Yoda: Jedi Master or Buddhist Ajahn?“Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”
The above are words of the character Master Yoda from the Star Wars series of movies. In Thai, he is known as Ajahn Yoda, just as the great forest monks are known as Ajahn Chah or Ajahn Sumedho, etc. (Ajahn means teacher or master.) The Star Wars movies have been my favourite films since I was a ten year old boy enthralled by Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in a cinema in
“A Jedi’s strength flows from the Force. But beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight.”
Now, I’m no “Jedi”, nor do I believe in a kind of “Force” that seems to parallel some kind of supernatural power, albeit an impersonal one. Yet, as a Buddhist, I find wisdom in the words of Ajahn Yoda. He speaks of fear, anger, hate, aggression, and how they create suffering in our minds. Suffering is, of course, the crux of the matter for Buddhists. He also speaks of desire and craving, advising his apprentice Luke Skywalker that a Jedi does not crave power or excitement. Of Skywalker, he commented:
“This one a long time I have watched. All his life has he looked away…to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing.”
This has yet more parallels with Buddhism, as it encourages us to live in the present moment with mindfulness. Ajahn Yoda trains the young Skywalker to focus his mind on the here and now, enabling him to grow in wisdom. But, before this wisdom can take root, the Jedi Master instructs Luke Skywalker:
“You must unlearn what you have learned.”
How true is this? If our minds are so clouded with ideas and opinions, how will we ever be able to see the Dhamma, the way things are? Ajahn Yoda once told his apprentice:
“Nothing more will I teach you today. Clear your mind of questions.”
To let go of distracting thoughts and focus the mind on one’s meditation object is the heart of Buddhist meditation, and the Lord Buddha discouraged his followers from asking endless questions. Regarding meditation, and the conditioned nature of the mind, the following exchange takes place before Luke ventures into a mysterious cave to confront his own inner demons:
Luke Skywalker: “What’s in there?”
Ajahn Yoda: “Only what you take with you.”
There are two sides to the “Force” in Star Wars, the light side which a Jedi trains in, and the dark side that Darth Vader uses to crush his adversaries with an evil ruthlessness. Ajahn Yoda warns Luke of this “dark side”, saying:
“If once you start down the dark path, forever it will dominate your destiny.”
So a Jedi, just like a Buddhist, should avoid unwholesome actions, and only do what is beneficial to other living beings. (Of course, in the context of action movies, the Jedi Knights actually do a lot of fighting, disfiguring and killing many of their enemies. Worth noting however, is that at the end of the final film in the series, Star Wars Episode VI: the Return of the Jedi, Luke refuses to kill Darth Vader, tossing his weapon aside.) Perhaps this prevalence to use violence is because of what Ajahn Yoda says of the “dark side”:
“Hard to see the dark side is.”
All of us need to be mindful and alert if we are to avoid the “dark side” of human nature, and the way to see it clearly is to meditate, for when our minds are still, we can see things much more clearly:
Luke Skywalker: “But how am I to know the good side from the bad?”
Ajahn Yoda: You will know. When you are calm, at peace. Passive.”
Finally, in this brief tribute to the Buddhist qualities found in Ajahn Yoda’s wise words, it would be appropriate to finish with an instruction that can be applied to all our efforts to be one with the Dhamma (if not the “Force”!):
“Try not! Do, or do not. There is no try.”
6 comments:
The way you break it down I can see that there really is wisdom in things other then just Dhamma books, talks etc. There really is a little bit of darth vader in all of us at times. Ajahn Jayasaro gave a talk once where he mentioned that there is always a part of us that wants to abandon the practice and follow our desires. I don't know if he literally meant to abandon the practice in the ultimate sense, but without heedfulness and mindful reflection it's easy to go from being a principled Ajhan Yoda in one moment to a Darth Vader in the next. It is kind of interesting to see that Darth Vader was actually just a regular man who allowed his misuse of the force and his own greed, hatred and delusion to cause so much suffering for himself and others. At the end of the movie when his mask is removed I can see the humanity there, before he allowed his spirit to get corrupted through his own heedlessness. Behind the mask of ignorance and evil he was still a man, albeit a misguided one. As far as Star Wars goes, I still think the special effects are better done then any of the CGI stuff they do these days, but thats just another opinion now isn't it? Be well in your practice.
Thanks for the Jedi-like comments, Justin!
Actually, I thought that the CGI Yoda that appears in 'Revenge of the Sith' is amazing, especially in the close-up shots. (But that's just another opinion, as you pointed out quite rightly in reference to your own comment above).
I guess we're all Anakin Skywalker to some extent, although most of us don't go around lobbing people's heads off and desiring to be ruler of the galaxy! And yet, the human mind so often wills the world to be different to the way it is, desiring people & things to be in line with its preferences & prejudices. As Obi-Wan Kenobi instructs Anakin Skywalker, we must be mindful of our thoughts! To paraphrase the Dhammapada:
Heedlessness is the path to the dark side!
Be well,
G.
It does seem that important messages can sometimes be transmitted in pop culture. I'm so detached from it that I am not aware of the examples. The quotes here are good though. :) If more of this kind of message would be included, instead of the "eat it, *** it or kill it" messages of most American movies, I might be able to muster up some interest again.
Thanks for the Star Wars reference. I never saw any of the movies.
~Chani
Nice reminder, Gary! Thanks for the Buddhist movie review. It fits....
Thank you for the posting!
It reminds me of the recent installment of the Harry Potter series where Harry has to deal with his own "dark side". Carl Jung had written extensively on this subject as well - on our 'dual nature' within us if we may put it that way. Where do these 'dark energies' come from? Are they simply our minds at play from past habit energies? And if we do not realize or recognize our buddha-nature, we will continue to fight these 'dark forces' and thereby giving them more power than they really have. Perhaps if we but be aware of the presence of our dark energies, we can let them go and their energies will gradually cease - like torrent waters flowing eventually into peaceful streams...
Hi Chani.
There's plenty of examples of 'pop culture' Dhamma, both overt and somewhat hidden. I've written a couple of film reviews that I intend to post this month, which highlight how Dhamma can be seen in movies.
In fact, if we remember Luang Poo Chah's teaching that everything is Dhamma, then any movie we watch, or any experience that we have, is an opportunity to learn more about the way things are - even the types of movie that you allude to in your comment.
Hi Peter - thanks for the comment. Following on from the comment to Chani above, anything 'fits' when refleccted on in the light of Dharma. It's having the mindfulness to do this on a regular basis that's the challenge, isn't it?
Solitaire - good comments!
Yes, if the subconscious remains subconscious, then it hasn't been brought into awareness and cannot be known and understood (and let go of).
Seeing 'the dark side' for what it is, but not acting on it, is the way that the forest masters teach to let go of these negative conditions and the conditioning of further such states.
With metta,
G.
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