Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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gavesako
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Re: Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

Post by gavesako »

This is quite a detailed analysis of the story and some philosophical implications:

Reality and Perception in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas
by Mark Woodring


David Mitchell’s postmodern exploration of perception and its influence on reality, the story within a story (within a story…) Cloud Atlas. Mitchell combines six distinct narratives in an interlaced storyline, nesting each section within the others, each section directly referencing the one preceding it while also hinting those that lie ahead.
Whether revolutionary or gimmicky, this presentation of intertwined narratives demonstrates that human reality is not determined by actuality or factuality, but rather by the perception of events and how those perceptions are presented and interpreted. Cloud Atlas clearly demonstrates the fragility of reality, which is manipulated both by perception – eyewitnesses – and by time...
The idea that an individual’s perception can be made to change by forces outside of themselves, regardless of how much time elapses between the event and the individual perceiving it, is both a powerful and disturbing one. The idea is very explicit here: what we see, or hear, or read, is always what we get, but may not be what actually was. When our interpretation of the world is dependent on information not directly ours, we must accept that the resulting perception of reality is not accurate.
The use of the phrase “elastic moment” reinforces the idea of the fluidity of time and perception, and the idea that the “ends” disappear “into the past and the future” is another method of shifting our perspective. Here, the past and future that are the beginning and ending of the novel, both adrift on a ship in a more primitive time than those eras related between them. By completing this circle of time and events, the “ends” of time disappear into one another, which drives us to examine the cyclical nature of the realities of the novel.
In “An Orison of Sonmi-451,” Mitchell presents a bleak future in which cloned workers called fabricants perform various undesirable tasks for humanity while being kept in a mentally oblivious state designed to keep them from questioning the system in which they serve. Because their owners control the clones memories, they rob them of unique experiences, leaving them with no past and with only hope for a future. That future is solely dependent on what the masters of their society grant to them and is based solely the information provided by them. When pressed by Sonmi about his role in the charade that is her trial, it is the archivist who ironically makes the most telling declaration yet about the fluidity of perception and history: “A duplicitous archivist wouldn’t be much use to future historians” (Mitchell 189). The young archivist never stops to consider that an archivist could be loyal to something other than the truth of an event. This is the fallacy of recorded history. Since future history is dependent solely on what is recorded in the present and on its recorder, how can we believe anything, much less know it, to be accurate? The Utopia that all societies hope to achieve exists only as an idea, living among the virtual past and future, but becoming lost among the actual.
Clearly, then, what we see in Cloud Atlas is an interrogation of the accuracy of reality, specifically due to man’s tendency, consciously or unconsciously, to mold it to conform to his current needs or expectations. As a result, no version of reality is able to function as anything but a story which may or may not be accurate to any significant degree.
Or put more simply: “does it matter?” That answer can only be: no, for regardless of the reality in which we find ourselves, virtual or actual, it is the reality in which we find ourselves, and is thus the reality in which we must live. Fenced in by perception’s assumptions and assertions, we can only act on what we believe we know. All other action is irrelevant.

http://faculty.weber.edu/vramirez/mark's6010.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Bhikkhu Gavesako
Kiṃkusalagavesī anuttaraṃ santivarapadaṃ pariyesamāno... (MN 26)

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Monkey Mind
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Re: Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

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JeffR wrote:I just did a search for the book/movie at my local county library: 45 copies of the book and there is a waiting list of 431 requests. Clearly in demand. They don't have the movie.
Jeff, the movie is playing in theaters now. It will be awhile before it comes to your local library.
"As I am, so are others;
as others are, so am I."
Having thus identified self and others,
harm no one nor have them harmed.

Sutta Nipāta 3.710
sanblvd
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Re: Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

Post by sanblvd »

This is such an epic movie, this is actually the reason that brought me here to learn more.

For those that uses bit torrent, you can already find this on blueray quality download with subtitles.
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gavesako
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Re: Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

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Cloud Atlas’ Postmodern Take On Freedom


“All boundaries are conventions, waiting to be transcended,” intones one of Cloud Atlas’ ubiquitous voiceovers. It sounds trite or, worse, meaningless, a point the film’s harsher critics have delighted in making. But for all of Cloud Atlas‘ bombastic presentation, its actual argument is a subtle meditation on the tortured relationship between power and emancipation, one that marries two seemingly inconsistent approaches to the world into a novel notion of human freedom. That the film dunks this argument in a vat of sentimentality obscures the point, but it’s there. And it’s entrancing.

