I was just thinking the other day of which movies really made an impression on me. I'm not talking about whether they are good movies are not - just the fact that they made a deep enough impression that I periodically watch them again or the scenes or dialogue occur to me again and again.
I forget why I got on this. Maybe it was that in rereading Henry Miller I see how much different books made an impact on his worldview and writing style, but for my generation I would think that t.v. shows or movies would do this as well (if not totally in place of books).
In no particular order here are the movies that really made an impression on me just off the top of my head (and if they weren't just there at the top of my head than that would show that the impression wasn't all that deep - or perhaps more subterranean and unconcsious). Oh and beware - there will be spoilers:
1. Beneath the Planet of the Apes: This is a deeply dystopian movie and full of horrific, grotesque and apocalyptic imagery. Perfect for a kid like myself growing up under the constant threat of nucleary anniliation between the United States and the Soviet Union and in a religious tradition that promised and threatened that the world would in a fiery apocalypse. The theme of the movie is that our hatred, bitterness, and ignorance will definitely lead to war and ultimate destruction and that any attempts to stop this are just futile and pathetic.
Now for some spoilers:
- The rally where the gorillas are all being roused into a frothing craving to wage a genocidal war.
- The beautiful psionic and psychopathic mutants living in the underground radioactive slag of New York City who reveal that their faces are indeed just masks. They are actually hideously deformed mutants who reveal their "true face" while singing hymns to the nuclear bomb that they worship as their creator.
- Everyone dies! Many of the major characters are brutally gunned down in the last scene and then Taylor activates the bomb basically out of sheer malice and spite.
- The world blowing up with a very stark narrative to the effect that earth has just been wiped out and in the grand scheme of things the universe is too big to notice.
For some years I had nightmares that I had set off a nuclear bomb in order to destroy my enemies but then could not outrun the shockwave and radioactivity.
In high school one of the role playing games we played besides Dungeons & Dragons was the Morrow Project, wherein a paramilitary group heavily equipped with guns, medicine, vehicles, and other equipment called the Morrow Project would awaken from cryogenic hybernation after a nuclear war and then attempt to rebuild society. This game came complete with a list of all the cities in the USA that would be bombed, the types of Soviet weapons that would wipe them out, and the radiuses of the blast and radioactivity. It also came with pages and pages of the types of survivors that would be encountered - including mutants, crazy human cults, and other militaristic societies trying to conquer new kingdoms using ancient or modern or even futuristic weaponry. Basically the way the game played out is that one would drive around poking through the ruins, help those survivors you approve of, and gun down those survivors you don't approve of and/or who attack you.
2. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes: Yet another dystopian and apocalyptic film. This one is about a futuristic fascist U.S.A. (complete with security guards in black uniforms and jack boots) where apes are used as slaves and frequently brutalized. The only talking ape is Ceasar (Roddy McDowell) whose parents were murdered and whose surrogate human father (played by Ricardo Montalban) is imprisoned, tortured, and then commits suicide to prevent the government from learning about Ceasar. Ceasar then pretends to be another dumb ape and is processed like the other apes, giving the viewer a chance to see how brutalized and oppressed the apes really are. In the end he organizes a bloody revolution that leaves Los Angeles in flames and his human oppressors (and even one human sympathizer) at the feet and at the mercy of the bloodthirsty and quite savage gorillas who are about to pound them into hamburger with the butts of their guns and/or hack them into gobbets with their cleavers. A strange movie because as a kid I sympathized with Ceasar and the brutalized apes, but at the same time realizing that this is genocidal war going on and it is the humans who are finally on the receiving end. A strange mix of vicarious thrill as the oppressers rise up against the oppressed and fear that if you were there it would be you the gorillas would be tearing into pieces (regardless of the level of your complicity in their brutalization).
How can you forget scenes like:
- bands of armed gorillas rampaging through the city finally turning the tables on their brutal opressors symbolized by the jackbooted riot squads sent to kill them.
- Ceaser being strapped to a table and then tortured with electricity and ultimately executed (or so they think).
- the final scene where Ceasar, in a backdrop of burning buildings and a foreground of armed and angry apes declares that now it will be a planet of the apes.
