a type of "spiritual materialism" to use a term from the Venerable Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Placing more importance on the form rather then the essence which stunts the growth of the Dharma.

As long as the main tenets stay the same then Buddhism is generally Buddhism. We may look different, meditate a bit different, chant in a different accent, etc. but we are all usually practicing the same Dharma.

I find the different blends and flavors of Buddhism to be beautiful and a testament to the strength of the Dharma. The Buddha had the foresite to see into the future and realize that the religion he had started would need to adapt given the nature of subtle differences between people.

~Peace to all beings~

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