If this analysis of power sounds familiar, that’s because it’s straight out of influential social theorist Michel Foucault’s work. Foucault’s mantra is that “power is fluid,” by which he means that it’s a mistake to think that force, constraint, and privilege are the only avenues to change the world. In his view, the power to change the world can be found anywhere; those who seem beaten down often have unexpected and unpredictable ways to turn the tables. But there’s a dark side as well — because power (understood as the ability to direct the behavior of others) is everywhere in human interactions, it also can constrain those who believe themselves to be free. Methods of domination, for Foucault, can often be as unexpected and invisible as opportunities for freedom.
Foucault’s understanding of power is nearly omnipresent in Cloud Atlas; many of the stories critically involve finding power in unexpected places.

Human nature is at its core a desire to be free. Cloud Atlas represents this abstract idea quite literally, by taking six stories involving people of different races, classes, and genders, and making every hero’s quest about freeing themselves and others from bondage and oppression.

So Cloud Atlas, then, is doing something quite ambitious – attempting to sympathize two competing strains of 20th century thought into one consistent strain; developing, in essence, a universal Foucaultian theory of human freedom, opposed by the declarations from Hugo Weaving’s various villains that “there is a natural order to things” where one group of people control the fates of the rest. That’s hardly the intellectually anemic film some critics would have you think!

http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/11 ... n-freedom/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Sonmi-451 and Yoona-939, born into slave labor, limited to service, and destined for a future in which they’re recycled as meat, are genuinely oppressed in a way that and by means of technology Cavendish couldn’t possibly imagine. Asserting their humanity takes courage he never could have mustered.
A cloned servant who’s been raised with the maxim “Honor thy consumer” as the first commandment that governs her life, Sonmi-451′s world is radically expanded first by her colleague, who shows her the fragment of the movie based in Timothy Cavendish’s life, and then by Chang, who takes her away from the restaurant that’s been the center of her world, giving her clothes of the kind reserved for humans born through biological means, and even more importantly, the opportunity to learn. “Knowledge is a mirror, and for the first time in my life, I was allowed to see who I was and who I might become,” she says.
The closest Cloud Atlas comes to an argument about the purpose of these reincarnations is a suggestion that many of us are working towards personal and social liberation, while a few remain tragically and influentially resistant to change.

http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/10 ... oud-atlas/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



About halfway through the epically-long (and straining epic) movie, a character played by Jim Broadbent off-handedly says the line, “Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.” It’s a nice little, easy to overlook piece of dialogue, and considering the entirety of the film, with its plot is set across five time periods, loosely telling the story of a recurring moral choice reenacted by a number of individuals played by the same recurring actors – a kind of reincarnation metaphor straight out of central casting – it is an appropriate bit of dialogue. After all, in the moment Broadbent’s character Timothy Cavendish is trying to begin his life “afresh, afresh, afresh,” sneaking up on the home of a lover from his youth he let get away. And in the wider context of the film, all of these characters, in one way or another, are searching for new beginnings. They all run up against the same obstacle: oppression loosely write, and manifested alternatively as slavery; homophobic bigotry; a corporate conspiracy; a nasty, vindictive family member teamed up with a health institution; a dystopian, Orwellian government; and a Darwinian, primordial social order set in a post- apocalyptic future.

http://frontrow.dmagazine.com/2012/10/m ... hievement/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Cloud Atlas and Essential Human Nature

Some films beg to be discussed philosophically. But many of these films are dismissed by professional philosophers as pseudo-philosophy.
The filmmakers are rejecting what is called gender and racial “essentialism” in favor of the view that gender and race are “social constructions” – not surprising given the fact that one of the filmmakers is transgendered.

This is all pretty standard queer theory, which makes use of the postmodern method of deconstruction. And, yes, Cloud Atlas is postmodern, despite its claim to objective truth. In the novel one character responds to a query about her “version of the truth”, by saying “truth is singular. Its ‘versions’ are mistruths” (p. 185). Another character affirms that “the true true is diff’rent to the seemin’ true” (p. 274). This sounds like an odd thing for a postmodernist to say, but, contrary to popular belief, postmodernism is not all about rejecting truth claims; it is fundamentally about the pursuit of justice, which deconstructs power plays that mask themselves as truth claims.

