Rev. Danny Fisher

Well, I’m all moved in with my buddy Phil at New Haven. And I’ve hit the ground running in terms of taking advantage of some neat opportunities here. Last night, I went to the Yale Law School with my New Haven pal Ravenna Michalsen to see the great Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche deliver a lecture entitled “Projecting the Dharma: Film and the Transmission of Buddhism to the West”.

For the uninitiated, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche is a Bhutanese tulku (reincarnate lama). He is the third incarnation of the founder of the Khyentse lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. He was trained under modern masters such as His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, and also studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Today, he holds his traditional seat at Dzongsar Monastery and has established several temples and practice centers throughout the world. He is also the founder of the non-profit organizations Siddhartha’s Intent and the Khyentse Foundation. His most recent and popular book is What Makes You Not a Buddhist.

In addition to all of this work, Rinpoche also directs feature films under the name “Khyentse Norbu.” His first film, 1999′s much-beloved The Cup, tells the light-hearted story of a group of exiled Tibetan monks trying to watch the World Cup on television. His second film, the 2003 drama Travellers and Magicians, made history as the first film to be shot entirely in Bhutan. He also co-starred in and served as a technical advisor on Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1993 film Little Buddha. And he himself was the subject of Lesley Ann Patten’s 2003 documentary Words of My Perfect Teacher.

Rinpoche gave a wonderful teaching, mostly about peoples’ projections of what Buddhism is and the problems with having preconceived ideas about the Buddhadharma. He did finally talk a bit about films, though, saying he felt that anything could be a tool for effectively transmitting the Dharma. He also talked a bit about Andrei Tarkovsky’s brilliant 1979 science fiction film Stalker and how the title character could almost be seen as a mahasiddha (Tantric adept or yogi). Then, during a Q&A moderated by Dr. Robert Scharf of the University of California at Berkeley, when he was asked about other films he liked, he talked about how much he loved Michael Cimino’s 1978 classic The Deer Hunter. He said it made him unable to eat for a week–but “in a good way!”

As a fan of Rinpoche’s work (especially What Makes You Not a Buddhist, which I highly recommend to you all) and someone who loves to think about Buddhism and film, I was really excited to see this talk. I had a great time, and I think it’s a really auspicious start to my practice and study in Connecticut.

I leave you with the trailer for Words of My Perfect Teacher, so that you might enjoy a bit of Rinpoche and his teachings through the medium of film.

I received an email recently from Michael Goldberg, executive producer and director of the D.T. Suzuki Documentary Project. The Project has recently produced a 77-minute documentary film about the life and work of D.T. Suzuki entitled A Zen Life – D.T. Suzuki.

The film includes interviews with (among others) Gary Snyder, Huston Smith, Mihoko Okamura, Albert Stunkard, Elsie Mitchell, Robert Aitken Roshi, Donald Richie, and Wm. Theodore de Bary. It also utilizes rare footage of Thomas Merton, John Cage, Erich Fromm, and Suzuki himself.

I haven’t seen the film yet, but I’m very excited to do so. Obviously, Suzuki was especially important in terms of all the work he did to transmit Zen Buddhist teachings to the West. In the email I received from Goldberg, he goes even further in terms of articulating the far-reaching effects of Suzuki’s work:

D.T. Suzuki was highly successful at getting Westerners to appreciate the Japanese mentality, and Japanese to understand Western logic. The effect he had on Western psychoanalysis, philosophy, religious thinking, and the arts was profound. His numerous writings in English and Japanese serve as an inspiration even today…Gary Snyder calls D.T. Suzuki “probably the most culturally significant Japanese person in international terms, in all of history.”

A Zen Life – D.T. Suzuki can be ordered at http://www.martygrossfilms.com. For public showing permission or other information concerning the D.T.
Suzuki Documentary Project, please email the Project here.

This courtesy of Tom Armstrong: Ordinary Extraordinary is reporting that Michael of One Foot in Front of the Other has died after his long bout with cancer.

I have been a fan of Michael’s blog for a long time. His has definitely been one of my favorite “Buddhist blogs.” And, like many of you, I have been incredibly affected by the recent posts in which he confronted his illness and his feelings about dying directly. He was friendly to this blog, commenting on a couple of occasions, including very recently. I never met him, but I’m very sad that he’s gone. I was touched by his work–by his life.

Below is Michael’s last post in its entirety. It’s one of his devastating poems.

“Fatigue”

Looking in my bathroom mirror
I see the steady progress of death
as he moves like an eclipse
across my face

My skin grows more taut
my beard is shot through with gray
my eyes are increasingly bloodshot
I can’t recognize this person staring back at me –
in fact
this stranger is scaring me

My physical weakness astounds me
my arms don’t listen anymore
my sense of balance has forsaken me

But, blessing of blessings
I can still feel the life spark
I can still feel the life spark

I have a review of the new Paul Greengrass film The Bourne Ultimatum in the latest issue of the Journal of Religion and Film. You can read it online here.

The Bourne Ultimatum is the third (and probably final) film in the extremely popular action series based on the novels by Robert Ludlum. It was released in theaters this past August, and came out on DVD just a few weeks ago. The Associated Press, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Miami Herald all included it on their “ten best films of the year” lists. And then this morning, it received three Academy Award nominations: Best Achievement in Film Editing, Best Achievement in Sound Editing, and Best Achievement in Sound Mixing.

I’ve written for the Journal of Religion and Film once before, and hope to do much more writing for them in the future.

I was interviewed for Dr. Lucinda Mosher’s new book Faith in the Neighborhood: Loss. The book’s publisher, Church Publishing, describes it this way:

Helps Christians understand the complex attitudes toward illness and death among the many faiths of their neighbors. Mosher lets us listen in as nurses, physicians, chaplains, religious leaders, and laypersons wrestle with questions such as:



• Why are we here and what is our destiny?
  
• What causes illness?
  
• What happens when we die, and what should happen to the body of the deceased?
  
• How does our religion help us handle the grieving process?
  
• How does our religion help us make decisions about medical treatment options?

Much of what I said to Dr. Mosher made it into the book, albeit with relative anonymity. (Like a lot of interviewees in the book, I’m credited as “a chaplain” or “a Buddhist chaplain” or some such thing.)

I really enjoyed reading the book and recommend it to you. In particular, chaplains and other caregivers will no doubt find it very useful.