Amongst White Clouds

Movies are opportunities to take us into different worlds. In this documentary we are taken upon the Zhongnan Mountain, that by itself would be already a hike that would have left many people behind, not only saying all the rest of the challenges ahead.

The movie goes into the life journey of Documentarist Edward Burger, who stayed over four years studying with one of the monks, who separately or in small groups lived along the peaks of the Zhongnan mountain in China. We get to know all of the other hermits that live in other peaks considerably nearby, in very simple and honest interviews, we are one on one with every character, he characterizes them as, The Ascetic, The Wise Sage, The Student, The Friend, The Determined, The One that Smiles, The One that speaks like a Poet, and The One that it is my Guide. We get to experience the very personal and authentic journey that the author had to live in order to show us.

From all the wisdom and insights that are shared in the movie, It always stroked me a couple of things about Zen and Buddhism, how much little is given to thinking. All the energy it is given to actually living, for the moment, to the practice, to your own actions, to discipline and to meditation. The other thing it is to how prone they can be to laughter and to have a sad and compassionate look into life. I think these three characteristics are key to understanding more about the Buddhism, the tragic, the childlike perspective and the practice.

It is the tragic, that it is so ingrained on our mythology, or the just the acknowledgment of our own death, of our own fluidity in this life.

It is the child perspective, where life can be blissful, before we put upon so much weigh, where we are still good at playing with nothing.

The attention it is to the practice, to our actions, to be aware and to be present in every moment. All this discipline, it is to be able to see your true self, to see things as they are, and not as we have imagined upon.

All of the monks interviewed, talk to us straight forward, but we are driven so strongly by our culture, by the myriad of false premises of what we should expect and desire from life, that we just don't expect how easily we could end up falling from what we just believed while listening to them. It is very important to pay attention on how their lives are, to really hear to what they have to say. Notice that they are mostly concerned about the practice, their everyday tasks, simple as that. We can watch this movie one thousand times, live over and over again up to five hundred years and yet never really see this movie or worst never being free.

Take a trip to another quiet world where people don't rush to the goods of society and the nature flows within. Just watch and listen every sound and every frame of that wonderful story about hermits, about spirit worriers on their path to enlightment...

Big respect to the crew that found and showed us this hidden area high in the mountains and those shinin' practicians.

I've been watching that movie for almost 5 times and I'm gonna do it more for sure.

How rare to see a Westerner invest the time and effort actually to become fluent in another language; fluent enough to study under these hermits and make a movie about them!

That said, this is not really a film "about" Buddhism; it's more like having tea with a succession of people who have dedicated themselves to the practice. The hermits, men and women of various ages, are depicted as individuals with personalities and pasts, and their practice as worthwhile.

A really fine document.

Robin Rusty Ring: Reflections of an Old-Timey Hermit (rustyring.blogspot.com)