The Buddhism is an ancient and well-known doctrine which has been adopted by many different cultures and has undergone diverse interpretations. Seen by some as a religion, others as philosophy, even as psychotherapy, Buddhism calls to search for the fundamental answers of human existence, including the life purpose, the notions of harmony, nirvana, and omnipresent suffering (National Buddhist Authority Srilanka, 2011). The BBC documentary introduces these core notions, as well as presents the story of Buddha itself, highlighting the core insights and ideas of Buddhism knowledge.
The documentary has vastly helped me to gain a better understanding of the Buddhism philosophy and comprehension of the world in general. It urged to rethink the perception of suffering and life itself, helping to assert the attitude which would ensure inner harmony and peace. Many consider the modern world ruthless and cruel, full of inescapable suffering, dissatisfaction and pain, seeing no solution. The Buddha's quest for answers, though, as the documentary illustrates, reaffirms that a solution to suffering can be accessible absolutely to everyone (National Buddhist Authority Srilanka , 2011). I wouldn’t consider my personal experience as notably bitter or painful – I haven’t been raised in hardships or surrounded by extreme discrimination or hatred – however, I am sure that each of us has the wounds which are hard to heal, and I am not an exception to that. Encountering and facing the suffering is, however, what defines us as human beings, and what makes us rethink whether the way we perceive the world around us is a proper one.
According to Buddha, we can remove dissatisfaction and suffering from our lives if we remove desire (National Buddhist Authority Srilanka, 2011). This profound statement led me to recall the situations from my past and reconsider them. Asking myself a question of whether the desires led to dissatisfaction with the life proved the accuracy of the claim. All in all, many of our experiences depend on our expectations. We are often so self-obsesses that we come to forget how to be thankful, taking anything which is given to us for granted. The lack of something, in turn, leads to dissatisfaction and suffering, which we impose on us ourselves by our self-indulging motifs. Thereby what I understood from the film is that to accept rather than to expect may be a key to lock our suffering.
Works Cited
National Buddhist Authority Srilanka. “The Life Of The Buddha Full BBC Documentary”.
Online Video Clip, YouTube, 11 December 2011. Web. 28 January 2018.
