Buddhist films and discussion for the Tricycle community
The daily life of the Dalai Lama is brought home with remarkable intimacy in Sunrise/Sunset, the new movie at our film club this month. Providing total access to His Holiness’ daily activities, the filmmakers follow a day in the life of the Dalai Lama from when he wakes up at 3 AM until his bedtime at dusk.
The Great Liberation follows an old lama and his novice monk as they guide a Himalayan villager into the afterlife using readings from The Tibetan Book of the Dead. The soul’s 49-day journey towards rebirth is envisioned through actual photography of rarely-seen Buddhist rituals, interwoven with groundbreaking animation by internationally acclaimed filmmaker Ishu Patel.
Death is real, and it comes without warning. An ancient source of strength and guidance originating in the spiritual cultures of the Himalayas, The Tibetan Book of the Dead remains an essential teaching for reminding us of this fact and aiding us in dealing with it.
Brilliant Moon chronicles the life of the poet, writer, and meditation master Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, one of Tibet’s most loved and respected 20th-century Buddhist teachers.
Meditate and Destroy focuses on Noah Levine, the founding teacher of the Dharma Punx movement and bestselling author of Dharma Punx and Against the Stream. Tattoos, motorcycles and the Buddha are all featured in this take on the convergence of Buddhism and punk culture.
When Harvard expelled faculty members Richard Alpert and Timothy Leary in 1963 for LSD experimentation, Alpert, the son of a wealthy Boston lawyer, traveled to India, met his guru the Maharaji Neem Karoli Baba, affectionately know as Maharaji, and returned to the United States as Ram Dass, or “Servant of God.”
Philip Gröning’s Into Great Silence is an elegant look into life at La Grande Chartreuse, a Roman Catholic monastery in the French Alps home to the monks and nuns of the Carthusian Order.
The marathon monks of Mount Hiei are some of the best runners in the world. These monks are known for their physical endurance in running, a form of extreme asceticism called Kaihogyo that lasts seven years. After the fifth year, the monks begin a nine day confinement without any food, water, rest, or sleep. Then they start running again. During the final year of Kaihogyo the monks run 84 km per day for 100 days straight.
Donaldson Correctional Facility is a maximum-security penitentiary which lies to the south of Birmingham, Alabama. In 2002, the psychologist at Donaldson, Dr. Ron Cavanaugh, decides to make a bold and groundbreaking move to introduce Vipassana practice into the deep South.
A universal experience whether or not we can admit it, death is the sole counterpart to life. From the moment we take our first breath, death is our only guaranteed experience. This is something Stephen Jenkinson not only understands but something he loves. And he wants you to feel the same way. Griefwalker, a feature length documentary by Tim Wilson, sets its lens on Jenkinson in an unforgettable exploration of death phobia as a culture.
Scottish filmmaker Amy Hardie built a career on making science documentaries, reflecting her staunchly rational mind. Then one evening she had a haunting dream of her horse dying, waking to discover that her beloved horse had passed away that same night.
Old Plum Mountain is director Ed Herzog’s up-close look at one of the oldest centers of lay Buddhist practice in the country.
In this provocative documentary, director Tao Ruspoli raises the question of whether we have forgotten what it means to be truly human in today’s technological age, and proceeds to answer this question by taking a journey around the world to meet a whole host of remarkable individuals, all standouts in the their fields.
