The name’s bond, james bond. It’s the bond era review!

‘Arrogance and self-awareness seldom go hand in hand, Bond.’ – Vesper

Hi there! For this week’s edition, I’ll be talking about a particular series of movies which I have been thinking of for awhile. Also known for its bombastic action scenes, seductive women and masculinity, the James Bond series have made its mark on the movie scene with a long list of successes and duds. It’s iconic as everyone knows about it but hasn’t done anything particularly well since 2005.
2005 was where Daniel Craig stepped in. Highly rough and hewn-looking, he was not well received as the new Bond. However, a solid performance by him, engaging characterization and revamped plot gave life into a largely panned movie and turned it up again. Of course, it felt right to talk about the movie not only because it kickstarted the fortunes of the franchise, but also because the story had a pretty sad moment which drives Bond’s motivation and is summed up in the end of the 2rd movie, Quantum of solace. I’ll be talking about spoilers from here on, so thumbs down on you if you haven’t seen it!

So our story in Casino Royale begins with Bond going on a massive hunt for a group of criminals, mainly headed by a guy named Le Chiffre. After taking down a series of henchmen to break into his chain of operations, Le Chiffre implements a high-stakes game of poker to recouple his losses. Bond is sent to join the game in order to place Chiffre in a losing position so that he would be forced to become an informant. In the process, he joins up with Vesper (played by an awesome eva green) who serves as his superior during the game. In the process of working together, eventually Bond turns from a cold ruthless murderer to feeling emotionally attached to Vesper. Unfortunately, Vesper betrays him in order to protect him without his knowledge, forcing him back to his emotionally turbulent, angry and betrayed self again. Throughout the entirely of Quantum of solace, he constantly thinks about her, being caught up between his love for her and her betrayal. Eventually, after realizing that she was forced to betray him and deciding that it is best to move on, leaving a necklace of her behind in the closing scene.
What we see here is a sad case where Bond places too much attachment to a single person due to his tendency to be aloof and lonely due to his line of work. Being in the shoes of an agent who has to kill, it can be incredibly difficult to maintain a strong emotional front. Which is largely why I really enjoy seeing Daniel Craig play as bond, he portrays a much more humanistic version of Bond while putting up a cold and dangerous front. This brings me back to my original point where Bond’s love and loss over Vesper feels much more impactful.
The loss of a beloved one, especially one whom we may be over dependent on may have its dangers. Having such an important clutch taken away suddenly may be extremely difficult to handle. However, it is not uncommon to see people being too attached to a single object. Be it a friend, partner, relative, family or object (or even a pet!).
This brings me back to one of Buddhism’s key tenets – the importance of having little attachment to material things, as they do not last forever. Being an object which is subject to change over time, it can be easy to realize that the object or person whom you have strong feelings towards in the past – have changed.
Of course, this is not to say that we should not have any emotions towards anyone like robots! On the contrary, it is better to enjoy the feelings and emotions that you have felt without placing too much stress on the particular object.

If we pick something up, we don’t necessarily have to attach to it or think that it is ours, in some absolute way. Once we think something is actually ours, there is possessiveness or “clinging” in Buddhist jargons, which causes tension. To let go of clinging to something we’ve picked up is merely to relax our hold. We don’t need to put it down, we just need to relax the grip. We don’t have to get rid of things, like getting rid of your wristwatch and your automobile and your house, or your apartment and your income. So, it’s not about picking things up, because you can pick something up and hold it, and then put it down. That’s a useful and very necessary part of life. The problems come with the clinging, the possessiveness, the idea that this is mine and i am going to have it and keep it….

It’s more about learning how to pick things up and put them down when we need to put them down, which is the whole purpose of developing mindfulness of time and place.The discernment that chooses how to act at any given time needs to be based on that fundamental acceptance. But we have to use wisdom and attentiveness to the situation to see what’s “right”.

In short, we can see that even the suave-ist of people like James Bond can fall into the trap of being overly attached and in turn becoming manipulated by the memory of his loved one. With focus and determination, we can do our best to avoid being betrayed by our attachment to become even better than the ‘heroes’ we see in media.

Maleficent – Both a Vilian and Hero

Yup as I mentioned in my previous post, I’m writing about Disney movies for a bit before switching to other movies. If there is any violent objection, please comment. Haha :D

This time I’m writing on a fairly recent movie that just came out last month – Maleficent, yup the remake of Sleeping Beauty from the antagonist’s point of view with a few twists. As usual, there will be spoilers in this post.

