What are you thoughts on this issue? Post your questions and I will ask them during the screening and panel discussion with director Niki Caro, co writer Joan Scheckel and the eminent Buddhist teacher and scholar Za Choeje Riponoche. Post now! The panel is this saturday, Decemeber 5, 2009 in Auckland NZ. We would love your questions to be part of this extraordinary night. We look forward to a rare meeting of spiritual and cinematic thought…
Unity and Duality: When Angel and Demon Are One
December 2, 2009 by thevintnersluck
How can we heal the world through our art?
Another Comment directly emailed to our team:
Congratulations!
As an actress, I feel it is my place in this world to use my art to help heal human beings through my joy and the love I have to give to humanity…
I would ask the Dalai Lama “What energy he would like to see/feel artists/ actors/ filmmakers bring into the world?”
It feels like we are entering into a new era and thus a new consciousness. I am excited to experience how this will affect all forms of art. maybe it is the energy of a peaceful warrior and our tools are honesty, compassion, and laughter…I am not sure. and maybe it is in the courage of not knowing that genius and brilliance rises to the surface…and I just had another thought which maybe is one of the answers I am looking for…a continuous curiosity, an energy that protects life and strives to perpetuate an opening, an open mind, an open heart…..
Hopefully, someone will record this happening. Again, Congratulations on this magnificent event!
love,
Dakota
What can we do to help shift the consciousness of the masses to a more positive light?
How can we come to accept and welcome the demons as well as the angels in ourselves, our lives, our fellows and our art?
Looking so much forward to seeing the film.
Also I can’t wait to see the films you will write in the future out of your heart and soul, direct them with your unique
vision and hopefully act in! You have so much to say and give.
You are meeting the Dalai Lama- what a moment!
I got a phone call in the spring when I was (on the floor) going
through the last and worst part of my divorce from my husband – and on
the other end of the line was a woman that asked me to be the host of
a big lecture being held by the Dalai Lama here in Reykjavík.
Needless to say I said yes- I felt like I had gotten a phone call from
heaven calling me out of the darkness – and to make a long story
short- this meeting with his Hollyness changed my life.
(My daughter Lára was there and asked him if he loved animals- which
brought him into a huge discussion on who is worth loving- but ended
with a short answer – Yes Lára, all except mosqioutes)
I also did a workshop with Za Rinpoch that same week and he directed
me towards a road that I have loved traveling since.
I hope this meeting will bring you blessings and inspiration my friend
love you love you love you
M
Religion can be such a polarizing and such a unifying subject. For our world right now, what do you feel is important to explore in regards to religion in art?
What is the most valuable lesson or lessons we can help teach the world through our art?
Some folks are writing their questions directly to the team. We will be sharing them here as they come in.
A leading question that accompanies me in my life right now is how to be True Stewards – finding ways through the earth , and Universe to reconnect to the Mother, and to the simple foundations that unite us as human and more then human.
I will send blessings in movement towards you and yours at this special time…… Thank you.
Maureen
Duality as a non threatening reality. Not a black and white issue. A way of acceptance not a recognition of what is right and wrong. Not good VS evil.
How can we take initiative when we don’t know what is right and what is wrong? How can we know what is right? How can we know what is wrong? What do we fight for?
Thank you,
Seth
Great Question Seth. I look forward to how your question is answered. If we accept our duality can we just be right and wrong? I wonder about this too….
be well,
Rie
Another post written directly to the team:
I have no questions and only questions. I am eager to hear about your experience, and I hope you will share or post some of that soon. Meanwhile I wish to add my thoughts and prayers with yours for an inspiring and enlightening event!
With love
Barnet
When I am with the devil, it is so hard to remember the angel.
When I am with the angel, it is as if the devil never were.
How do we reconcile the dichotomy so that they are less mutually exclusive, *while* under the direct, imposing influence of one (or the other)?
Thank you and many blessings,
Kate
Another Question Sent directly to our Team.
As for what to ask – your question is mine as well, maybe you can drill deeper into that. What stories, what’s the message the story needs to convey, how best to convey a universal, dogma-free message, stay true to the message in a universally acceptable way. What is universally acceptable? is there a single message that humanity most needs at this point in history? How can art serve humanity with simple, clean, truths that are easy to implement.
! Wow! I love the amazing gifts and contribution you’re making to the world!
My question : “How can you be an angel and a demon at the same time, and still make it to ‘heaven’?”
Please post videos on youtube!
Sending you much love from South Africa, and holding the highest vision and possibility and the film’s success as it continue to play like a much needed medicine to the world.
Peace,
Gabriel
http://www.archangelsfeather.com
Cape Town, South Africa
If, as the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss said “myths operate in men’s minds without their being aware of the fact,” and therefore ‘create’ us in a way… what are the stories we need to be telling right now to move humanity in the direction where more sentient beings enjoy happiness at all times?
