[Buddha-l] Re: speaking of sick societies

[jkirk]

> ======================
> Interview with Michael Moore (excerpt):

Thanks for sending that, Joanna. It's a great interview. (I heard the whole
thing, or something much like it, on Democracy Now.)

I'd like to see Michael Moore do a movie about religion in the modern world.

He might start with a shot of a Buddhist temple in Japan onto which placards
of all sizes are nailed, each placard having the name of a donor, the size
of the placard being proportional to the size of the donation. That
practice, I'm told, is quite old in Japan, certainly dating to a time before
Japan was spoiled by contact with the money-grubbing materialism of the
West. And it is ubiquitous.

We might then move to a shot of Bikram Chaudhary's lawyers preparing their
strategy for a lawsuit against privately owned yoga studios in which
teachers use some or part of the sequence of yoga poses that Bikram has
patented. I jest not. He has also patented doing yoga in a room in which the
temperature is kept at 104F (40C). Approach that temperature in your yoga
room and you get sued. 

And while on the topic of yoga, we might discuss the marketing of Ashtanga
Yoga (name copyrighted), so called because it has dropped seven of the eight
limbs of Patanjali's classical Indian eight-limbed (ashtanga) yoga and
focused everything on bodily postures, most of which were completely unknown
to Patanjali.

We might then have a few scenes of people paying Japanese Buddhist priests
somewhere between $200 and $500 for taking refuge and getting a new Buddhist
name. (At the risk of insulting the viewer's intelligence, it could be
pointed out that the Buddha never charge a single rupee for giving people
refuge, nor did he give anyone a new Buddhist name.) 

We could show a Buddhist priest thumbing through a catalog for a new set of
robes, wishing he could afford the $20,000 gold-embroidered robes but having
to settle for the $5,000 robes because his niggardly parishioners give such
puny dana. Then a closeup shot of his wife suggesting that he could raise
the money for the gold-embroidered robes if he charged $600 instead of $300
to give someone a new Buddhist name.

We could then show Buddhist monks in Thailand laying a gilt trip on lay
disciples, encouraging them to put their savings into buying gold leaf to
put onto a Buddha statue already so covered with gold that people gazing
upon it without sunglasses routinely go blind.

At some point we could have a sequence of shots of websites advertising the
price of attending meditation retreats for a week. It might be pointed out
that a week of meditation these days costs about as much as a week in a
Swiss spa, but the price is well worth it, because everyone knows it's
impossible to meditate at home or under a tree. (Hey, how about offering
patrons the option of paying an extra $100 a day to have a penniless peasant
girl, certified untouchable, bring them a bowl of rice milk?)

I think it would make a great movie, and I think Michael Moore is just the
fellow to make it. After all, he looks a bit like those statues of Maitreya
whose tummies Chinese merchants rub for good financial luck. But please
don't forward this message to Michael. I'm going to copyright it and try to
sell it to him. Or maybe sue him for stealing my ideas. That's the American
way, eh?

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
=======================
Love that "gilt trip," Richard. In fact, also in Thailand and some parts of
Burma the laid-on gilt is so thick you cannot even make out what it covers--
it's just a big blob of gold. Is that conspicuous anti-consumption or what?

However, if Mike Moore made this film, I agree he'd do it justice. He'd also
need to be present at some of the week-long retreats, especially good at the
time the retreat officially ends with lunch, while the din of people yakking
in the dining hall after a week of Noble Silence is so excruciating it about
deafens one as effectively as viewing the gilt application is blinding. He
shouldn't forget to film also the point where the dana appeal gets noted by
one or other of the teachers. Dana rhetoric is often quite illuminating.

But why leave it at Buddhism? There's so much else that begs to be in a
movie. 
Joanna


No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.9.10/873 - Release Date: 6/26/2007
11:54 PM