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Buddhism The Movie "Why Bodhidharma Essay

It is small, real elements like this that keep the characters' human consciousness alert and unable to yet make the final step towards enlightenment with a final departing from the real world. Above the two rises the personality and figure of the Master Hyegok. A Zen master, he has devoted his entire life to learning about Zen Buddhism and is now ready to pass that knowledge along to his pupils. With his time passing and his death approaching, he becomes more and more determined to leave the appropriate instruments for his pupils to use in order to achieve enlightenment and they use his teachings in order to attempt this after his death.

The "Ten Bulls" pictures of the Zen tradition reflect the steps in the path to enlightenment and are a good fit on the stages that each of the characters in the movie have achieved. The bull itself is really just a metaphor for the enlightenment goal and the whole ten bulls are the ten steps, the ten phases in which the human finds himself on his quest, from his first, unsure steps towards enlightenment to the very last phase of enlightenment, where he can rejoin...

it's interesting to note that the last phase in the ten bulls process is not reaching the enlightenment itself (phase 9 - reaching the source), but return to society and spreading enlightenment there.
From this perspective, the master in our movie does not reach the final tenth bull or phase and we can have reasonable doubts whether he has reached the ninth phase as well. One could argue that his teachings are a strong show in this sense, however, it may also be interpreted that it is his way of leaving something behind even if he has not reached his final objective.

The younger disciples can really be seen going through the ten bulls pictures mechanism as they grow through the catching and taming phases and into the transcendence, even after the death of their teacher.

Their still strong bonds with the real world may be an argument that they will also achieve the final integration phase.

Bibliography

1. Reps, Paul; Senzaki, Nyogen. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings. (1957). On the Internet at http://www.iloveulove.com/spirituality/buddhist/tenbulls.htm.Last retrieved on July 31, 2008

Reps, Paul; Senzaki, Nyogen. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings. (1957). On the Internet at http://www.iloveulove.com/spirituality/buddhist/tenbulls.htm.Last retrieved on July 31, 2008

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Bibliography

1. Reps, Paul; Senzaki, Nyogen. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings. (1957). On the Internet at http://www.iloveulove.com/spirituality/buddhist/tenbulls.htm.Last retrieved on July 31, 2008

Reps, Paul; Senzaki, Nyogen. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings. (1957). On the Internet at http://www.iloveulove.com/spirituality/buddhist/tenbulls.htm.Last retrieved on July 31, 2008
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