Did I mention that I was living in Los Angeles during the L.A. riots and that previous to the riots I was as outraged as anybody by what happened to Rodney King, but during the riots I hid up in the hills of San Pablo and watched the fires from a safe distance. It should be obvious that the "apes" in Planet of the Apes were being used as stand-ins for any dehumanized, enslaved, or oppressed group and the righteous fury that would eventually boil over into chaos and anarchy (though Ceasar does pull back from vindictive revenge at the end but of course this is a fantasy that rarely ever happens - usually in real life vengeance and wrath just run their course).
3. Battle for the Planet of the Apes: This one shows the aftermath of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Humans are now second class citizens living in an agrarian and apparently vegetarian ape utopia. There has apparently been a nuclear war and the cities are radioactive slag. But there are snakes in the garden in the person of an ambitious gorilla general. This movie shows that all the elements that will lead to the total annihilation of Beneath the Planet of the Apes are all beginning to fall into place. There are mutants in the city who are becoming more sickened and warped in body and mind by their undeground radioactive haven, and the apes show themselves just as capable of murdering one another as the humans - not to mention more than capable and willing to commit acts of ethnic cleansing against humans and mutants. Though this movies seems to show Ceasar's attempts to change the future (which he learns about from recorded interviews of his dead time travelling parents) and in the end the humans and apes seems to be living in equality and peace there is a strong indication that all these efforts are just temporary and futile and that nothing can stop the world's destruction. As the last of the original five Planet of the Apes movies it seems to end on a note of hope, peace, and equality but really that is just to make the final note of nihilistic despair all the more heartrending - showing that history is just an iron circle of periodic brutality, revolution, war, false peace, degeneration, and then annihilation.
Significant scenes:
- Ceasar and his friends trying to make their ways through the radioactive tunnels of the nuked city as sickly dying mutants reach out for them from their shelves inset into the walls.
- Ceasar's trick that wins the battle and saves the ape city.
- The brutal murder of Ceasar's son by the gorilla general Aldo.
- Ceasar's confrontation with Aldo at the end in front of the whole ape and human community where the apes are all chanting "Ape has killed ape!" in shocked recognition that they have lost their innocence and are perhaps no better than the humans have shown themselves to be.
- the statue of the Lawgiver crying at the end - the indication that nothing has really changed and all these efforts to change the future have been futile.
4. Dawn of the Dead: Here is a really apocalyptic movie. Everyone on earth except a handful of opportunistic and amoral surivors has died, and the dead have arisen as flesh-eating zombies. Aside from scenes of zombies ganging up on a person and ripping them limb from limb and pulling their intestines out to feast on them, the really scary thing about these movies is how utterly pathetic the zombies were. They were just regular people moping and stumbling around slowly trying to make an attempt to mindlessly repeat the meaningless patterns of their daily lives - like wandering around a shopping mall for instance. The scary thing wasn't just that they would eat you - but that they would only get a bite or two out of you and then slowly you would be consumed by a fever, die, and then be reanimated to become another decaying drone unable to do anything but crave flesh and repeat endless and meaningless patterns until all the flesh finally dropped of your own bones. Dawn of the Dead was not so much a horror movie in the conventional sense that there is a monster that threatens the protaganists. Rather it is more like a Dante-esque vision of hell and the survivors are simply staving off the inevitable for a few days at a time.
This movie also influenced the way we played the Morrow Project, in that it is about a world that has ended and the survivors are simply scrounging a life among the ruins left behind until they run out of food, ammunition, and luck and the long night closes in. The Morrow Project even had zombies in it - dead bodies animated by radioactivity who glowed blue in the darm. A few months ago I came across a description of the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima and read, to my disgust and horror, that many of those who were still walking around afterwards were so badly burned all over their bodies that they really should have been dead instantly. These burned living-dead made it to some body of water and then died as they entered into it. There are things in real life, apparently, just as grotesque, horrible, hellish, and pathetic as in the movies or role playing games.
