wigowsky Reviews

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003)

The Diamond Sutra (or the Prajnaparamita Sutra)

[10/10 · 24 September 2006]

After watching the movie a second time, I was determined to find out what the Old Monk had drawn on the deck of the hermitage. The only clue I had was the scene's subtitle: "Prajnaparamita Sutra – it helps restore inner peace." Those were the words the Old Monk used to describe the sacred teachings that the Young Monk had to carve out as penance for his crime of passion. When I looked up the Prajnaparamita Sutra on the internet, I found out it was known as the Diamond Sutra of the Buddha.

The Buddha spoke the wise words in a monastery near Sravasti, saying that "this sutra should be called the Diamond that cuts through illusion because it has the capacity to cut through illusions and afflictions and bring us to the shore of liberation." There are 32 sutras or sections, and the 32 sections are also "marks" that are used to meditate on "the Tathagata" – which means "the suchness of all things (dharmas)." The meaning of Tathagata is "does not come from anywhere and does not go anywhere." The insight into the truth of the sutras consists in a realization that "the idea of a self is not an idea, and the ideas of a person, a living being, and a life span are not ideas either." A self-realized or awakened "Buddha" is called a Buddha because he/she is free of ideas.

The "Buddha" in the Diamond Sutra is also called the World-Honored One, and his message can be summarized by two axioms: (1) "Someone who looks for me in form or seeks me in sound is on a mistaken path and cannot see the Tathagata." (2) "All composed things are like a dream, a phantom, a drop of dew, a flash of lightning. That is how to meditate on them, that is how to observe them."

Now I will have to watch the movie a third time and meditate on the 32 marks that the Old Monk draws with the cat's tail on the floor of the ashram. I will also feel the urge to count and see if there are really 32 marks.

The Illusionist (2006)

Magical, mysterious, miraculous mosaic of the magician's art.

[10/10 · 24 September 2006]

I was absolutely amazed by the storyline and the dramatic presentation of the magician Eisenheim (Edward Norton). When the young magician initially tries to perform a "disappearing act" and fails, I was disappointed. However, when the magician goes "east" and studies the magical art and then returns to Vienna to perform "a convincing disappearing act" in public, I wondered who taught him and how he performed the act. The "disappearing act" throughout the history of magic has been associated with the esoteric knowledge of "dematerialization." The artistic renderings of the magician's art of "disappearance or dematerialization" in the movie reminded me of the story of the Greek philosopher Apollonius of Tyana (a neo-Pythagorian), who magically disappeared from the court of the Roman Emperor Domitian in the first century C.E. In the case of Apollonius, in contrast to the illusionist Eisenheim, the disappearance was not an illusion. Unless we accept the idea that all matter is illusory, and the transformation of matter to energy is part of that "illusion."