Before and after the films, everyone’s invited to indulge in our Humanist
Vegetarian Tea House.
Wednesday, February
6 at 7:30 pm
Peace is Every Step
This artful and soft-spoken
documentary, subtitled "Meditation in Action:
The Life and Work of Thich Nhat Hanh," is an homage to a great peace activist,
Buddhist, and well-known author, Thich Nhat Hanh. He has had a
profound impact on contemporary thinking and social
action. His efforts to achieve an early end to the
American war in Vietnam earned him a nomination for
the Nobel Peace Prize by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
and a forty-year exile from his homeland. His
ongoing work teaching reconciliation and meditation
with war veterans, widows, orphans, refugees,
therapists, activists, and ecumenical groups has
gained him a large following around the world. His
quiet words and serene presence convey the intimate
wisdom and compassion he is famous for. Thich Nhat
Hanh tells us: “You get out of the meditation hall
in order to help people. And that is called
meditation in action. Deep looking is meditation,
and deep acting is also meditation."
Wednesday, February 13 at 7:30 pm
Compassion in Exile
This
beautiful film, subtitled "The Story of the 14th
Dalai Lama," is an intimate portrait of Tenzin
Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet and Nobel Peace
Prize laureate. It is, at the same time, the saga of
the suffering of the Tibetan people under Chinese
occupation. For over forty years the Dalai Lama has
waged a non-violent struggle in exile to bring world
attention to the plight of his Tibetan people and
save their unique culture and religion. He is the
embodiment of the ideal of his Buddhist heritage and
practice and his life story is an inspiring lesson
in compassion and peace. For this film, the Dalai
Lama personally granted director Mickey Lemle
unprecedented access and cooperation. With candor
and humor, he describes his upbringing and key
moments in his life, detailing historic events
including his becoming head of state at the age of
sixteen, journeying to Beijing at nineteen to
confront Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, and fleeing to
India at the age of twenty. Tibetan exiles are
interviewed for direct testimony about conditions in
Tibet under the Chinese, and the Dalai Lama himself
voices his concerns for Tibet, his lack of hatred of
the Chinese, and his hopes for a peaceful future.
It was widely
thought that the Buddhist hermit tradition was all
but wiped out, but this groundbreaking documentary
emphatically and beautifully shows us otherwise.
Take an insider’s intimate look at Buddhist students
and masters living in scattered retreats dotting
China’s Zhongnan Mountain range. These peaks
have reputedly been home to Buddhist recluses since
the time of the Yellow Emperor, some five thousand
years ago. This unusual film, subtitled
"Buddhist
Hermit Masters of China’s Zhongnan Mountains,"
takes an unforgettable journey into the hidden
tradition of China’s Buddhist hermit monks.
One of only a few foreigners to have lived and
studied with these elusive practitioners, Edward A.
Burger, is able, with humor and compassion, to
present their tradition, their wisdom, and the
hardship and joy of their everyday lives among the
clouds.
This film
presents a masterful portrait of Rangjung Rigpe
Dorje, the great Tibetan Buddhist master known
as the Black Hat Lama, who was the 16th Gyalwa
Karmapa. The Karmapa is the head of the Karma
Kagyu lineage, one of the four great lineages of
Tibetan Buddhism. He is recognized as the
embodiment of the teachings of his lineage, one that
traces its source from teacher to disciple through
Tibet‘s great teachers Milarepa and Marpa to India‘s
Naropa and Tilopa all the way back to the Shakyamuni
Buddha.
During the 1959 invasion of Tibet by the People‘s
Republic of China, the Karmapa left Tibet and
settled in Rumtek, Sikkim, India. The
construction of his new Rumtek monastery was
completed in 1966. In 1974, the Karmapa set
out on his first world tour. The film journeys
with him in North America where he visited the Hopi
Nation, offered teachings, and performed the Black
Crown Ceremony. He enjoyed everything from
zoos to video arcades, and initiated the
construction of Karma Triyana Dharmachakra in
Woodstock, New York, the seat of his lineage in
North America. The evocative film features
rare interviews with renowned Tibetan Buddhist lamas
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Kalu Rinpoche, and Dilgo
Khyentse Rinpoche.