5. Burnt Offerings: This is a horror movie from 1976. I think I first saw it on t.v. sometime after that. Most horror movies do not frighten me, in fact many of them I just find comical or amusing. As my wife points out (and I tend to agree with her) Americans just do not know how to make a truly creepy or scary horror movie. The Japanese are past masters at coming up with creepy ghost stories and disturbing images (at least as far back as the Edo period if not long before). But this movie I did and still find very disturbing - probably because it is so minimalistic and suggestive.
What happens is that a family consisting of a mother, father, young son, and elderly aunt, rent a house for the summer. The only thing is that the mother of the owners lives in the attic and they must leave food outside her door for her, even though they will never see or talk to her. As the movie proceeds horrible accidents claim the lives of the aunt and then almost kill the son. The mother becomes more and more obsessed with caring for the old woman in the attic. The father starts sensing a horrible presence coming towards him (portrayed as a pale grinning man driving a hearse that only he can see) that causes him to have nervous breakdowns. Whatever is happening is not physical, it is a metaphysical malevolence that manifests itself in and through the house itself (no one ever sees or speaks to the old woman in the attic). The ending is as grim as one might expect, and it is revealed that what happens to that family is just part of a larger self-perpetuating cycle that presumably will never end.
I'll stop there with these five.
Hi everyone,
Sorry if my last post struck some as condescending.
I wrote several pages in reply and have just deleted it. I can't figure out what I can or should write publicly. Really it is vulgar and grotesque to think out loud in a public forum - even a blog.
I've just been reading Hentry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn which is basically one stream-of-consiousness rant after another. It is extremely vulgar and ugly, but it is also art because it presents life as he felt it directly, viscerally, and without any holding back, covering up, or prettifying it. In fact, I think he did his best to make himself out to be the worst villain of all while at the same time beatifying himself as one of the few awakened persons in a world of sleepers. But even this he seems to mock. And Henry could do that because he wasn't a priest, or a therapist (though he did pretend to be one for a while) or even an artist. In Tropic of Cancer he specifically repudiated art. No, the Tropics (both Cancer and Capricorn) were just his direct expression of life as he lived it and experienced it in all its tawdry and bestial ugliness, but also in its sublime beauty as well. He dared to do that - and it was and has been judged obscene and disgusting and vulgar.
So I have learned over the years to hide more and more of myself from the forums and the newsgroups and even here. I do not want anyone to feel that I am putting them down or trying to be offputting. Really. I am not being sarcastic or ironic here. I don't see the point of making other people feel bad - esp. my friends like Bill or fellow Shu members like Patty. I am not Henry Miller or Brad Warner, I don't believe in just expressing oneself in such a callous way even though I occasionally slip and do so.
So again I am sorry it came off that way.
In a funk I turned my question on others - questioning their sincerity.
It is really myself I need to question. If people find that what I am doing is a waste of time, then am I not perhaps wasting my time? Am I not fixated and obsesses with things, practices, teachings, methods, and exotic trappings and paraphenalia that are so beside the point of really living life and making common cause with others (as in a liberal mainstream place of worship where I could join hands with many others without having to buy into anything that threatened my own personal integrity but conversely was involved in worthy causes that I myself espouse)? Or instead of beating my head against a wall spending time and energy (and sometimes money) trying to propagate and share something that is really just my own personal pecadillo I should just go find more enjoyable (if not necessarily productive) recreations - one's I could even share with others (I know for a fact it would be easier to find fellow table-top gamers than Nichiren Buddhists in San Francisco because there is a bulleti board down at the local game store and I have friends who actually game in-person with other gamers here in the Bay Area).
Well, now I am thinking out loud - skirting the edge of Henry Miller's ugliness - but I am too responsible, chicken livered, and tender hearted to really go there. But I guess I will say this:
Here is what I need to do: If Buddhism is really meaningful then it should be meaningful to me even if I am the only one doing it. I should be content with my own private reading, contemplations, occasional articles and responses, and daily practices. I should not feel discouraged about being the only one (and in fact, I do have a temple to go to every Sunday unlike many people, and I am able to go over to NBIC and engage in translation work which I feel really good about). Faithful Fools, even when I am the only one there, is just the kind of place that I hoped to be able to be involved with when I was in grad school, and to be able to take time out and practice there the things I have been taught is a privildge and a blessing in and of itself. If these things aren't good enough for me without having to have a whole mega-temple or community center to help me feel good about it and keep me doing it - then I am just fooling myself. I am perhaps just olding on to it all out of nostalgia, habit, spiritual inertia, wishful thinking. So I really need to reflect on that.
