South Park is obviously known for its satire, inappropriate and uncomfortable social and cultural jabs, and of course, its misrepresentation of religions all over the world. In this example you can see the four “leaders” of American, Middle Eastern, Indian, and Asian cultures are coming together to serve some kind of injustice (all of which are also stereotyped). The American says “we will join together against evil, except Buddha because he doesn’t believe in evil.” Buddha is then shown as a smiley, oblivious, air-headed man who agrees with the statement.
Many Americans and even those outside the Buddhist belief see Buddhists as extremely passive and docile. They are viewed as so non violent that is blown up in such a way that they are seen as being naïve to even the idea of evil, anger, ect. Just because Buddhist’s take a vow of non-violence does not mean they don’t believe is negativity or evil. It is also seen as a very easy and happy and enlightened state of mind all the time while practicing Buddhism. You can see this especially in the clip from the South park episode. Buddha, like I mentioned before, is very air-headed and happy-go-lucky. This isn’t the case at all.
In Brad Warner’s book he talks about his time in Japan and while he was gone Buddhism became “all the rage” in the states. The problem was it was all the wrong kinds of rage. American’s attributed drugs and trips as a way to become in an enlightened state and to seek the mind state of Buddha. One of worst ideas that western Buddhists have conjured is that there are ways to speed up your journey to enlightenment. All American’s want a quick and easy way to most everything and Warner argues that Buddhism is a very difficult and time consuming practice. There are no short cuts; there is neither obliviousness nor silliness like portrayed in the video clip I have shared. To relay how strenuous this practice is, Warner says “There is no easy way to circumvent the pain and difficulty of the practice.” This statement alone gives you a second view on how extreme a Buddhists’ lifestyle and practices are.
I think that the "South Park" example is a very good joke. It is very funny. I don't mean it as critique, just the opposite. In contrary to this example, many Hollywood martial arts and action movies show that the achievements in martial arts are connected with Zen meditation and practice. Take for example "The Karate Kid" with Japanese Zen master. It is a complete different picture of Buddhism.
ReplyDeleteI can see where you're coming from when you stated that the air-headed, happy-go-lucky people in the United States who exhibit a sort of 'enlightened' quality are those who use drugs and seek a sort of tranquil way of handling situations. Many drug takers are those who attempt to attain the Buddhist-like state of mind.
ReplyDeleteSouth park makes this idea very literal. In other parts of that episode there are clips of Buddha actually snorting cocaine which makes the connection more obvious!
I agree that many people do think of Buddhists as being passive and docile, and that they have an easy. Achieving enlightenment and being able to abstain from things such as food is anything but easy. People fail to see how disciplined Buddhists really are.
ReplyDeleteI found your insight of how Westerners see passive as oblivious. When the whole point of Buddhism is to the end the suffering and pain of living by reaching ultimate salvation. Buddhism is a philosophy built on tackling head-on the ugly aspects of life and your own ego. I think the Western misconception of a Buddhist trance as equivalent to a drug trip because of the unattached nature of Buddhism. Westerners misunderstand that as being unfeeling and zoned out to the world rather than expressing equal compassion for all life.
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