Forget everything you know about the fairy tale – this story is a much needed adaptation of the original classic. Set in the magical kingdom of Moors, the beautiful fairy Maleficent falls in love with a human, Stefan, but is betrayed by him so that he can become king. Deeply hurt and enraged by the betrayal, she places a curse on his daughter Aurora that she will fall into a deep sleep at the age of 16. Frightened, the king sends his daughter away to prevent the curse from happening, but Maleficent is determined to pursue her to see through her revenge. Will the princess be able to find her true prince to rescue her from the clutches of the evil fairy? 

HINT: Not a typical fairy tale. This should give you a hint about where the story is headed!(Synopsis by Wei Xing)

King Stefan’s greedy and immoral nature that surfaced in his childhood stealing incident escalated and ultimately led to his great fear and demise. By cheating Maleficent’s romantic feelings to cut off her wings out of his greed to be crowned king, he created a cause for her to take revenge by cursing his baby girl. This caused him to live in fear. His desire to go all out to kill Maleficent caused him to not even realise when Aurora’s curse had been broken. Maleficent had decided to walk away instead of killing him despite the great suffering he inflicted on her, and it was his own desire to kill her that led to the fight that ended in his death.

The moral of the story that would be told to children is that selfishness and greed will eventually bring one down. King Stefan is indeed an extreme example. In a more general and relatable sense, this relates to our bad habits and tendencies, which are all rooted in greed, hatred and delusion, the roots of suffering. We may start off with them since we are young, and this movie is a warning that they may snowball in adulthood if not corrected. Thus now is the best time for us to start identifying and correcting them.

Maleficent had great courage because she was in the position to kill Stefan, but decided to walk away. Her action shows that she has let go of the past; she was now very different from how she was when she cursed Aurora. This is a reminder to us that we have a choice in any situation even if it can be very difficult. Revenge does not equate justice. I’ll let you guys contemplate about this quote:

The movie shows that there are underlying reasons why people do things. We often do not have the full picture and should try to judge less and be more forgiving as our judgment is usually not fair. In the original story of Sleeping Beauty, we only hear how the fairy who cursed Sleeping Beauty was “evil” and Sleeping Beauty was victimised by her. However, by telling the story from the antagonist’s point of view, we can completely empathise with Maleficent and understand why she did what she did. Being the unenlightened beings we are, which of us wouldn’t be blinded by hate and revenge if we were as hurt as deeply as she was by Stefan? Having said that, this also shows how when we are angry or hurt, our perception is also twisted. Maleficent took years to realise how innocent and loveable Aurora was unlike her father, to the point that she decided to revoke her curse and was desperate to help Aurora when she realised she could not do so.

You guys may have thought of the last point – that romantic love may not be true love and vice versa. Stefan turned out to be merely using Maleficent and did not love her. True love is to really care for and be there for another; Maleficent was the one who broke her own curse because she genuinely cared for Aurora. This idea can be applied to anyone, especially in relationships. It is a pity that some couples go into a relationship in a hurry for their own self image, excitement, being completely infatuated with the person etc. I feel that partners should really stand by and help each other through the ups and downs, and have to recognise each other’s strengths as well as weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Pfft, stop chuckling :/

Ok it’s the end of this post. For subsequent posts I shall be writing on some more recent stuff including Disney movies.

- Pei Si

Tangled – More Than Just the Hair :P

Hi everyone! This is the Disney season for I’m writing about another Disney movie, Tangled! This is because I find that Disney movies usually have really nice meanings behind them, and they are easy to follow and entertaining. Well if you have any movie or genre requests, feel free to type a comment under the post.

If you haven’t watched it, here’s a short synopsis.

After receiving the healing powers from a magical flower, the baby Princess Rapunzel is kidnapped from the palace in the middle of the night by Mother Gothel. Mother Gothel knows that the flower’s magical powers are now growing within the golden hair of Rapunzel, and to stay young, she must lock Rapunzel in her hidden tower. Rapunzel is now a teenager and her hair has grown to a length of 70-feet. The beautiful Rapunzel has been in the tower her entire life, and she is curious of the outside world. One day, the bandit Flynn Rider scales the tower and is taken captive by Rapunzel. Rapunzel strikes a deal with the charming thief to act as her guide to travel to the place where the floating lights come from that she has seen every year on her birthday. Rapunzel is about to have the most exciting and magnificent journey of her life. (Taken from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0398286/plotsummary)

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

In this movie, there are three main takeaway points. They are our fear of death, acceptance of the way things are and that people have inherent good in them.