I don't need to feel grouch towards others because they don't share my niche interest or my exact degree of dedication to a medieval East Asian form of Buddhism.
And perhaps I should be more attentive to what others find meaningful and helpful. Perhaps I have wasted time on trying to promote the unpromotable and should just wander a bit seeing what is actually panning out for people out there no matter what the source or pedigree.
And perhaps I should find my own way of finding meaning and joy and comradeship outside the narrow confines of medieval East Asian spirituality. This gaming thing has really made me feel more alive, more creative, and (even though its all been through emails) has even made me feel more connected to others in a social way.
Oh and for those of you nodding your heads and saying see what comes of it when someone doesn't follow xyz - I must say that I have followed the path of narrow sectarianism and group thinking before. Been there - done that - moved on. Thanks but no thanks.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
Hi everyone,
I just got back from a weekend in Chicago with family - yes, it was very nice and relaxing and I got to see a good friend (fellow Nichiren Buddhist who has been trying to practice by himself for some years now) while I was out there and his extended family. So it was a great trip.
Oh, and no, I am not retiring my "Ryuei" persona. "Ryuei" isn't just a mask I put on or a hat that I can take on or off (though I confess I myself think that way sometimes - rightly or wrongly). "Ryuei" is more than just a pen name or user name or name to use just for Dharmic business. Ryuei is part of who I am, but it is not all of who I am though it is a part of all the other parts, and all the other parts are part of Ryuei. It's kind of like the ten worlds I guess. However, the problem lately has been that people have seen "Ryuei" in a very reductionist way - just a mouthpiece for Nichiren Shu. Now "Ryuei" is bigger than that - but the totality of Ryuei Michael McCormick is much much bigger than that. So my last post was trying to express a need for a bit more balance and a fuller representation of what I'm about (not that that is so important - but this is my blog after all).
So what am I worried about?
I am worried about the fact that lately I am getting more and more emails from SGI people or former SGI people. A few years ago this would have made me very happy. Now it just worries me. It worries me because people have been telling me that this was going to happen - that lots and lots of people will soon be contacting us (meaning us Nichiren Shu ministers) looking for an alternative to SGI. I didn't believe them - I still kind of doubt it. And yet, more and more people are emailing me looking for something else.
Now if they were in the San Francisco Bay Area I would just say come around to Faithful Fools on Sunday or to the San Jose Temple. If they are in areas where there is a temple I just send them here: Temples in North America. But many of these people are in places where there are no temples, or where the temples are not really able to accomdate what these people are looking for.
Maybe "worry" is not the right word, but it does concern me that I can't really do anything for anyone if they're not in my immeditate area. I can and do try to help people through my six month study program so they can receive the Omandala from me and become members of Nichiren Shu - but that is still very difficult when I can't be face-to-face with the person who is supposed to be studying and practicing with me. I'm happy to do it - but it takes a lot of patience and perhaps better organization skills than I have at the moment (that's something for me to work on and chant about of course).
The only thing I can do for most people is invite them to join the Nichiren Shu Yahoo group for online discussion or to go to www.nichiren-shu.org and look around there and see where the temples are.
Another thing is this - I have found over the years that most of the people who leave SGI are leaving because they had a bad experience. So they need to detox and they need to, in a sense, recover from that bad relationship before being in a place where they can seriously commit to something new. And make no mistake about it - Nichiren Shu would be a new form of Buddhism to you. We may chant Hoben-pon an Jigage-ge and the Odaimoku, but its very different in tone, pacing, attitude and everything. It's very much a part of the traditional East Asian Mahayana way of doing Buddhism. And though the handful of American ordained ministers are Americanizing it (or at least North Americanizing it), it is still along the lines of integral East Asian Mahayana. This is really something many of you have never been exposed to. And there is none of the pep rally/self-help/inspirational/The Secret/follow the leader kind of things that you may have come to associate with Nichiren Buddhism - not at all. So the transition would be very disconcercting I think.
