Buddhist films and discussion for the Tricycle community
Golden Kingdom is the first international feature shot in Burma since the Buddhist country reopened its doors to the outside world. The film tells the story of four orphaned boys—novice monks—who begin experiencing bizarre, otherworldly phenomena after the monastery’s head abbot departs on a long journey.
Paths of the Soul, A New York Times Critics’ Pick by internationally acclaimed filmmaker Zhang Yang, follows a group of Tibetans who make a 1,200-mile bowing pilgrimage, prostrating themselves every few steps along the road to Tibet’s holy capital.
For Dr. Grace Dammann, a revered Buddhist physician and AIDS specialist, a routine commute across the Golden Gate Bridge turned tragic when another driver crashed head on into her car. Winner of multiple audience awards, States of Grace captures the profound transformation of Grace and her family in the wake of this life-changing accident.
Daughters of Everest brings a unique flavor to the familiar story of the attempt to climb Mount Everest. In 2000, the first-ever expedition of Sherpa women to climb Everest was organized. This award-winning documentary follows five charismatic women who tackle the world’s highest peak and traditional confines of their gender roles.
Filmed over three years during the most historic and pivotal time in Nepal’s modern history, The Sari Soldiers is an extraordinary story of six women’s courageous efforts to shape Nepal’s future in the midst of an escalating civil war against Maoist insurgents, and the King’s crackdown on civil liberties.
Mindfulness and Murder (Sop-Mai-Ngeap) is an award-winning feature film based on a series of murder mystery novels by former Bangkok Post writer Nick Wilgus. When a homeless boy living at the youth shelter run by a Buddhist monastery turns up dead, the Abbot recruits Father Ananda, a former policeman, to investigate the case. He discovers all is not well at this urban monastery in the heart of Bangkok.
On a remote mountaintop of the Himalayas sits Jhamtse Gatsal (Tibetan for “The Garden of Love and Compassion”), a special school and home for 85 abandoned and neglected children.
An eco-conscious documentary in the spirit of An Inconvenient Truth, Manufactured Landscapes follows the world and work of the artist Edward Burtynsky. Burtynsky’s large-scale photographs of civilization’s materials and debris—quarries, factories, mines, dams—encourage thoughtful reflection on the ways we impact our planet.
Chaitanya Tamhane’s Court is an absurdist portrait of injustice, caste prejudice, and venal politics in contemporary India. An elderly folk singer and grassroots organizer dubbed the “people’s poet,” is arrested on a charge of inciting a sewage worker to commit suicide.
Over the last half-century, China has ascended to the position of economic royalty on the world stage. The country now has over 260 million migrant workers. Each spring, over 130 million people return home to their villages for the New Year’s holiday, the largest human migration in the world. Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Lixin Fan follows one couple who has trekked this journey for two decades, leaving behind their two infant children—now teens—for brutal factory jobs.
Mahendra Saini is a Delhi street peddler and zipper repairman in dire straits. His business has stalled and, in an economic pinch, he recruits his 12-year old son Siddharth to earn a second income. When Siddharth goes missing, a byzantine search through the streets, social services, and civic bureaucracy begins.
In Examined Life, filmmaker Astra Taylor accompanies some of today’s most influential thinkers on a series of unique excursions through places and spaces that hold particular resonance for them and their ideas. Offering privileged moments with great thinkers from fields ranging from moral philosophy to cultural theory, Examined Life reveals philosophy’s power to transform the way we see and imagine our place in the world around us.
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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