The fear of death was the driving force for Gothel. She used the golden flower, and later kidnapped Rapunzel due to her fear of dying; her desire to live forever. We can see how unrealistic and poisonous her desire was; especially when she eventually died. However, her fear of death is something we can see in ourselves; the prospect of not existing is terrifying because we are so attached to things in this life. Thus we should reflect on this reality in order to come to terms with it and not deny it. One way which we can do this is by reflecting everyday if we were to die now, do we have any regrets? What have we done well and have not? One method that Ajahn Brahm uses is during walking meditation, with one step think “I will die” and the next, “that’s for sure” and repeat. You can refer to the post on “Gravity” for more insights on death. This video also offers some thought-provoking reflections on death.

Because Gothel desired so much to live, the King and Queen lost their daughter for 18 years while Rapunzel lived a lie being estranged from them. This highlights how when we become obsessed with a certain desire, in this case the desire to be immortal, we can end up using any means to fulfill it even at others’ expense. Hence we have to be mindful of our desires, and learn to let go of them when they are unrealistic. In life we cannot always get what we want; holding on to the desire as we wait for the things we want to happen or when we can’t get what we want causes suffering. The Third Noble Truth is that the cause of suffering is craving. Craving is like a black hole; there is no end to it. By recognizing that clinging onto it causes suffering we can slowly let go bit by bit.

Flynn was a wanted criminal, and he was to be sentenced to death. However his love for Rapunzel drove him to do much good. He fulfilled her wish to see the city lights, later chose to sacrifice himself when he was stabbed by cutting off her hair with healing qualities so that she would be freed from Gothel, and because of him she was reunited with her parents. It is touching how from seeing him as a criminal they wanted dead, the good in him turned them around to accept him as a son-in-law, and that the royal horse Maximus who initially went all out to arrest him decided to help him escape when he was brought to to the gallows in the castle. This shows how people may make mistakes due to circumstances and they go down the wrong path, but they have goodness in them. By just looking at their mistakes and bad points we are not making a fair judgment. When they do good, we may be so focused on their bad points we dismiss it, but it’s indeed something worth recognizing. By recognizing that people are not perfect but have their own goodness, even if we don’t see it now, we can be more forgiving towards them. Holding onto hate only brings ourselves suffering instead of solving problems, therefore forgiveness paves the way for more peace and goodwill among people.

These things are really not easy to do but by taking things step by step, we can slowly learn to see and accept things as they are, let go of our desires and forgive more easily. I still have a lot more to go, but can already see my progress in these areas. All the best to all of you too in cultivating peace and happiness :D

- Pei Si

Frozen – A Story of Acceptance

Hi everyone, for this week’s movie post, I’ll be writing about one of the most popular movies that came out at the end of last year, Frozen! Yup the movie with the really meaningful but (in my opinion) overrated hit, “Let It Go”.

If you haven’t watched the movie, here’s a short synopsis. WARNING: Spoilers ahead:

In the Kingdom of Arendelle, Princess Elsa has the power of freezing and creating ice and snow, and her younger sister Anna loves to play with her. When Elsa accidentally hits Anna on the head with her gift and almost kills her, their parents bring them to trolls that save Anna’s life and make her forget the ability of her sister. Elsa returns to the castle and maintain herself recluse in her room with fear of hurting Anna with her increasing power. Their parents die when their ship sinks in the ocean and three years later, the coronation of Elsa forces her to open the gates of her castle to celebrate with the people. Anna meets Prince Hans in the party and she immediately falls in love with him and decides to marry him. But Elsa does not accept the marriage and loses control of her powers freezing Arendelle. Elsa flees to the mountain and Anna teams up with the peasant Kristoff and his reindeer Sven and with the snowman Olaf to seek out Elsa. They find Elsa in her icy castle and she accidentally hits Anna in the heart; now only true love can save her sister from death.
(Taken from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629/plotsummary)
From the film, we can see that Elsa’s fear of unleashing her powers caused a lot of problems; she suppressed herself, grew distant from her sister, and eventually her powers were unintentionally released and caused the eternal winter. We can draw a parallel from this to real life. At times, we may be bent on suppressing and bottling up things within ourselves such as feelings and secrets; as we are afraid of what will happen if we unleash them. When she sang “Let It Go”, she finally felt free to unleash her powers. The point I want to raise here is that suppression is not the way to go; it eats us up inside and when we are able to let ourselves be we feel so released.
The movie also drives home the point that love is the way to heal. It turned out that Prince Hans did not love Anna; he was using her to take over Arendelle. He was about to kill Elsa (who escaped from the castle after he captured her) when Anna instinctively blocked the fatal blow as she froze. This turned out to be the act of true love that unfroze her. Subsequently, Elsa realised that the way to control her powers was through love and she was able to unfreeze Arendelle and use her powers to her advantage. In fact, this shows that her powers were not a bad thing in the first place; they were harmful at first because she perceived them to be. Similarly, many things that we may try to hide, such as a medical condition, may actually be neutral things; they are just a part of us. How we perceive them makes them what they are; we perceive them to be bad which causes us problems.

