[Buddha-l] nytimes review of pbs The Buddha

[Richard Hayes]

On Apr 7, 2010, at 2:11 PM, R B Basham wrote:

> As for me, I was grumpy when young and am quite attached
> to it.

My trajectory has been somewhat different. I was cynical and angry as a youngster, but I got really sick of being angry. It takes too much energy. So as a middle-aged guy (aged 65), I'm now just cynical. Think of it as part of my effort to simplify my life.

By the way, in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that the PBS program on the Buddha was produced by a group of people called Providence Pictures. At least one of those producers graduated from the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill. I was his undergraduate advisor. That group is planning to produce a series of programs on the founders of the world's religions for PBS. (Two of the religions whose "founders" will be featured are Hinduism and Judaism. Who the hell was the founder of Judaism? YHWH? And who founded Hinduism? Nirguṇa Brahman? That should be an interesting program! But I digress.) The producers of The Buddha also produced The Bible’s Buried Secrets, which aired a while back on Nova.

I know all this because I was invited to participate in the PBS project on the Buddha. Needless to say, I turned the invitation down (well, to be more accurate, I just ignored it), so they had to settle for Richard Gere and Bob Thurman. I'm glad I didn't get involved, for if I had, I'd have Joanna and Dan to answer to (and maybe even Curt).

Richard de jonger