Don't mistake me though - I am not saying that people should not email me or that I don't want people to be interested in Nichiren Shu. I do want to help when I can and I do want people to check out Nichiren Shu. I am just sorry that I don't have what people are looking for. I think they are hoping that I will respond with:
"Oh sure, we have a Nichiren Shu practice center just down the street from you there in Hoboken. Just show up anytime you like and chant with the hundreds of people who are usually there in the vast auditorium that we have set up there for 24 hour chanting. And no you don't have to join or contribute or do anything at all since we already have more people and money than we can possibly manage so all you have to do is show up chant whenever you feel like it for whatever you need at the moment and then leave. And we'll take care of all the rest. Oh, and if you sign your name on the register and attend a special free Saturday workshop held there every month we'll make you a minister as well and then you can start your own Sangha and be in charge and create your own version of SGI where you get to be sensei."
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. The reality is that there are only a few temples, and they require money and people to operate and maintain (and some of them are just not set up to accomdate the needs and inclinations of convert Buddhists), and there are not enough American ministers yet to set up Sanghas all over the country, and becoming a minister requires years of study, practice, and training. Establishing the Dharma is something that requires deep faith, determination, dedication, discipline, money (yes money!), time, effort, and a lot of initiative. That's a tall order - and I honestly don't think that for the average North American the Dharma provides enough immediate payback to make it worth the trouble.
Buddha Dharma is about something more (as Nichiren said) inconspicuous. It is about planting the seed of selfless compassionate wisdom. Put another way: it is about facilitating the slow and painful growth to maturity, the kind of maturity that makes life wholesome and joyful and worth living.
There is no such thing as McEnlightenment - and when that is not forthcoming I think people get very very very very very very very very (to the umpteenth degree) disappointed and disillusioned. Especially since becoming a Buddhist in this culture (even a respectable Zen type Buddhist) means (at least partly) entering an alien culture and being alienated from all the other things you can be doing with your time, money, and energy (like attending a MegaChurch with a big community of happy content people who are given prosperity by Jesus or attending naked co-ed Yoga or doing whatever it is that everyone else is doing - like staying home and raqcking up the bragging rights of having made 1000s of friends on myspace without the troubles and travails of ever having to actually meet those people).
The fact is that I can't provide what people are asking for, or at least my worry is that I can't provide what I think they want. I think they want a new SGI with everything they like about SGI but without all the things they don't like. They feel they have an apple with a worm in it and they hope I can hand them a shiny new fresh apple. But what I actually have is an orange.
The thing is - I happen to really love the orange I do have and I am sorry that there is not enough to go around. If they want oranges to they will have to grown them on their own. We can provide seeds, but in most places those who want oranges will have to do some planting and cultivating from scratch. Sorry, that's how it is.
Now, what I mean by this is - from the very beginning (when I was in high school and long before I encountered any form of Nichiren Buddhism) I was attacted to and found great meaning in the East Asian Mahayana worldview and philosophy (as presented in Zen). Then I found Nichiren Buddhism to be a more accessible, dynamic, and straightforward presentation of that material - and with a practice I could engage in on a consistent daily basis. Then I found Nichiren Shu which struck me and has since proven itself to me to be a complete and legitimate form of Nichiren Buddhism. I want to share what I have found with others - but others aren't interested in this. I accept that now, but it doesn't make what I have any less meaningful or helpful to me. Now if someone really did want to share the Nichiren Shu way, they will have to do what I did - really make an effort and practice by themselves for years, and perhaps move to where there is Nichiren Shu or at least make occasional visits to attend retreats/workshops.
Other than that - all I can do for anyone is answer specific questions and refer you to the nearest temple/Sangha and if its not your cup of green tea (I prefer Lapsang Souchong myself) then there isn't much more I can do for anyone unless they are in the Bay Area.
If anyone is in the Bay Area and can visit me at Faithful Fools at 230 Hyde Street in San Francisco on Sundays from 3-5 pm, then they'll see how I personally have assimilated and integrated what I have been taught and how I present it to fellow North Americans.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
Hi everyone,
I haven't really had anything to say here in a while. I usually reserve this board for my more general observations on life or more generalized Buddhist pontificating. So on the various Buddhist yahoo groups I belong to I usually only write to respond to questions. Sometimes on the Nichiren Shu yahoo group I have posted commentaries on gosho or Lotus Sutra passages but I haven't done any in a while. In general I have felt kind of tapped in regard to writing about Buddhism.
