Customer Reviews

Destroyer of Illusion

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Anyone familiar with Buddhism only along the lines of breath awareness meditation and the Pali cannon may find the shamanistic trappings of Tibet confounding, to say the least. However, a deeper investigation shows that the profound philosophy using these forms fully endorses Buddha's views. Visualization, mantra and ritual dance are practiced in the same way as breath awareness - a support to establish calm abiding and eventual insight into the nature of mind itself.

Richard Kohn has captured some of these practices quite eloquently, led by the highly respected master Trulshik Rinpoche. Here spirits, demons and gods are given no ultimate solid reality - nor, for that matter, are humans. Instead, a vast environment or atmosphere is created using music, dance and image to potentially cut through ordinary perception and witness the awareness Buddha spoke of. Kohn successfully shows how art and celebration can join with meditation to bring this about.

I wait a lot to get this DVD. The contents about the rituals in very interesting but the DVD itself needs to be re-edited to work well. I strong recommend it. I gave five stars because the contents, even though it is short.

This is such a beautiful film. I have been to Thupten Choling and to Mani Rimdu at Chiwong Gompa, and have had the privilege of audiences with Trulshig Rinpoche as well as attending his teachings here in New York. He is a great Being and I regard this film as one of my treasures. I first saw it when it came out in 1991, and watch it now when I am homesick for Solu Khumbu--it remains as fresh as the first time I saw it. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in Tibetan Buddhism or Sherpa culture. Anyone planning a trek in Solu Khumbu would benefit greatly from seeing it.

The Tibetan Festival celebrates the philosophy from Plato's era in that Plato said in the Timaeus that the "World was made from Fire, Air, Earth and Water" and so, here, we see the Tibetans saying the same thing! Amazing!

I would recommend this documentary for those who wish to understand what is behind a Buddhist ritual. Watching these rituals might make neophytes think that all this is only based on old customs, blind superstition or symbolic representation, but here everything is explained so we understand that it all takes place in another dimension that is not visible to our eyes. Really edifying.

Shows well how the Tibetans over time have reduced the pragmatic insight of the Buddha's teachings into a mystical religion full of superstition and magic - the very things that the Buddha denied in practice.

For those interested in seeing The Middle Way transformed into a way of superstition, magic, rituals, and metaphysical babbling.

The theocratic religion of Tibet has a certain prominence in the Western world due no doubt to the number of movie stars practicing it and movies made about it.