[Buddha-l] nytimes review of pbs The Buddha

[Dan Lusthaus]

> For chrissake, Dan, it's a goddamn TELEVISION program! To expect that 
> medium to deliver anyone but fluffy mind-candy is to make a date with 
> dukkha.
> Richard

You are right. Watching the show was indeed duhkha. Not just because 
environmentalism, snatches of perennial philosophy, and a general 
(amateurish) 60s-ish sensibility reigned -- it's been awhile since I've 
winced that many times in such a short time span. The skeleton of the story 
is of course familiar. They distorted, twisted, and reinvented it (into 60s 
boilerplate) at every turn, proving once again that in the name of the 
sacred nothing is sacred.

That Buddha decides to eat because he wants to maintain his "bliss" and he 
can't keep the buzz unless he eats -- "that's his insight" -- is a theory 
full of roaches, concocted no doubt by someone overwhelmed by the munchies.

Or Buddha calling the earth to witness him against Mara as an environmental 
act...

Or all the other hagiographic and making-relevant spin...

A couple hours of that stuff is being locked in a conceptual hall of 
mirrors. If you tell a fairy tale to a very young child who has heard the 
story before (goldilocks, little red riding hood, etc.), if you alter one 
tiny detail or put things in a slightly different order, the child will have 
pity on your poor adult ignorance and instantly and forcefully *correct* 
you, informing you exactly how the story is *supposed* to go. Watching that 
show, I was that three or four year old child again, muttering: "No, that's 
not how it goes!... then the Buddha did this, not that..."

Of course, fairy tales are fiction, so there is no *historical* accuracy 
invovled -- only a question of adhering to what is accepted (by the child) 
as the canonical version. That is usually the FIRST way the story was heard.

In the case of Buddha's life, while we have a sense that there is some 
historical underpinning to the numerous traditional fairy tales woven around 
and into it, the details and demarcations are also conjectures, imagined 
differently by different Buddhists at different times in different places. 
Aren't these bozos on tv -- simply by virtue of being less camera shy than a 
Coyote -- just joining a grand tradition of making up crap to pretend their 
crap is the original crap and is thus more relevant today than it's ever 
been? Who are we three year olds who've earlier heard the story differently 
to correct those folks stuck in the 60s from pretending they are adults?

Mitigating against that generous relativism: Buddhism is indeed based on:

Thus have I heard...

Problem is, with such broadcasts, people will have "heard" that nonsense, 
and if it resonated they will trust that above what other Buddhists have 
been hearing for 2500 years, since that will be their "first" -- and you 
never forget your first.

Duhkha indeed. Maybe mappo too.

Dan