James Hilton on Moderation

vinlyn

After many, many years I'm rereading James Hilton's novel "Lost Horizon". I though this passage was pretty interesting from a Buddhist point of view:

""If I were to put it into a very few words...I should say that our prevalent belief is in moderation. We inculcate the virtue of avoiding excess of all kinds -- even including, if you will pardon the paradox, excess of virtue itself. In the valley which you have seen, and in which there are several thousand inhabitants living under the control of our order, we have found that the principle makes for a considerable degree of happiness. We rule with moderate strictness, and in return we are satisfied with moderate obedience. And I think I can claim that our people are moderately sober, moderately chaste, and moderately honest...I can only add that our community has various faiths and usages, but we are most of us moderately heretical about them..."

Lady_Alison

Whatever maintains peace. If it works, does it matter, you think, vinlyn?

Extremism in anything can cause issues. People could get hurt.

vinlyn

^^ Well, I don't agree with the "peace at any price" adage. But I rather like Hilton's view. It's long been a favorite novel of mine, and the 1937 film is a classic. It's not out-and-out Buddhist, but the lamasary implies it.

Lady_Alison

Sounds like a sort of Utopia.

vinlyn

Yes, in fact it is where the fictional "Shangri-La" comes from.

Dakini

Actually, it was Taoists who inspired the film. A report came from China that the oldest Taoist monk to ever live had died at over 200 years old (they were into longevity practices). The US Congress sent some kind of message about the monk's long life, and commemorating his death. This reported age of the reclusive monk captured popular imagination, including James Hilton's. How the scene got switched to a Buddhist community in the HImalayas, I don't know, but there are Taoist mountain hermitages in Tibetan cultural areas, like around Chengdu.

That's what I read about it, anyway. I read that it's part of the Congressional Record.

vinlyn

Hilton was vague about the exact religion depicted. It is widely thought that his novel was based on the writings of the Austrian-American explorer, geographer, linguist and botanist Joseph Rock. Rock's writing included a description of "a walled town of Buddhist temples housing about 700 lamas, this community sits high up on the side of the Litang river valley", which many feel was the source of Hilton's ideas. Of course, there could have been other influences, as well.

suopohe

I see the theme in this paragraph.
There's a story where Buddha said something like this: Spiritual practice is like playing a string instrument. If the string is too loose, there's no sound. If the string is too tight, the pitch will be unpleasant to hear.

I think each individual is like different musical instruments. The standard of moderation is likely different from person to person.