The Godfather and Buddhism

In my last post, I illustrated the ideas of Stoicism found in the movie "Arrival." Since movies are kind of my niche, I will continue along with this format.

The 1970 movie "The Godfather" follows Michael Corleone, the youngest of four siblings, as he takes on the mantle of the mafia family his father leaves behind.

Michael was the family's "good boy." He went to college, he joined the Marine Corp, and he was straight laced, with a good life ahead of him.

However, after an assassination attempt on his dad leads to him being thrust into power over the entire mafia family. He leads his family to victory in the ensuing gang war.

However, as the movie progresses, we begin to see the straight laced Michael fade away, as his desire for more money, power, and influence grows. Throughout the movie, we see him grow farther and farther apart from his family and farther away from being the honorable and kind person he was at the beginning of the movie. In essence, just like the Buddhist preach, we see his desire lead to suffering, for him, and his family.

"Arrival" and Stoicism

The 2016 movie "Arrival" staring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner is by far one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. From the story, to the cinematography, to the music, everything about that movie is near perfect in my book. In addition to those things, it also has one of the best plot twists of the 21st century, rivaling even the works of M. Night Shyamalan, and this plot twist and it's consequences help reveal some of the philosophical insights of the movie.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*Seriously, go watch the movie if you haven't. It's two hours, and you'll love it. Please don't ruin the movie for yourself by reading ahead.

So, essentially, "Arrival" is an alien movie like no other. The main character, Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is a linguistics professor and works alongside Dr. Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), an astrophysicist, to communicate with aliens who have recently landed on Earth. As the movie progresses, and Lousie begins to understand the alien's written language, she begins to have flashbacks about her daughter Hannah, who we know from an opening scene to have died of cancer.

Basically, Louise realizes their written language is peculiar in the fact that it has no beginning and no end- it's circular. She remarks that to write in "heptapod", the alien language, one must understand time in a nonlinear fashion, since you'd need to know the beginning and end of each sentence simultaneously before writing. As she learns more of the written language, flashbacks of her daughter begin increasing until she finally asks the aliens "who is the girl?"

That's when the audience, and Louise herself, realizes that they weren't flashbacks. They were flash forwards. Her mastery of the alien language allows her to perceive time as they do: non-linearly.

So Louise can see the future. How does this relate to Stoicism? I'm getting there.

Louise begins to become conscious everything that will happen in her life because of the way she now perceives time. She sees that she will marry Ian, and they will raise a beautiful daughter named Hannah. She also, however, sees that Ian will leave her and her daughter will parish at a young age.

Her reaction to this newfound knowledge is what makes her somewhat of a Stoic. The fact she knows what will happen doesn't change the fact that she still has no control over these external events. Just like the stoics say, Louise realizes every hand she will be dealt, good and bad, but what matters is how she chooses to play every hand. She chooses to enjoy her time with her husband and child despite the fact she knows one day it'll all be gone.

Another principle of Stoicism that applies here is the fact that stoics believed that it was the pursuit of the "preferred indifferences" of marriage, friendship and motherhood that mattered, not necessarily the success of said pursuit. For Louise, she knew, in the end, that her husband would leave her and that her daughter would die. But that didn't stop her from pursing those preferred behaviors.

She knew the cards before they were dealt, but she still reacted rationally, pursuing love, friendship, and motherhood even though she knew fate had different plans. And for that, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius would be proud.

Tool and Laozi

One of my favorite bands is Tool (recording a new album, apparently) and one of my favorites from their albums is title track from "Lateralus". The song has interesting resonances with the idea of wu wei (or non-action) as expressed in the Dao De Jing.

Wu wei literally means "without action", but it does not really mean to do nothing, sitting on the couch and letting the world pass you by.  Instead, it is a way of being in the world, contributing to development and flow of things, without excessive thinking or control of the situation.  Many poems in the Dao De Jing explore this idea--we need to open ourselves up to the depth of the situation as it is, not only so that we can experience it fully, but also so that we can respond in the best and most productive way.  Laozi urges us to "cultivate emptiness" (Dao De Jing 16, trans. Addiss and Lombardo) so that we can be open to the experience as it is happening.  Rather than imposing our own expectations and desires, we encounter life's mystery (Dao De Jing 1).  As Laozi explains,

"Things grow and grow,

But each goes back to its root.

Going back to the root is stillness.

This means returning to what is.

Returning to what is

Means going back to the ordinary.

...

Understanding the ordinary: Mind opens.

Mind opening leads to compassion,

Compassion to nobility,

Nobility to heavenliness,

Heavenliness to the Way." (Dao De Jing 16)

Similarly, Tool's song "Lateralus" begins by taking us back to the root of our humanity--the experience of a baby:

Black

Then

White are

All I see

In my infancy

Red and yellow then came to be

Reaching out to me

Lets me see

The baby's experience of the world begins with basic black and white, no colors, with no definite understanding of the shapes and forms and objects she is seeing.  But colors and objects begin to arise, the experience "reaching out" to the baby's developing mind.

But the chorus of the song describes a problem:

Over-thinking, over-analyzing separates the body from the mind.

Withering my intuition, leaving opportunities behind.

The baby is purely receptive, learning, growing, engaging the world with playful spontaneity. But as adults, we lose the attitude of wu wei.  We desire to understand, to control, and to effect the results that we expect and want.  Unlike the baby, who experiences unmediated reality, we over-think and categorize until we cannot react in an intuitive, embodied way any longer (see Dao De Jing 2).

The song's climax expresses a wish for a different kind of relationship:

Feed my will to feel this moment urging me to cross the line.

Reaching out to embrace the random.

Reaching out to embrace whatever may come.

I embrace my desire to

I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected

Enough to step aside and weep like a widow

To feel inspired, to fathom the power,

To witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain,

To swing on the spiral, to swing on the spiral,

To swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human.

In the mindset of wu wei, you don't impose upon experience.  You reach out and embrace it, taking in whatever comes. You feel its rhythm, weep, dance, breathe in the beauty that life has to offer.  You can do this only when you disengage your will to categorization and control.

I'm reaching up and reaching out.

I'm reaching for the random or whatever will bewilder me.

Whatever will bewilder me.

And following our will and wind

We may just go where no one's been.

We'll ride the spiral to the end

And may just go where no one's been.

Being bewildered, losing control, not understanding--these are components of a deep experience.  As Laozi says

I have the mind of a fool,

Confused, Confused.

Others are bright and intelligent,

I alone am dull, dull,

Drifting on the ocean,

Blown about endlessly.

Others have plans,

I alone am wayward and stubborn,

I alone am different from others,

Like a baby in the womb. (Dao De Jing 20)

So we return to where we began--the baby.  I have often puzzled about this poem in the Dao De Jing.  Why is good to be confused, dull, wayward?  But Tool's song puts poem 20 into context:  It's often a good sign that you are bewildered and confused about life.  It's evidence that you are truly experiencing it.