Peaceful Warrior--Another Buddhist Movie After "Fight C

I was expecting something good as the sliding bar of my of my video player goes rightward, then I just got a feeling that something exceptional was going on there. The first thing that arouse my interest that the guy Scott Mechlowicz, who plays Dan Millman looks a lot like Brad Pitt! Can you fuckin believe that? 80% alike if not a mirror image of Brad. Suppose he was a blond like Brad Pitt, don't you tell me he won't get you the feeling that it's Brad Pitt's early movie when you first lay your eyes on him. He even talks and act like Brad Pitt. I mean, look at the way he looks at people. That's something amazing, coz you know Brad is getting old, but we always need some cool guy to get our adrenalin going and inspired.

Enough about his look and demeanor. Let’s get back to the movie.
Socrates, played by one of my favourite actors, Nick Nolte, is an old man works in the gas station. Dan will go to him for inspiration everytime he is obsessed with confusion and depression. One time, when Dan is wolfing down rookies or something, he says:” Slow down! You might taste something!” From that very beginning，I start to get the feeling that is movie is sorta of related to Fight Club, cos there begins to have a really slight suggestion of Zen wisdom in his words. What he later says make this feeling even stronger: If I was training you, No meat… No TV, No alcohol, No drugs, No Sex, which defineS the life of MONK! That’s really getting interesting. First, a Brad Pitt alike Scott Mechlowics, then a Zen-master Socrates. It real starts to make me link this movie to Fight Club, a finest Buddhist movie in my opinion. If you got that enormous patience and courage, you can take a look at my dissertation on analyzing Fight Club as a Buddhist movie by click following link.
http://chuckpalahniuk.net/community/showthread.php?p=1008347.

In the same scene, Socrates continues after Dan fails to “stand his Mabu(站马步)” on the table for more than five minutes and falls off the table:”Everyone tells you want to do, what’s good for you. They don’t want you to find your own answers. They want you to believe theirs…I want you to stop from gathering information from outside yourself and start gathering it from inside. People are afraid of looking into the inside and that’s the only place they are ever gonna find their own needs…” That’s so Buddhist! It’s a “seeking your inner self” sort of thing for Buddhism. Then Socrates’ analysis extends to insomnia, a mental issue also haunts Jack in the movie Fight Club. Wow! It amazingly hits me that, when I come to this part, Socrates also calls Dan Jack( A short term for Jackass, LOL, in his words). Don’t you tell me that’s just a coincidence.

In another scene, and still in Socrates’s gas station, Socrates asks Jack to take a swing at him to start his next lecture. Jack is just reluctant to do that cos he doesn’t want to hurt the old folk. Socrates keep slapping his face by irritating him into make a punch on him. He did it. Jack freaks out finally and jumps onto him, but the man just gives him a magical Tai Chi Leverage Touch(用四两拨千斤的太极功夫) and Dan touches the ground, then goes his lecture: the power of leverage is effective… take out the trash…the trash is up here(pointing Dan’s forehead), learning to throw out everything you don’t need In here…”
That’s what we call in Chinese? 去除杂念！消灭尘世的一切纷纷扰扰。 Plus，dose Socrates’s Tai Chi Kung Fu reminds of something. Tell me is Taoism. You know Tai Chi Zhang Sanfeng is a Niu Bizi (Taoist) and you know Taoism and Zen philosophy is really related in China.

Then comes Socrates’ most impressive and inspiring lesson. When they meet on the bridge, Jack asks him to finish quick cause he’s got something urgent to take care of. The old man just throws him off the bridge to the creek!!! It happens so quick and unexpectedly that even my hysterical laughters burst out after a short freeze. Jack is totally pissed and yells at Socrates. He has no clue what’s the hell is going on in the old freak’s mind. Why do you think Socrates does that horrible thing to Jack? I’m sorry, it’s Dan, but what’s the hell. The purpose is to empty his mind! Cause Dan won’t think about anything else that’s not important for the moment (which might be disturbing him in his life time and making his life miserable, and is also to blame for his insomnia). By doing that sudden push-off… What do we call this sudden shit in Buddhism. It’s “Shock Treatment”. (这就是禅师们惯用的当头棒喝法，所谓德山棒，临济喝都是来如闪电，猝不及防，令徒弟们闻风丧胆的) It’s a typical methods Zen master employ to enlighten his students. To learn more, you can refer to following shit I put on my dissertation:

3.2.3Shock Treatment as a Way of Non-Self Teaching
3.2.3.1 Chemical Burn as a Way of Shocking Jack into Enlightenment
One night, Tyler and Jack go to a liposunction clinic. They steal several bags of human fat and go back home to make soap. During the soap-making, Tyler pours lye on Jack’s hand, causing the worst pain Jack ever experiences. Jack feels so astounded that his mate’s sudden “atrocity” . Tyler, Fight Club’s “Lin Chi Master”, keeps slapping at Jack’s face ,trying to use “shock treatment” to beat his disciple into enlightenment.
Buddhism is leading a state of nothingness, and therefore a wordless mind-to-mind communication is needed in the teaching Lin Chi developed a new way of silent teaching-- shock treatment. Through various unconventional means, including shouting, beating, paradox, and personally driven reinterpretations of classical Mahayana Buddhist scripture, Lin-chi sought to wake his students from their clumsy slumber.( Scott Mandelker) Usually, if his disciple came to him asking what is Dharma, he most probably would yell at him. He believed that the essential Way of liberation could not be found in any state, the teacher must undercut all forms of grasping in the student's mind — grasping at form, feelings, opinions, stillness, energy conditions, and supersensible states. ( Scott Mandelker) So Lin-chi had to cut through all that his disciples brought him, and most certainly, their understanding of Buddhism, coming as it did from conceptual process, and not liberation itself.
Tyler’s “Chemical Burn” equals Lin Chi’s yelling. During Jack’s “premature enlightenment”, Tyler keeps slapping at his face, yelling at him, and succeeds in entirely disrupting Jack’s rational thought and making the mind jump the tracks that normally confine it. The principal point, however, is that when one is the recipient of a sudden violence( yelling, sitck), one experiences it immediately, inescapably, without the slightest interval during which intellection or volition might interpose themselves. It is this quality of the immediacy of the experience that Tyler is endeavoring to convey to Jack, urging him to experience the content of enlightenment in the same sudden and immediate manner. Under this circumstance, Tyler begins his teaching about impermanence.
Tyler encourages Jack to abandon his societal moorings altogether with the following logic: Our fathers are our models for God. We are God's unwanted children. So be it! Tyler asks him to accept the fact that he can not get resurrected by identifying himself by any figure. After Tyler’s sport-fuck with Marla (actually, Jack fucks Marla), Jack says he is enlightened. Is he really enlightened? Marla appears in Jack’s cave and replaces the penguin as his power animal. To explain this, we need to investigate the social environment of that period. Jack takes himself as a thirty-year-old child, because the absence of his father means his development of growing up could not proceed normally. While Freud held that "in the case of the father's absence or failure to take up the symbolic function, other authority figures - the teacher, headmaster, policeman, or ultimately God - may take his place in instilling in the child the sense of lawfulness and willing submission to social customs," such a replacement never happens here, Jack takes furniture to fulfill the vacuum created by the absence of his father at first, to find that he can not be complete by doing that. The possession of Marla’s body becomes the key to identity as well as social, cultural and sexual power for him. The possession of Marla’s body is similar with his clinging to the worldly possessions, a way of defining himself as a person. He thinks he has been fully realized as a man after he can perform sexually. In another word, he has an allusion of being completed after having sex with Marla. Form this point of view, he is not really enlightened.

To learn more about shock enlightenment, just take a look at this English-Chinese PDF:
http://www.ctzen.org/sunnyvale/download/enChineseZenMasterLec4.pdf

Plus, Dan and Socrates’s relationship resembles much to the “Shifu-Tudi” shit in Zen. And it’s on wonder the author Dan Millman would use “Mabu” in his book, cause he’s also a martial artist.