(Note: The DL closed his 2009 New Year’s Message with the following: “Once again, I pray that the Tibetan people are freed from oppression and torture, and enjoy the happiness of freedom. May all sentient beings enjoy happiness at all times.”)
As artists, our gift can be such a blessing and a curse. It can bring us such immense joy and deep pain and longing. I find myself running towards it and then running away in retreat or rebellion. It mirrors life, but to such a magnified degree that it seems overwhelming and consuming. How do we find peace with this duality that exists in the artist’s soul?
Your Holiness. In America, and parts of the world, Horror Films, Action Movies, Crime Thrillers and Disaster Films always reside at the top of the box office, yet these forms of expression are often derided by the culturally elite. What do these films, in their popularity, tell us about ourselves, and, why since the dawn of man, have we always told ourselves tales of monsters and destruction? Is the condemnation/dismissal of these types of films by the elite an act of enlightenment or a lack of compassion for a mass audience’s need to safely experience its own dark side?
The idea of of bringing up deep spiritual questions about our own nature as both good/evil to all people through a film is such a wonderful idea.
However, I wonder if people have used films as a way to escape from their own lives for so long that the gift of the filmmaker who wants to teach or share something that may help someone heal, will at first be misunderstood or unappreciated.
How can we introduce movies like Vintner’s Luck to people who find stillness/meditation and the concept of duality as a waste of time when it is merged with entertainment?
Another question emailed directly to our team.
congrats on this amazing opportunity… so envious… and so happy for you….
so, my question for his holiness is about people and the planet: since most governments agree that global warming is caused by human beings, what does he feel about population control?… to me it seems like everyone is jumping on the bandwagon to bring down carbon emissions and such… which is great…. but there seems to be a 500 lb gorilla in the room that everyone is ignoring — more people means more pollution – though no one is talking about it.,,, love to know his thoughts.
that’s my big question…
best to you and yours…….. steve
More questions emailed to our team follow:
“B’hatzlacha,” as they say in Hebrew – more than ‘good luck,’ I wish you success in your heart and to always know that the “sitra achra,” the dark side, the other side, is tricky, full of ego and up to no good — it waits, to be beckoned out by that which is selfless and to be changed to oneness and good – otherwise it knows it will die along with every thing else. Continue to coax, cajole, get tough, love and imagine. The snake will take its rightful place as your footstool and the transformed emblem of all that is medicinal!
Stephen
I just finished reading an original printing of All Quiet On The Western Front, (just saw it on the book shelf and thought I’d give it a read, years since I’ve read a novel – my bad). Harrowing story from a German infrantry soldier during WW I. So intense for me in light of our hyper violent world.
If I had one question for the Dalai Lama it would be this: Is the power of love the greatest power of all that is human? And, if so, why is it that man’s inhumanity to man goes on and on and on, unchecked and unabated?
Also, how will the Detroit Red Wings do this year!?
Maybe just stick with the first one.
Jack….
I would love, also, for the panel to address, “What role does cinema have in modern spiritual transmission? How do the Lamas see it best being used as a vehicle for that?”
I LOVE YOU!
Sheva
I am on the road to enlightenment. Can you give me guidance?
Do Tibetan Buddhists aim towards understanding the world as free of duality? And if so, does the dissolution of the duality of good and evil equal forgiveness?
Do you think that people find it easier to consider good and evil as mutually exclusive? What challenges do unity and duality present for people in their daily lives and for how they understand the world. Could this be a possible explanation for why there has been some resistance to the film?
maybe more to come, but
here is what I wonder about impulsively….
what we as filmmakers have to know as we move towards a “new world”
and how we can help built it…
in his opinion?
Much Love
Katja
To ZaChoeje Riponoche,
Thank-you so much for joining us here in New Zealand, we hope you are having a wonderful visit!
I recently read this in a book of the Dalai Lama’s teachings:
“To develop patience, you need someone who wilfully hurts you. Such people give us the real opportunity to practise tolerance. They test our inner strength in a way that even our guru cannot. Basically, patience protects us from being discouraged.”
I find these words to be very encouraging, and I wondered if you could elaborate on this teaching for us?
Thank-you very much!
Looking forward to hearing the discussion with you tonight.
Emma
Question submitted to our team:
My question is how do we learn to distinguish angel from demon? We so often confuse poison for food-truth from lies-how do we start to learn the difference?- Dawn
Why does eternal unity seek expression in temporal duality? What need is being served by this adventure?
Is that need evolving?
If so, what is it changing to next?
What is its ultimate longing?
Another question that came to me is how does one reconcile when what they thought they loved was based on a lie or an assumption? How can we come to accept that love is what matters not whether it is good or evil from heaven or hell?