Sometimes life in France under an outrageous government is so strange. Can’t think of what other adjective could describe the bizarre acts of the so-called leaders here: people being deported because of their race, immigrants stripped of French nationality for certain crimes, government ministers in cahoots with the rich and powerful, government controlling more and more of the media, police spying on journalists and officials to uncover sources… What next? Somehow, it won’t last. Nothing ever does.
And yet… We can’t ignore it.
Meanwhile, I heard a critic disparaging the Thai film « Uncle Boonmee (Who Could Recall His Past Lives) » for its supposedly amateurish special effects. And so they are, according to such mercantile criteria. But not in terms of poetics. Sophisticated « effects » in fact convey illusion, not the ineffable truth, which can’t be conveyed by any « special effects, » good or bad. So « Uncle Boonmee » takes us nowhere but here, into the life (of the moment) of a dying man, which is where we all are all the time, anyway.
Can’t ignore it
About the Author: zenscribe
Enseignante Zen et poète, Sensei Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell est née et a grandi à Minneapolis, aux Etats-Unis. Arrivée en France en 1981 pour étudier la littérature et l’histoire, elle y est restée, s’installant à Paris, où elle élève ses deux enfants et gagne sa vie en tant que journaliste.
The Zen teacher and poet Amy “Tu es cela” Hollowell Sensei was born and raised in Minneapolis, but came to France in 1981 to study literature and history and has lived in Paris ever since, raising her two children and making a living as a journalist.
Bonjour Jin,
Good to hear from you.
That same majority of French people elected the president who is running this government and its follies, so in that sense it’s indeed not surprising.
Buddha nature, though, is neither near nor far. It’s always present. We just get confused about it because of our mind’s "special effects." And when that confusion reigns, as we are seeing clearly here in France, what doesn’t "fit" our ideas of how things should be is rejected (the Roms).
Bonjour Sensei,
The stunning thing for me is that 55% of the French approve the government’s decisions about the Roms. Or am I really stunned ? Buddha’s Nature is still far away.