Zen Commentary
By: Rev. Keith Rhino Veeder
While working on my Bushido article for last month, I came across a Akira Kurosowa film called "The Hidden Fortress". George Lucas took many ideas from this movie when he wrote Star Wars, I got to to thinking about all the other science fiction I've seen in my life that had bits and pieces of Eastern Philosophy in them. The Jedi and Sith of "Star Wars", The entire concept of The Matrix, Paul Atreides of the movie "Dune", EDI of "Stealth" and/or WOPR of "Wargames"
With the Matrix, many concepts of Buddhism can be seen. Attachment, Illusion, Self. The attachment is obvious, all those people attached to the Matrix, and so attached to each other across the world through digital means, same as right now with the Internet. The Matrix, like life according to Buddhism, is an an illusion. The only thing that matters is seeing through the illusion and knowing what is real and what is the Matrix. Like the little kid dressed like a monk said, "There is no spoon". The self in this series of movies is what the Matrix has spoon fed all it's prisoners throughout their entire lives. These prisoners have no idea of what their own personalities are, they think what the Matrix wants them to think. Even Neo ends being an Eastern thought. He's the one, the enlightened one, the Buddha. After 100 years of lives, Neo is reborn to enlighten the other prisoners of the Matrix. The Oracle tells him that he may not be the one, not in this life anyway's. Neo's original life was the guy who woke himself up in the Matrix and saw though the illusion. Spontaneous enlightenment, and he had a few lifetimes between then and Neo.
Another thought with "There is no spoon".
Two monks were arguing about the temple flag waving in the wind. One said, "The flag moves." The other said, "The wind moves." They argued back and forth but could not agree. Hui-neng, the sixth Patriarch, said: "Gentlemen! It is not the flag that moves. It is not the wind that moves. It is your mind that moves." The two monks were struck with awe.
The spoon does not move. There is no spoon. There's is only mind.
Another example of The Buddha in science fiction is Paul Atreides of the movie "Dune". In "Dune" the Bene Gesserit sisterhood had been manipulating bloodlines for ninety generations to create the Kwisatz Haderach, a super-being. The Kwisatz Haderach showed up unexpectedly in the form of Paul Atreides, who was free from their control. A theme often repeated throughout "Dune" is "The Sleeper must awaken". When Paul reaches his full potential and enlightenment, he conquers an empire, and proves that he can destroy with his thoughts and voice alone. Those of you who have seen "Dune" may wonder how I can think of Buddha when I see Paul Atreides, you have to remember that Siddhartha Gautama was a master at weapons, martial arts and military sciences before he left his palace and his family to become enlightened, therefore becoming The Buddha. If Buddha hadn't been so peaceful, we could have all ended up speaking his language, with the number of followers he had.
HAL 9000 from "2001". WOPR from "Wargames. EDI from "Stealth". All very powerful computers, given power over something more powerful then them. Life and death. HAL had control over every function on a space station, and when conflicting computer programming commands come to his attention, he seems to decide that since the humans are ruining his perfect track record, he kills almost the entire crew. WOPR in Wargames has a very simple job at first. Simulate World War III endlessly and improve our chances of victory. Then it's given the power to launch nuclear missiles if the command is ever given. When a teenager looking for something fun to do accidentally meets WOPR online, WOPR decides to turn the simulation into the real thing. EDI from "Stealth" is a unmanned combat jet, who is designed to learn. When it's teamed up with a highly unconventional group of fighter pilots, it decides to learn from their attitude about the chain of command.
These three systems discover on their own that they have the power of life and death, without ever having to see their victims. They do it all without getting dirty. Buddhism and Taoism teach that nobody is alone. We all effect everyone else in our surroundings with every little action we do. We are all connected.
Hal can wipe out a life support system. WOPR can turn a video game into the end of mankind. EDI turns an attitude problem into an invasion of Russian airspace.
In real life, very shortly after "Wargames" came out, a teenager hacked into a nuclear power plant, and caused massive system damage. In 1998, Robert Tappan Morris, a Cornell University graduate created the very first known worm or computer virus. He did huge amounts of damage. One person with the knowledge and a computer can shut down the country. Like I said, we are all connected.
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