NOT
MANY FILMMAKERS HAVE BEEN INVITED BY THE DALAI LAMA TO FILM A BUDDHIST RITE.
?
Which
is one reason why I made Wheel of Time, though I could never claim to be very
connected to Buddhist culture. At the time my understanding of the religion was
rudimentary. A group of Buddhists in Graz, Austria, were planning to hold the
Kalachakra initiation ceremony there. Every few years the Dalai Lama settles on
one place where he invites the Buddhist world to celebrate this event with him.
I was initially hesitant because I can't stand crowds of Western Buddhists
crammed together in one place; there's something about seeing them in
multitudes that looks wrong to me. Besides, I had no desire to be a cultural
tourist, slipping into a religion I knew little about. Then I watched an
amateur video from an earlier Kalachakraceremony ?Ladakh, in the Himalayas, and was impressed. The
plan was also to hold the ceremony in Bodhgaya, a small village in India, where
- after years of wandering as an itinerant - the historical Buddha had
experienced his enlightenment under a tree.
?
I
was still undecided about the project, but the Dalai Lama sent an envoy who
asked me to reconsider and make the film, starting in Bodhgaya. Apparently he's
a big fan of cinema, especially vampire films, and enjoyed Nosferatu. It isn't
easy to say no when the Dalai Lama summons you; the man is charismatic,
warm-hearted and deeply philosophical, with an astoundingly clear worldview, able
to articulate complex ideas, and one of the best laughers I have ever met. I
decided to move forward with the project and read as much as I could about
Buddhism, though made the film very much as an outsider, keeping to my own
culture, an approach to the subject that I feel comes through in the film. The
Dalai Lama has spoken of the importance of studying religions other than our
own, but at the same time staying within our own faith. Explore Buddhism, but don't
leave your own religion behind.
?
In
Bodhgaya we were confronted by the vast makeshift tent-city constructed on the
outskirts of town to cater for the half a million pilgrims expected for the
Kalachakra event, an eagerly awaited ceremony for the faithful. Some people
arrived hanging on to battered, overflowing trucks, some by train from Delhi,
others travelled thousands of miles on foot. One had even come nearly two thousand
miles, prostrating himself at each step by lowering his body, arms
outstretched, touching the ground with his forehead then standing up and moving
to where his head was. The journey had taken him three and a half years.
Although he had protected them with wooden clogs, the bones in his hands had
grown nodules, and there was a permanent wound on his forehead that came from
touching the ground a couple of million times. Yet this man radiated the
placidity of a statue. It's the kind of devotion that one can't help but be
respectful of, regardless of what religion otherwise ¨C or otherwise is being
honoured.
?
?
Werner
Herzog? "Werner Herzog A Guide For
The Perplexed" (2015)
