10 Questions for the Dalai Lama Documentary

Went to see “10 Questions for the Dalai Lama” at the Santa Fe Film Center on St. Michael’s Drive. It was formerly the Cinema Cafe where you could go for dinner and a movie. Its seating shows its history--instead of theater seats it has upholstered couches, more the size of love seats, and coffee tables. The couches against the side walls are black velveteen with square black coffee tables. Those in the middle where I sat are comfy--wide beige, green, and rust stripes and blond rectangular coffee tables--look like right out of someone’s living room! Slat back wooden chairs are the overflow seating in the back of the theater. The very back wall of the theater has bench seating running along it with more tables. It would be wise to arrive early enough to “score” a love seat if a crowd was expected as the wooden chairs and benches didn’t look comfortable.

I took notes while watching the film . This means that some of what I’ll write here is pretty much verbatim what was said in the film. So, if it sounds brilliant, it’s probably to the credit of Rick Ray, the filmmaker! : )

The Dalai Lama is said to be present and accessible to everyone he meets. Rich Ray was to make an India travel film for a production company and the Dalai Lama was to be interviewed but the production company never scheduled the interview. Rick was told by an assistant to mail the Dalai Lama to request an interview but Rick scoffed that he didn’t trust the Indian mail! The person qualified that he meant to email the Dalai Lama!! Apparently, the Dalai Lama has an email address which his monks monitor to answer his email. An interview was granted in which Rick Ray would have 45 minutes to ask 10 questions.

The Dalai Lama’s personal secretary was also interviewed and he warned Rick that if the Dalai Lama detects insincerity, no matter how important the person, the Dalai Lama politely puts his hands together, smiles with a little bow of his head, thanks the person, and the interview is over--period! Rick said it would be his biggest humiliation if the Dalai Lama would not talk to him but that did not happen!

Rick briefly tells the tale of how Siddhartha ’s (Buddha) life changed when he saw suffering. Up until then, Siddhartha had been protected from seeing the cruel reality of life by his father. While telling this story, Rick shows footage of the honest, unflinching faces of India--both beautiful and young and old and weathered. The scenery of India in the movie reminds me of mountainous areas in Colorado.

Rick explains the importance of the Dalai Lama to the Tibetan people by comparing it to as if Jesus was in the White House--he is both their temporal and spiritual leader. When he was about 2 years old, he was discovered to be the reincarnation of a previous Dalai Lama. I found it amusing to know that when the 4 or 5 year old Dalai Lama was carried in a sedan chair to Lhasa to live, he fought with his brother, his traveling companion, nearly the whole time and they almost tipped the sedan chair over with their rambunctiousness!

Rick travels to the Ladakh Range in the Nubra Valley to find a semblance to the rural life in Tibet before the Chinese took over in the 1950’s. He shows a mountain top that is encrusted with fluttering prayer flags. He has a breakfast of yak butter which he says tastes like sour buttermilk with a lot of salt added. He says that the only thing worse than the first cup of yak butter is the second cup of yak butter! He visits a local monastery and shows how hard the young monks have to work, beginning early in the morning with making a breakfast of soup, fried bread, and tea for the older monks. I was very amused when one of the young monks repeatedly winks at the camera!

One scene shows an unbelievably beautifully detailed mandala of colored sand being created in the monastery. Rick says that right after the mandala is created, it is destroyed by dumping the colored sand in a river. Rick says that this is to illustrate the temporal nature of all things.

The film has much old footage of when the Chinese came to Tibet to destroy the Tibetan culture and any person who opposed them. It seems so cruel. Chairman Mao once told the Dalai Lama that he considered religion to be poison. A train is shown with a picture of Chairman Mao’s huge visage plastered onto the front of the train. Perhaps Chairman Mao thought religion was poison because it would mean worshipping something other than his self!

The Dalai Lama has lived in Dharamsala for the last 40 years. Tibetan refugees still pour over the Himalayas to escape the Chinese regime. Rick shows scenes in a refugee barracks of an adult teaching children to recite the English alphabet.

There is the briefest section showing the Dalai Lama’s morning routine. He awakens at 4 am, begins with prostrations and meditation, then breakfast, listens to the BBC radio, and then meets with visitors. The Dalai Lama drinks his breakfast soup out of a bowl and munches on what looks like a dumpling or rice ball. He takes a bite and then smiles impishly and stuffs the rest in his mouth! The Dalai Lama believes that there are sentient beings living outside of the solar system. If, on any matter, science would disagree with faith, he would side with science. He loves to tinker and take things apart, like watches, and put them back together. Part of his day is visiting the Tibetan refugees and comforting them.

Throughout his interview of the Dalai Lama, which is interspersed by archival footage and stunning photography, Rick has an absolutely beatific smile on his face--he just glows. The Dalai Lama has a very deep voice but he often can make it an almost high pitched, silly voice when he is excited.

