My review of the movie from a few years ago ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hello from the Balcony ...
I was finally able to see the movie ... and (though Master Dogen advises during the film that we best drop all thought of "
good" and "
bad") ... the movie was
GOOD!! (especially for a religiously themed bio flick. Of course, it helps to already be a Big Dogen Zenji fan!)
It really has some scenes that, for me, were worth the price of admission. For example, it had the famous lines in which Dogen is asked, after he returns to Japan, what insight he gained in China (and had his "enlightenment" and such) ... he said, "
I have come back empty-handed. I have realized only that the eyes are horizontal and the nose is vertical."
It also has a few wonderful scenes in which Dogen, after his so-called "Enlightenment",sheds tears when encountering sadness, like the death of a small child. That's actually a big deal scene, because a lot of Buddhists might think that someone so-called "fully enlightened" should not be crying and feeling tragedy, and would be beyond all such emotions (that is a most common belief in many schools of Buddhism). In fact, Dogen taught that the human heart is right at the heart of the matter!
Okay, there were a couple of cheezy scenes that I put down to the filmmaker's imagination, like the psychodelic animation used to show his moment of "Satori" ... he flies into the sky on an anime pink lotus flower. Hmmm.
But, that was compensated for by the rest of the film, which brought Dogen back down to earth. He spends most of the film teaching such things as "
Things Just As They Are (ari-ga-mama)" and "
Zazen is not about Satori, Zazen is just to sit!" ... Sound familiar??? :wink:
I give it Five Buddhas!
Gassho, Jundo
STLah
(sorry to run long)