ing interesting to buy, but nothing was jumping out at me. I was surprised to find that they had only a couple of titles on the French Revolution, titles that I already own, and no biographies of Mirabeau, Robespierre, or Napoleon. Confounded I decided to check out their Buddhist section, and to my delight I found a book I had never seen before; Buddhist Goddesses of India. I flipped through the book and found the most unique tangkha I’ve ever seen:
Amazing, aye? It connects wonderfully to Jetsunma’s Chod and the ultimate sacrifice of offering one’s own life for the welfare of others. These two pictures are not the one in the book, that one is even more graphic and detailed, check it out next time you are in B&N. When we arrived at the theatre there was some confusion over who was talking before the movie and when the lecture would begin. As it turned out Neten Chokling was a bit under the weather and would therefore give a short talk before Sogyal Rinpoche’s lecture. Both talks were very interesting in that they addressed a need to utilize media as a way to reach more people, to spread the Dharma. Sogyal Rinpoche talked about how sincere and dedicated Milarepa was, how he was able to accomplish the Buddha-dharma in one life time through his tremendous hard work. Sogyal noted how westerners tend to want to only hear the feel good aspects of Buddhism and therefore ignore the gritty reality that is the struggle of the path. Milarepa was firm in his resolve and achieved so much through single pointed devotion that included getting his hands dirty and really working the path. Sogyal Rinpoche said that this movie was poignant in that it does not portray Buddhism as a fluffy feel good belief. It was powerful to hear Sogyal Rinpoche say such things because Jetsunma too has always emphasized that the path is a verb, that this is not about sitting on a rock and looking spiritual, and that the path is about truly changing oneself.
After their talks Tara and Atira presented the Rinpoches with Jetsunma’s albums; "Revolution of Compassion" and "Delog." They briefly mentioned the project and how we would like to connect with them and their activity.
The previews were amazing. 3 books written by authors I am a fan of are being adapted as films and are to be released soon, although two I list here were not part of the previews last night the McCarthy preview prompted me to recall the others . Harold Pinter’s "Sleuth", Cormac McCarthy’s "No Country for Old Men," and Ian McEwan’s "Atonement," one of my all time favorite books. I am excited to see them. And then there is this odd movie called "Terror’s Advocate," it looks very interesting, so I am going to have to check it out.
As for the actual movie, Milarepa, I have been pondering what I would say all last night and this morning. Honestly I did not enjoy the movie, I did not think it was well done and I was not impressed by much of it. I will not go into here though; I’d like to support the effort of bringing Milarepa to a larger audience, so I do not want to hinder that by a negative critique. However, I would like to say that I did like how realistic the movie was concerning ordinary Tibetans (or Buddhists) and their confusion as to what the Buddha-Dharma actually teaches. Everyone looked Buddhist in the movie, but there was perhaps only one actual practitioner through out the entire movie and he wasn’t Milarepa.
I’ve been listening to Radiohead’s new album “In Rainbows,” it is amazing. I am very much into the song “Nude” it’s got that Radiohead brilliance, that melancholy and haunting edge, with a wonderful arrangement and use of instrumentation. Radiohead is the band of this era, I’ve been saying this for years, and once again they prove them selves with another masterpiece. So if you haven’t heard it yet check it out!
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