When Rick begins his interview, he comments to the Dalai Lama that he has always noticed in his travels that the poorest people are always the happiest and wonders why that is. The Dalai Lama says that the poor have little to worry about and if a person has a lot, they have a lot to lose and more to worry about. He says that greed always makes people want more and more.

The Dalai Lama says that there is endless patience in India and that people need self discipline to save themselves from self destruction.

The Dalai Lama talks of Chinese immigrants that are sent into Tibet, temples are torn down and how the whole valley of Lhasa has become densely populated. At the beginning of the film, Rick had mentioned that the land of Tibet historically had little natural resources and the people of Tibet had always felt safe that no one else would want their land. Now, Lhasa is like an amusement park tourist draw for the Chinese.

The Dalai Lama is very interested in preserving Tibetan culture but he does make the distinction that some of it is out dated and not worth preserving like the caste system and the rights of widows which prevent them from remarrying when their husbands die.

He believes in complete religious tolerance as much of religious belief, he says, has caused death and destruction rather than healing.
The Dalai Lama dislikes rituals and ceremonies that are held in his honor and sometimes seems to be preoccupied when some official is extolling his honors. Also, during a festival, if something strikes him as funny, he will instantly laugh. He laughs easily, even about his self. Once, at an official press conference, he was asked how he would persuade China to leave. He happened to be holding a small mallet and he shook it and said he would use that to make them leave, smiling very mischievously!! During official religious processions, if he see someone that he knows in the crowd, he steps out of the procession to greet them no matter how solemn the occasion.

Early on, the Dalai Lama refused to travel first class and to stay in fancy hotels. He traveled coach and said that followers could just as easily find him in coach as in first class.

In Lhasa, plainclothes policeman and remote cameras search for any sign of dissent. Absolutely no photo of the Dalai Lama can be displayed anywhere. The Dalai Lama counsels passive, peaceful resistance to China and believes in the power of truth and not guns to combat the Chinese. In 1989, the Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize for his stand against violence. He had been living on $10 a day before the prize money and with the prize money, he would be a rich man but he gave it all away to charity!

Some Internet giants have caved to pressure from the Chinese in order to keep doing business with China. Google, for instance, has censored searches on “Dalai Lama” in China so only negative stories come up.

In 1995, the Dalai Lama chose the Panchen Lama who will recognize the next reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. He was a very small boy but the Chinese immediately put him and his family under house arrest and he has not been seen or heard from since. Then, the Chinese appointed their own Panchen Lama.

Rick Ray shows scenes of an anti aircraft drill in Lhasa and the commander shouts in Chinese to “Find your target!” and Rick juxtaposes the frantic actions of the soldiers with Tibetans who are peacefully twirling prayer wheels.

One surprising answer is to the question of is violence ever to be used. The Dalai Lama answers yes, if it is to immediately protect oneself from some physical danger being perpetrated upon oneself by another. The Dalai Lama says, though, that the concept of war is old fashioned, out of date, because we are all interdependent on one another so we hurt ourselves when we hurt others.

The Dalai Lama concludes that he would like to live in a remote area and spend all his time concentrating on spiritual practice.

There were only a handful of people at the theater but I believe the film has been playing for some weeks already. The original sound score by Peter Kater was very beautiful and so was the photography of the countryside in northern India.

Here’s a blurb about the film copied off of the Santa Fe Film Center’s website:

10 QUESTIONS FOR THE DALAI LAMA
(2006, USA, 85 minutes)
 
10 QUESTIONS FOR THE DALAI LAMA depicts a journey filmmaker Rick Ray made to the monastery of the Dalai Lama where he was allowed a 45 minute audience with the holiest man in the Buddhist faith. Rick was told that the Dalai Lama tires easily of questions that bore him or that he has heard many times before.

Rick`s soul searching to find 10 provocative questions, and the experiences revealed on this journey are woven into a contemporary look at the struggles of the Tibetan people, their relationship with China, and the amazing history behind the Dalai Lamas of Tibet.

A former Lonely Planet backpacker turned cinematographer, writer and director, Rick Ray has produced 12 films on regions as diverse as Israel, Bali, Borneo, Lebanon, Ethiopia, Syria, Iceland, and India. Rick has traveled to 35 countries, capturing images of people and cultures. Rick is the founder of two stock footage companies and teaches documentary film at the prestigious Brooks Institute of Photography in Ventura, CA.

Here’s the official website for the film and this
is a review that I found of the film.

I was very interested in seeing this movie because I had recently read the Dalai Lama’s book “How to Expand Love”. I did not read any reviews about the movie beforehand. I may have thought that this movie was about how to live my life better but it was more of an education on the plight of Tibet. I also came away with the feeling that the Dalai Lama is very human and seeing this delighted me! I especially liked how readily and often he laughs and smiles!!