Best Of
Some thoughts on the movie Astral City
I yesterday watched the movie Astral City: Nosso Lar (twice), and I wanted to talk a little about it. The Buddhist beliefs don’t talk very much about what the Tibetans call the Bardo, the state between lives, and that is the focus of this movie’s story. It follows a Brazilian doctor named André Luiz, who dies and ends up in the Umbral, the dark and dense region of the astral where suicides end up. It turns out he didn’t really commit suicide, but by not paying attention to his anger, his hardness, his emotions he ended up poisoning his astral body and this was the cause of his physical death, his mind didn’t sustain his body anymore.
Andre is rescued after a sincere prayer in the Umbral, and taken to the astral city Nosso Lar (Brazilian for ‘our home’) where his astral body is healed and he slowly comes to terms with being dead. He wants to send a message to his family, and hears that in the city, such things are earned through merit, work. He ends up working in the chambers of recuperation, first just reassuring new arrivals and sweeping the floors, and later as he gets in touch with heart-felt kindness as a healer. He eventually earns the privilege of returning to Earth to see his family, and while there heals his ex-wife’s new husband of a terminal illness.
The ideology of Astral City is centred around an awakening, that most negative emotions poison the energy body, and that the ground of being of people is love and kindness, and that work has a beneficial effect. This is the realisation that André has, which allows him to accept the mission to return to his family, and face his possessiveness and my-making. The idea is that the Earth’s lower astral space is polluted by negative emotion.
People in the Astral Cities (there is more than one) are privileged, they can work towards resolving their emotions and their family ties, and eventually can come to dwell in the higher spheres when there is no need to reincarnate anymore. I find this process, of first finding an awakening to love and trust and kindness, and then working on ones harmony with the people you have ties to, very beautiful. It speaks to me of deep truths.
I hope you will watch the movie, and be as affected by it as I was.
Jeroen
Re: HOLIDAYS?
New Years Eve: Quiet, ended and opened the the years with prayer.
New Year Day - Spent with family - combined New Year and birthday
Everyone have a great year.
Lionduck
Re: New year ~~precepts~~ resolutions
I resolve to…
- Not get dragged along by every thought I meet;
- Not get confused into thinking things are mine;
- Not distance myself from my emotions;
- Take good care of my mum.
I miss @lobster’s rants!
Jeroen
Re: Blessings
...From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion. Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes. ~John Roberts
person
Re: What movies are you watching?
Quite an arty film. Not sure if it was worth my time but then I am not the only viewer
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13049968/
Preferred this ...
lobster
Re: Blessings
Today I watched the movie "Mary" about the mother of Baby Jesus.
But today I think it is time to renew my vows as a Blessing
- Today I burnt the porridge again. From this I learned the importance of single tasking when in the kitchen. Food even burnt can be used to feed the Hungry Ghost realms. It is a blessing for them...
- May we all bless our Blessings
- May all find, know and practice wisdom (even part time or as a hobby)
- May we distill our stillness
- May we Be the Auspicious, The Buddha, The Dharma and Sangha
Have a great year everyone 
lobster
Re: What movies are you watching?
Exactly — it is. But at the same time it is training the brain with fake stuff. We like stories because we think it is a shortcut to wisdom and experience, but in reality most of the stories told to us are not of that type anymore.
Far from being about wisdom and experience, most stories these days seem to revolve around young people’s issues. By the time we feel we have acquired our own wisdom, people stop looking for it in movies. Which means that the stories which encapsulate true wisdom, kind of disappear from the movie landscape.
I came across a mention of what Robin Williams said inspired him to pursue comedy, and that was watching Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr Strangelove. He never understood before that how comedy could hit so hard, and be so relevant.
Jeroen