The movie is a reminder of how love and acceptance heals, and things may really not be as bad we make them out to be. Having said that, it can be very difficult to let go and accept things as we may strongly feel the need to suppress or hide some things. If we are able to, talking to a confidante may help give us another perspective on how not to take things so hard. How we can help ourselves is by cultivating metta, or loving kindness towards ourselves. On letting go, Venerable Hassapana shared this during her retreat, which is allowing things to be. It’s about recognising whatever situation you’re in; if you’re suppressing yourself, unable to let go. If you’re not feeling content with this state, acknowledge that too; accept whatever situation you’re in. By accepting things the way they are and not trying to control them, congratulations, you’ve started letting go! Doing metta meditation helps us develop a feeling of kindness; of love in our hearts. There are many ways to do this, and each person has their own preference.

This method was shared by Bhante Jag. Visualise a person whom you love; one who embraces you as you are like a friend or family member, or simply think of a happy memory such as a time you felt really peaceful. Visualise a light coming from that person or memory and entering your body eg through your heart. Then visualise the light filling your lungs etc; spreading through the rest of your body. If you’re able to fill your body with it, you can then radiate it out to beings around you, family and friends… and to all beings that exist.
Some insights Sister Bee Li shared with me are that we immediately have the urge to avoid the feelings. By watching where they manifest (e.g chest) and how they manifest (e.g. heaviness or tightness), the feelings becomes less mysterious and scary to us. We then know exactly what we are facing.
When you know the what, where and how, the next step is to accept that these feelings have arisen, the come at their own accord and will cease at their own accord. Resisting them will just generate further tension and aversion for the situation. Accepting on the other hand, will provide you with more emotional room to deal with the existing feelings that have arisen.
When you have acknowledged and accepted them, you could move on to watching them. This will need courage and patience, but can be gradually developed. Deal with what you can handle first and slowly move forward. When we are able to stay with feelings, we slowly learn their true nature. (How they rise, persist and fall, their origin and escape.) When we see for ourselves that they are impermanent, we get less overwhelmed by them.
Metta instructions
1. For each person you radiate to, find the sincerity in the following phrase
‘May I/ you be free from suffering, free from sickness, free from fear, free from anger and hatred, free from worry. May I/ you be calm, peaceful and happy.
2. Start by radiating to the self, then to the beings around, then beings in the north, north east, east, south east, south, south west, west, north west, above, below. Then:
i. Those that are close and dear to you
ii. Neutral
iii. Angry with you
Iv. You are angry with, dislike, hate etc.
Take things step by step, do what you can currently manage. I currently have difficulty developing metta towards myself let alone radiate it out, so don’t be disheartened! Good feelings may not come all the time, but every bit of effort goes a long way! Hope this is helpful and will post again soon!

– Pei Si

Animation in the 1960s – it’s a 101 dalmatians review!

Hi there! This week, I’ll be bringing you guys back to some of the classic films which i remember seeing in the past. Instead of the normal film-acting type of movie, i’ll be going into animation for this week’s topic and its none other than the 1961 disney classic, 101 dalmatians! Not as well-known as its princess films, but still really well-made with many engaging details in it. I definitely recommend that you guys give this a shot even after my little review, it’s a really nice little watch.

So for a short synopsis, 101 dalmatians is a story where a lovesick dog finds another dalmatian, somehow managing to get his owner entangled as well. They end up being together and have a couple of cute little puppies together. Unfortunately, like many other disney flicks, there’s your villain who takes them away (for a fur coat, oh the humanity) and their parents go on an epic journey to save them.