Socrates continuees: You are out of you mind, right? (ofc he’s out of his mind, I would be out of my mind if I was pushed off a freakin bridge with my clothes on for no good reason)… I want you out of your mind”. That’s so apparent a Buddhist teaching, and it’s the second phase of enlightenment (开悟)—Get rid of your fake-self. First Socrates wants Dan to get into his body to find that “self”, but for what? To realize that there is a self haunting you, making you suffer, so you can destroy them!!! So what kind of state you can reach? No-self (无我) 。

This movie is getting more like a Buddhist then I expect it is when I’m going this far.

Then goes the “take out the trash” thing: The trash is anything that’s keeping your from the only thing that matters” What really matters exactly? “This moment, here, now”. I don’t quite buy this theory much. Cos according the Buddhist philosophy, nothing really matters, haha. I would say, at this phase of road to enlightenment, “any thing that’s real real” would be proper. According the Buddha, life or universe is like a flowing river. What really exists is the very second you feel or you are living at present, such as when the moment when I’m typing this shit. The river is saw a second early is not the river now. I cannot give an in-depth analysis to this “ this moment, here, now” now, but when I become a monk I will develop a deeper understanding of this.

Dan cleared his mind and gives a flawless performance on pommel horse. That’s the result of the shock enlightenment. Dan cannot wait to see Socrates so he can share his story to him. He meets his teach, bragging about the incredible stunt he just did, but gets really disappointed cos Socrates seem to be totally not indifferent against that. Socrates is very dissatisfied with his gloating, criticizing for him for still living in the past instead of living in the now. He ruthlessly drives the student out of the house by announcing that the training for tonight is over.

That’s also a typical phase an enlightening Tudi (disciple) would go through on the road to enlightenment. The obsession with self just sneaks back to haunt you, and loads of lecturing blah blah blah wouldn’t do the trick, so the master would be better off letting the disciple meditate his problem by his own.

In the surrealistic scene where the Shifu and Tudi sitting on the high beam in the gym reading the gymnasts’ mind, they find guys down there, including the coach, are all disturbed by negative thoughts when they seemingly look totally normal. “Sometimes you have to lose your mind before you come to your senses”, says Socrates. In here, “mind” means fake-self, and “come to your senses” means gain your true-self, which is Nirvana.

Then they see MIllman walk to them. I’m not surprised that there is another Millman appearing in the movie. Cause there is Jack’s “imaginary friend” Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt” in Fight Club.

Then on a verge of a high building, Millman finally meets his fake-self, the Dan-in-black, and finally, that fake-self is exactly the one should let go of. The Dan-in-black is going to jump off the building but Dan just pull him in great fear. In this struggle of letting go thing, the true-self finally let the fake-self fall off the building. That means a great move forward on his road of enlightenment.

In another scene, Dan rides a motorcycle at a suicidal speed and runs into car. His leg is shattered and his coach tells him there is no way of him coming back to the gym. Given that Dan is intentionally doing that thing. It’s much like Fight Club’s self-destruction act—a cool thing essentially consists of different ways of beating the crap out of each other in a mindless way, as a way of getting rid of your fake-self, say, your flesh and bones. Be aware of that, tolerating yourself physically is very important for you to get yourself enlightened.

Later on, Dan and Socrates go to a pub for drinks. Dan got totally smashed and puked outside of the pub. Three bad guys come over demanding them to hand over their wallets. To Dan’s great surprise, Tai Chi master Socrates, not only doesn’t kick their asses, but cast his wallets to them like he just can’t wait to do that sort of thing. Dan just gives Socrates that” What the hell do you think you are doing, are you insane” look at Socrates when the later just gives away everything they have, even those guys have walked away with satisfaction, he just calls them back , so he can give them everything, until they only got shorts and t-shirts on. That’s the most hilarious scene in the movie.

That’s a very important lesson of “sameness” theory of Buddha. What makes Socrates voluntarily give aways thing to “bad guys”? cause in his mind, they are just the same with him and Dan. Anyone who has a right insight of the impermanence(无常) of life shall realize the sameness of living things in the universe. Since every existence is the same, everything can be the center. A recognition of sameness helps to let go of his ego-self. Buddha says: “All compound things are transitory: they grow and they decay. All compound things are subject to pain: they will be separated from what they love and be joined to what they abhor.” In this sense, all men are the same, and with this recognition, we shall have great compassion for others instead of caring too much about ourselves. Buddha says “Practice the truth that thy brother is the same as thou” (Yutang)

But, I real don’t recommend girls to do this “sameness practice” by giving away theirs clothes . You might get a cold at night and they might feel hot.

