CrankyBuddhist   the learning never ends …

I did something that I haven’t done in over a year … I took some time off away from working on my web sites. Two whole days.

And what did I do with them?

I bought enough groceries to get me through the two days of the weekend and I pretty much stayed in bed, reading the last installment of Harry Potter. I was torn about reading it all at once. It is the last book. I contemplated stretching it over the entire five days of my current housesit and then decided to just hop on the Hogwarts train and spend the entire weekend in another world.

As I read I thought about why these books are so popular. I came to the conclusion that it’s not only the story, but the way it was written. In a way that makes me feel like I am right there, following the kids around or in their room, eavesdropping on them. Actually having their experiences.

One of the passages that made me chuckle, in the way I chuckle at dharma lessons, was when the kids were having a conversation with Luna’s dad. Hermione had asked him how he knew something was real and he replied:

Prove that it is not.

Imagine if we lived in a world where we could believe things until they were proven unreal, rather than the other way around?

We live in a world where things are not believable until they are proven. A world of science. I think our lives would be so much richer and fuller if, instead of saying ‘prove that it is real’, saying ‘prove that it is not’!

This film by Kyentse Norbu arrived on Saturday in the mail so I had the opportunity to see it for the first time this weekend. The film is as much about the landscape of Rinpoche’s home country of Bhutan as it is about the feelings of entrapment and the desire for escape.

As the film moved along, and the characters came into play, I found myself within each one of them, able to relate to their point of view. The need to leave. The desire to stay. The sense of being lost. The perspective that travel gives. The storyteller, philosopher, monk. In the end it all works out.

Mystical journeys of spiritual discovery are set against the spectacular, evocative landscape of the remote kingdom of Bhutan in Travellers & Magicians Young government official Dondup dreams of escaping to America while stuck in a ravishingly beautiful but isolated village. But when he misses his bus to the city, Dondup is forced to hitchhike with an elderly apple seller, a sage young monk, an old man, and his beautiful daughter. Along the way, the mischievous monk tells Dondup a story of another young man who sought a land far away: a tale of lust, jealousy and murder that holds up a mirror to the restless Dondup and his blossoming attraction to the innocent young woman. – from the Product Description

You can find Travellers & Magicians in our DharmaShop. Look under Dharma on Film/DVD. The Special Features on the DVD are an interesting background story and a view into Rinpoche’s making of the film.