Along the way, well….it turns out that making a fur coat out of dalmatians requires more than a single litter, so there are many more other puppies being kidnapped as well. So begins the adventure of 101 dalmatians. Now, me choosing this particular movie does seem kind of weird, I want to point out some key pointers which I felt is relevant to things which we can apply in our everyday life. First up, i would like to point out how when several animals discover that there were so many puppies hidden away, they never hesitated to plan to help out these puppies despite how the original plan was to rescue the 15 of them.   Sometimes, we tend to be too focused in only looking out for those who are related to us, since there’s a real, tangible value to it. Why should we be involved with things which doesn’t bring us any direct positive feelings? Who are all these people who we do not have any connection too?

However, in this little gem, we do see all of these animals doing their best – because they’re all in need of help, that little assistance to help them up. Although all of these animals are not in the same predicament as their doggy counterparts, it isn’t necessary for one to have the same circumstances to sympathise and help out as much as possible.

Admittedly, it is pretty tough to maintain this type of attitude, especially in tough situations. However, through constant practice such as CIP events and having positive feedback from one another through groups such as BF (only one such example, there are many out there!), it is possible to eventually develop a habit of having empathy for the less fortunate and suffering around us so that we are able to help out those in need.

That’s it for this week. Also, i’m happy to tell you guys that Pei Si and I will be writing more of these articles! She’ll be bringing in a new perspective. I hope that you guys will enjoy more of our work together in the months to come.

- Wei Xing

Gravity – A movie about space, the unknown and how much it can consume us.

Hi there! For my first post in this blog, i’ll be talking about a movie which recently ended its run a few months ago, Gravity! For those of you who have seen it, I hope that you can still sort of remember it. If not, there’s always the helpful short synopsis of the film.

Gravity stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in a heart-pounding thriller that pulls you into the infinite and unforgiving realm of deep space. Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (Clooney). But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone – tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth and any chance for rescue. As fear turns to panic, every gulp of air eats away at what little oxygen is left. But the only way home may be to go further out into the terrifying expanse of space.

Yep! Despite the scary-sounding description, it’s a really well-executed movie where the narrative maintains the horror of space throughout the movie. Sandra bullock does a marvellous job (given that she takes up a majority of the film roll). For a movie to base it’s entire basis in ‘literally nothing’, there’s plenty of drama and tension throughout the movie. But for obvious reasons, I won’t be going into a full-fledged review (through i would love to).

Instead, I would like to look into a constant theme that the movie has repeatedly hammered home – Fear.

Fear is the thing that freaks out our protagonist and causes her to panic constantly throughout the film. Unsurprisingly, the film constantly emphasises on the incredibly surreal feeling of being in an alien place with its own beauty in it (i swear that the film really does a marvellous job in its special effects) but with all that dramatic flair/music to remind you that yes, the human body can be so fragile where a small piece of debris can kill you.

Now, it may seem like a bit of a stretch, but the idea that death is so close and how we normally react to it has some buddhist connection. As buddhism constantly reminds us, death is bound to come for us, so why is there the need to cling on desperately and react in distress when we come into such close proximity with it?

Because of our lack of preparedness. Of course, it’s very easy to say ‘i’ll be aware of it – to be prepared for it’. But why worry about something that appears to be so far away, especially since our sun is rising? (Most of us youngsters experience this feeling, me included). It’s really easy to lose track of that particular goal when you have little to keep you motivated on the path.

That brings me back to the movie which i was talking about. As i previously mentioned, the movie constantly strives to make us invested in the fate of our protagonist, as well as the fear involved. On a larger scale, we watch many different types of media where lives are at stake – Captain Philips and Hunger games come to mind. Why is there a difference in the way we perceive things, in the way where we do not mind when fear affects us?

The Buddha’s teachings are important in realizing that we are flawed in differentiating emotions as they affect us in different ways. As part of the 6 senses which arise and fall, they are all non-lasting in the way that they affect us. Whether it be fear, happiness or being satisfied in anything, these emotions can cloud our emotions and drive us to do things which we never expect ourselves to commit. This brings into mind the Gandhabhaka (Bhadraka) Sutta where the Buddha talks to Gandhabhaka the headman about the origin of stress. In the sutta discussion, it is revealed that most of Gandhabhaka’s stress came from his emotional attachment to many of his worldly concerns.

In wrapping up this week’s short review, I would like to highlight that many of these emotions are not necessarily bad. It is ultimately important to do what the Buddha has always consulted us to do – follow the middle lane instead of extremes. Looking at things from their context would help to make us much happier in a much more sustainable ways. May we all find our way in life and not ‘drift’ through it!

Next week, we’ll be taking a look at some of the more recent stuff going on.

- Wei Xing