Dan just gives up on himself after being told he is not possibly compete again due to the motorcycle accident, but Socrates encourages him to be a gymnast again. Dan accepts his suggestion and starts the training with great effect. After a few months of hard practice, Dan is in good shape again and is really looking forward to the qualifiers Olympic game. However, his coach tells him his petition is rejected by the committee cause the doctor’s report says it’s very risky for him to compete again. Again, Dan freaks out and go to Socrates, expressing how disappointed and furious he feels about the situation. Socrates criticizes him for craving for the gold medal. He argues that holding onto gold medal, living in fear that one might lose is not the right perception. Dan exploded that he has given everything up, but now the hope that he might be competing again is really eat him. He just cannot live with losing that opportunity for seizing his dream.

In here ,holding onto, (or not letting go) is another world for “attachment” (执着) in Buddhism。

Dan says nothing later on, leaving the young man cool off.

The next day, Socrates takes Dan to hike, in order to show him a place up there in a mountain. On the road to the peak of the mountain. , Socrates inspiringly asks Dan for the answer of “the three rules of life”. Dan’s answers are “Paradox, Humor, and Change”. Change it is. He paused for a second when asked to interpreter what’s change:” knowing that nothing stays the same”. Change brings importance, from which all of mortal world’s suffering arise. By knowing the law of change can you start to deal with it.

Below is explanation, quoted from my “Fight Club is a Buddhist Movide”, shall explain this and Socrates’s “ This moment, here now” in details.

According to the teachings of the Buddha, life is comparable to a river. It is a progressive moment, a successive series of different moments, joining together to give the impression of one continuous flow. It moves from cause to cause, effect to effect, one point to another, one state of existence to another, giving an outward impression that it is one continuous and unified movement, where as in reality it is not. The river of this moment is not going to be the same as the river of the next moment. So does life. It changes continuously, becomes something or the other from moment to moment.

Consequently,it is a fallacy to believe that a person would remain the same person during his entire life time. He actually lives and dies but for a moment, or lives and dies moment by moment, as each moment leads to the next. That’s why Jack says his life is ending one minute at a time. Zen playfulness arises from the realization of every moment being both a joyful moment of life and a moment of death. In fact, Jack mentions “Impermanence” when he leaves support group one night, and his voice over goes: “every evening I died, every evening I was born again”. In Buddhist philosophy, not only a man’s life consists of infinite lives during his life-time, but also there is a vicious circle of rebirth. By gaining an insight of the impermanence of life and be non-self, one can end this circle and get ultimate freedom. Buddhism believes that a person is what he is in the context of the time in which he exists. It is an illusion to believe that the person you have seen just now is the same as the person you are just now seeing or the person whom you are seeing now will be the same as the person you will see after a few moments. Jack is slowly learning the truth of impermanence subconsciously, and that why he was wandering whether he would wake up as a different person.Lin)。

Dan freaks out again( that always makes the teacher look like a perfect sage in the movie) , cause after three hours’ of climbing, there’s nothing up there but a rock. Ofc you can guess Dan later on learns that what counts the most if not the destination( what you want to get your hands on), but the journey. It also don’t get attached to things, but do what you are doing.

The qualifier where Dan performs a stunt nobody else can ever does is like a ritual of Dan’s enlightenment. Keep his body upside-down with his hands holding the two rings, he asks himself:
Where are you？Dan.
Here.
What time is it?
Now.
What are you?
This moment.

He doesn’t who are you and doesn’t answer I’m Dan. This is a symbol of the getting rid of his “fake-self “after come to the realization that his ever-changing life consists of countless moments. What’s in the past or what’s ahead don’t matter at all. That’s how you pull yourself out of fear and live a happy life with your true-self. That’s enlightenment. That’s Nirvana!