Film critics have been stumped trying to follow the different characters played by the same actors in an attempt to discern some pattern of progress across the stories. But the point is that there is no progress. Human nature is unchangeable. Cloud Atlas argues that we may try to “civilize” ourselves and adopt new technologies in the name of “progress”, even eventually acquiring the ability to genetically alter our bodies and create “fabricant” clones, but we can never leave behind the (fallen) human nature of the will to power.

http://christianthought.hbu.edu/2012/10 ... an-nature/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Three-View Review: Cloud Atlas Swirls With Ambition

How ambitious is Cloud Atlas, the cinematic adaptation of David Mitchell’s 2004 novel that weaves together six seemingly unrelated stories from across space and time? The film spans the globe — and multiple centuries, from the 1800s to the distant future — as it unreels its cosmic message of interconnectedness.



http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/10/ ... as-review/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Postmodernist Intertextuality in David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas


Martina Hrubes, Thesis (M.A.), 2008, 129 Pages

Introduction
The title of this study is “Postmodernist Intertextuality in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas” and is based on the following hypotheses:
1. There is a particular kind of intertextuality specific to postmodernist literature that differs from previous uses of intertextual references.
2. Postmodernist intertextuality is deconstructive, self-reflexive and critical of Western hegemonic discourses and metanarratives.
3. This specific kind of intertextuality is a key element of postmodernist art.

http://www.grin.com/en/e-book/94473/pos ... loud-atlas" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:reading:
Bhikkhu Gavesako
Kiṃkusalagavesī anuttaraṃ santivarapadaṃ pariyesamāno... (MN 26)

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mirco
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Re: Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

Post by mirco »

In my opinion, if a Bhikkhu starts recommending media with no obviously Buddhist contents, something is really going wrong.

What's wrong about teaching Dhamma with not more than some simple analogies instead of advancing dilution?

Regards :-)
Last edited by mirco on Sun Dec 30, 2012 2:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
Yana
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Re: Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

Post by Yana »

http://entertainment.time.com/2012/12/2 ... le-movies/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Voted the Most Terrible Movie of the Year..jeez..some people just "don't get it".

sooo narrow minded.Putting movies like Twilight as great hits.

Read the comments also!Most people agree it's a great movie!
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Re: Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

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mirco wrote:I believe, when a Bhikkhu starts recommending media with no obviously Buddhist contents, something really really is going wrong.

What's wrong about teaching Dhamma without non-Buddhist crap?

Regards :-)
well that's just it ..the Dhamma (True nature of existence) doesn't belong to Buddhism,Religion or any other crap.

It's everywhere.

And when we have enough discernment we can see it like Bhikku here.Thank you Bhikku :anjali:
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Re: Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

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I would propose to see Cloud Atlas as a "modern Jataka tale" fulfilling very much the same purpose as the birth stories have done in popular Buddhism over many centuries: showing how good and bad deeds create a kind of karmic resonance which bind individuals together in positive and negative ways in successive lifetimes. This is the widely shared outlook on life in Buddhist cultures, a context that is largely missing in our Western culture.

Some quotes from the book:
“Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, and though a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud and so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud's blow from or who the soul'll be tomorrow?"
- The pivotal part of the book missed out in the Cloud Atlas movie. (Read citta for "soul".)

"This world spins from the same unseen forces that twist our hearts." (Kammuna vattati loko - The world is led by action.)

“If losers can exploit what their adversaries teach them, yes, losers can become winners in the long term.”

"Freedom, the fatuous jingle of our civilization. But only those deprived of it know the very inkling of what it really is."

"The world will do business with dictators, perverts, and drug barons of all stripes, but being slowed down it cannot abide."

"True, all true, but they got somethin' else. A hunger in their hearts, a hunger that's stronger than all their Smart. A hunger for more..."

“... in a cycle as old as tribalism, ignorance of the Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence; violence engenders further violence until the only "rights", the only law, are whatever is willed by the most powerful.”
Bhikkhu Gavesako
Kiṃkusalagavesī anuttaraṃ santivarapadaṃ pariyesamāno... (MN 26)

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daverupa
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Re: Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

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“Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, and though a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud and so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud's blow from or who the soul'll be tomorrow?"
- The pivotal part of the book missed out in the Cloud Atlas movie. (Read citta for "soul".)

---

is this saying that it is just this citta that runs and wanders on, not another?
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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gavesako
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Re: Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

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The purpose of Jataka-type stories is to emphasize continuity and the fact that "we are the owners of our kamma, heirs to our kamma". This kind of narrative-objectification is used by the Buddha in some contexts when he discusses the ethical aspect of action. (There are Suttas which say things like "The mind well developed in virtue, after the body breaks up, will rise upwards to the heaven world.") But in other contexts, such as dependent arising, he goes beyond this kind of objectification and does not speak of any entity which acts or receives results of actions.
Bhikkhu Gavesako
Kiṃkusalagavesī anuttaraṃ santivarapadaṃ pariyesamāno... (MN 26)

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mirco
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Re: Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

Post by mirco »

gavesako wrote:I would propose to see Cloud Atlas as a "modern Jataka tale" fulfilling very much the same purpose as the birth stories have done in popular Buddhism over many centuries: showing how good and bad deeds create a kind of karmic resonance which bind individuals together in positive and negative ways in successive lifetimes. This is the widely shared outlook on life in Buddhist cultures, a context that is largely missing in our Western culture.
For me that seems a bit too far-fetched. If there at least would be any cross reference at all to Buddhism literally. But thus... no one leaves the cinema thinking, "ahhh, that's what the Buddhas teachings are about."

