Buddhist films and discussion for the Tricycle community
It sounds like the perfect antidote to our hectic lives: less stress, better concentration, increased productivity. No wonder mindfulness meditation has become an attractive addition to the boardroom agenda for global giants like Google and SAP. Backed up by science, it seems an increasing amount of organisations are turning to mindfulness for answers.
A film that balances the precision of a Swiss watch with the messiness of a restless mind, Wide Awake is filmmaker Alan Berliner’s uniquely personal tour through his life-long obsession with insomnia. Using both metaphor and candid first-person observations to illuminate how an obsessive mind that won’t shut down at night leaves him feeling “jet-lagged in his own time zone,” Berliner eventually reveals how he has turned this obsessive energy into a source of fuel and inspiration for his creative work.
Separated from their family by politics and geography, two Tibetan brothers in exile use multi-track recording technology to make music with those they left behind in their home country. Finally joining voices once again, they sing a note of defiant resilience and unutterable joy.
A young couple cope with the death of their child. A truck driver saves money for a new prosthetic leg. An athlete seeks to escape her mundane life. These far-flung storylines ultimately come together in God Man Dog, a riveting Taiwanese drama about the unlikely grace that visits us even in moments of despair.
The Wisdom to Survive accepts the consensus of scientists that climate change has already arrived, and asks, what is keeping us from action? The film explores how unlimited growth and greed are destroying the life support system of the planet, the social fabric of the society, and the lives of billions of people.
A stunning Mongolian movie about the blurry line between what’s real and what’s imagined. After fleeing a broken home, a young man named Tsog becomes obsessed with a young woman named Anu. When he steals a TV remote control from Anu’s home, Tsog tests the boundaries of his newfound power to change her television’s channel and in the process, discovers what lives within and without his mind.
Having chosen to study abroad and leave his traditional Chinese upbringing behind, a son must travel back home and reunite with his mother when a fire burns down his childhood home. Suddenly brought back together, the two draw upon Buddhist teachings to come to terms with their conflicted emotions and ultimately, reconcile with each other.
Two brothers orphaned by war and driven apart by divergent interests struggle to reconcile their differences until they’re brought together at a Zen Center in Buenos Aires. What happens next in this feature film, directed by Argentine Zen teacher Diego Rafecas, will eliminate any remaining separation you think lies between what constitutes dharma and what constitutes life.
“When no one listens, no one tells, and when no one tells, no one learns.” So goes a Tibetan proverb—unfortunately, a prophetic one—that serves as a chilling backdrop to this documentary about the the decline of young Tibetans learning the region’s language and an inspiring group of university students seeking not only to halt the trend, but to reverse it.
Monasteries burned, families relocated, paintings destroyed—such devastation marked the Communist incursion into Mongolia during the early 20th century. It wasn’t until 1990, after the Soviet Union fell, that the Buddhist communities of Mongolia slowly began to recuperate. In this captivating documentary, we travel to Mongolia to meet students training in the ancient art of ceremonial painting and their teacher, Lama Purevbat, who sees the practice as one small part of his nation’s effort to rectify the violence of its recent past.
Don’t worry about whether your practice is working, don’t judge your performance, don’t tell yourself stories or find other ways to avoid this very moment. These are just ways of separating from our deepest intention and our zazen. When you do zazen, just do zazen. That’s enough.
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