Some years ago I was really gung-ho about sharing the fruits of my research and ideas about Buddhism online. I really thought it could make a difference - I don't know why I thought that actually. I guess I was just intoxicated with the idea of communicating with other people. Other Buddhists (Nichiren, Zen, and others) were not so impressed by online communication. In fact, they felt that it was worse than useless. It was a time waster, it took away from time better utilized building a face-to-face Sangha, it was nothing but pissing contests, and so forth and so on. But I really felt that it could be a key to getting the message out and making friends one would otherwise meet, and planting the seeds of community.
Well, now I am more inclinded to agree with the naysayers. At least that is how I feel. It is how I have felt since late last year.
But is this really fair of me? I wouldn't even be writing here if nothing had come of my online activities in the years previous - and I have made many good offline friends through my articles here and my involvements in other groups. I am very grateful for those friends as well.
So why the dejection about writing about Buddhism online? It can't be because it has not translated into good offline friendships and opportunities because it has.
I guess, the dejection comes from no longer wanting to just speak into a void. All too often I write something and get no response, or a response from those who only see what I write as a sectarian challenge they must overcome. And I find that what I want is a creative interaction with those I would consider peers. Without that interaction all this writing is just solipstic conceptual chewing of the cud. And no, I am not looking for syncophantic agreement like in some kind of psuedo-dialogue with a set of cronies. Rather a real back-and-forth such as I used to have with my friend Taigen, or that I have when I get a chance to talk to some of the other Nichiren Shu ministers (both American and Japanese). Or on those rare occasions when I am able to practice face-to-face with other Buddhists (well not that rare - once or twice a week at least for a couple hours each time - but I'm spoiled).
So this is why I no longer feel like writing much about Buddhism online. It just feels too much now like conceptually spitting into the wind.
On the other hand, I have rediscovered the joys of online gaming - or play-by-post role playing games. This is basically where instead of sitting around a table to play a game like Dungeons & Dragons (or Traveller or Call of Cthulhu or whatever poison is your pick) you interact via emails.
This has really been revitalizing to me. I can't even tell you how much. I am running a D&D game now (actually using Pathfinder Beta rules) that is very interactive and is really an exercise in collaborative world building and story telling. And we are pouring so much into it - movie references, literary allusions, songs, music, even youtube clips. Amidsts the drama and action of the game my fellow middle-aged role players (all men btw - there are no girls, grrls, women, or even womyn in our club - and the club is full! So don't ask. Maybe next campaign) are really exploring all kinds of fun issues - the tension between Good and Evil, Law and Chaos, diplomatic and military solutions to problems, the relationship between gods (aka divine and inferanal influences) and men, and many other things. Plus some action adventure and lots of intrigue. It may be a fantasy world setting - but the story that is emerging feels a lot like hanging out with my friends and reflecting (though the lens of the story) or ideas and reactions to things - or at least how we think a particular type of person would see and act in relation to certain things.
This is what I was missing from online interactions about Buddhism. It was either too dry and stuffy, or too contentious, and it never felt like hanging out with friends being funny and creative.
Also, I think that I have long needed to develop that other side of myself - not the pedantic Buddhist scholar/practitioner, but the English major, the storyteller, the smartass punk (which, not being Brad Warner, I can't get away with in the Buddhist sphere), the lover of all things Joss Whedon, the lover of pulp fantasy, horror, and sci-fi from the 20s up to about the 80s, the lover of grotesque horror movies, and so forth and so on. All of these things are things that are fun, but nowhere near as much fun as when they are shared interest and when the sharing can come out in a shared social endeavor.
I guess the bottomline is that I am tired of being the Buddhist hermit and online stuffy scholar, and it feels really good to be Michael McCormick again (not that its' so bad being Ryuei, but Ryuei is just one part of me - though a part that pervades the whole even in gaming as I'm sure my fellow gamers would attest).
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
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