“Little Buddha” is an unusual movie about a Tibetan Buddhist monk who travels the world in search of his teacher’s reincarnation. As one might expect, the movie is full of Buddhist symbolism. The movie artfully portrays Siddhartha Gautama’s transformation into the Buddha and draws comparisons between Buddhist concepts and everyday items or concepts to make it easy for viewers to understand these Buddhist concepts. The movie made me think about a lot of concepts that I had previously never given any thought to outside of class, which I will discuss in this paper.
As soon as the movie begins we are treated to a story about a man who is about to sacrifice a goat, only to have the goat speak to him and rejoice that when he is killed he will be …show more content…
I never thought about it outside of class and it did not have any meaning for me. Seeing it visually represented on screen, however, put it into perspective for me. I now saw the sheltered, innocent prince’s shocked and horrified reaction as he witnessed for the first time the immense suffering that happens in this world. The fact that Siddhartha had to ask what suffering, sickness, and death were made me realize just how little Siddhartha knew of the outside world. Seeing him undergo the change from the happy yet unknowing prince to the compassionate religious figure was an awesome experience for me and it truly made me appreciate Siddhartha’s actions. I thought the movie did a great job in explaining the idea of reincarnation by comparing it to tea. The comparison excels in explaining what people believe reincarnation is in terms that anybody can understand. Although we have discussed reincarnation in class, I have never thought about the idea as tea which, despite its cup being broken, is still tea and can be put into another cup. I thought this was a great comparison and I feel that it was excellent in simplifying the belief for everyone to …show more content…
To paraphrase it: “if the string is too tight it will snap, and if the string is too loose it will not play.” Siddhartha compared this to learning when the ascetics found him bathing and eating rice, to which they felt betrayed as this was not in line with their lifestyle. Siddhartha is essentially saying that swearing off nearly all human actions is not a path to enlightenment and neither is not pursuing enlightenment at all; the best way is to find the perfect balance, and this comparison helped solidify my understanding of the main idea of the Buddha’s teachings. Lastly, I feel that the scene of the temptation of Siddhartha under the Bodhi tree accurately portrayed how difficult it was for Siddhartha to resist the temptations. As I said before I am not particularly adept at imagining things simply by reading about them, so I had never given much thought to his temptation. The depiction of the women, the army, and Mara himself impersonating Siddhartha did a good job of showing how resilient Siddhartha was. Watching “Little Buddha” was a good experience for me, an experience that I did not expect going into the movie. Not only was it entertaining, but it made me think about Buddhism in ways that were completely new to me. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and I would definitely recommend it to
As soon as the movie begins we are treated to a story about a man who is about to sacrifice a goat, only to have the goat speak to him and rejoice that when he is killed he will be …show more content…
I never thought about it outside of class and it did not have any meaning for me. Seeing it visually represented on screen, however, put it into perspective for me. I now saw the sheltered, innocent prince’s shocked and horrified reaction as he witnessed for the first time the immense suffering that happens in this world. The fact that Siddhartha had to ask what suffering, sickness, and death were made me realize just how little Siddhartha knew of the outside world. Seeing him undergo the change from the happy yet unknowing prince to the compassionate religious figure was an awesome experience for me and it truly made me appreciate Siddhartha’s actions. I thought the movie did a great job in explaining the idea of reincarnation by comparing it to tea. The comparison excels in explaining what people believe reincarnation is in terms that anybody can understand. Although we have discussed reincarnation in class, I have never thought about the idea as tea which, despite its cup being broken, is still tea and can be put into another cup. I thought this was a great comparison and I feel that it was excellent in simplifying the belief for everyone to …show more content…
To paraphrase it: “if the string is too tight it will snap, and if the string is too loose it will not play.” Siddhartha compared this to learning when the ascetics found him bathing and eating rice, to which they felt betrayed as this was not in line with their lifestyle. Siddhartha is essentially saying that swearing off nearly all human actions is not a path to enlightenment and neither is not pursuing enlightenment at all; the best way is to find the perfect balance, and this comparison helped solidify my understanding of the main idea of the Buddha’s teachings. Lastly, I feel that the scene of the temptation of Siddhartha under the Bodhi tree accurately portrayed how difficult it was for Siddhartha to resist the temptations. As I said before I am not particularly adept at imagining things simply by reading about them, so I had never given much thought to his temptation. The depiction of the women, the army, and Mara himself impersonating Siddhartha did a good job of showing how resilient Siddhartha was. Watching “Little Buddha” was a good experience for me, an experience that I did not expect going into the movie. Not only was it entertaining, but it made me think about Buddhism in ways that were completely new to me. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and I would definitely recommend it to