Bowing to the Robes,
:-|
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Re: Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

Post by daverupa »

So, are jataka-type tales saying that it is this citta which runs and wanders on & not another?
  • "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting oneself one protects others? By the pursuit, development, and cultivation of the four establishments of mindfulness. It is in such a way that by protecting oneself one protects others.

    "And how is it, bhikkhus, that by protecting others one protects oneself? By patience, harmlessness, goodwill, and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself.

- Sedaka Sutta [SN 47.19]
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gavesako
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Re: Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

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The way that the 6 stories of Cloud Atlas are interwoven and how certain animosities between the characters seem to continue life after life is very much like the narrative structure of the Jataka tales (which according to scholars are not particularly "Buddhist" in themselves, they are part of ancient Indian folklore):

Anathapindika raised his clasped hands to his forehead, praised the Buddha, and asked him to tell that story of the past.

"In order to dispel the world's ignorance and to conquer suffering," the Buddha proclaimed, "I practiced the Ten Perfections for countless aeons. Listen carefully, and I will speak."

Having their full attention, the Buddha made clear, as though he were releasing the full moon from behind clouds, what rebirth had concealed from them.

Long, long ago, when Brahmadatta was reigning in Baranasi, the Bodhisatta was born into a merchant's family and grew up to be a wise trader. At the same time, in the same city, there was another merchant, a very stupid fellow, with no common sense whatsoever.
One day it so happened that the two merchants each loaded five hundred carts with costly wares of Baranasi and prepared to leave in the same direction at exactly the same time. The wise merchant thought, "If this silly young fool travels with me and if our thousand carts stay together, it will be too much for the road. Finding wood and water for the men will be difficult, and there won't be enough grass for the oxen. Either he or I must go first."
...

Just as the merchant had predicted, his caravan soon came upon the five hundred carts with the skeletons of men and oxen strewn in every direction. He ordered his men to arrange his carts in a fortified circle, to take care of the oxen, and to prepare an early supper for themselves. After the animals and men had all safely bedded down, the merchant and his foremen, swords in hand, stood guard all through the night.

At daybreak the merchant replaced his own weak carts for stronger ones and exchanged his own common goods for the most costly of the abandoned merchandise. When he arrived at his destination, he was able to barter his stock of wares at two or three times their value. He returned to his own city without losing a single man out of all his company.

This story ended, the Buddha said, "Thus it was, laymen, that in times past, the foolish came to utter destruction, while those who clung to the truth escaped from the yakkhas' hands, reached their goal in safety, and returned to their homes again.
"This clinging to the truth not only endows happiness even up to rebirth in the Realm of Brahma,[3] but also leads ultimately to Arahantship. Following untruth entails rebirth either in the four states of punishment or in the lowest conditions of mankind." After the Buddha had expounded the Four Truths, those five hundred disciples were established in the Fruit of the First Path.

The Buddha concluded his lesson by identifying the Birth as follows: "The foolish young merchant was Devadatta,[4] and his men were Devadatta's followers. The wise merchant's men were the followers of the Buddha, and I myself was that wise merchant."

Apannaka Jataka: Crossing the Wilderness (Jat 1)
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/auth ... bl135.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Just as in Cloud Atlas, we see the never-ending struggle between good and evil in the Jatakas:

So that a disheartened bhikkhu would have no regrets in the future, the Buddha told him this story at Savatthi to encourage him to persevere. "If you give up your practice in this sublime teaching which leads to Nibbana," the Buddha told him, "you will suffer long, like the trader of Seriva who lost a golden bowl worth a hundred thousand pieces."

When asked to explain, the Buddha told this story of the distant past.
...

The frustrated trader could only stand there on the river-bank and watch his rival escape with the bowl. The sight so infuriated him that a fierce hate swelled up inside him. His heart grew hot, and blood gushed from his mouth. Finally, his heart cracked like the mud at the bottom of a pond dried up by the sun. So intense was the unreasoning hatred which he developed against the other trader because of the golden bowl, that he perished then and there.
The honest trader returned to Seriva, where he lived a full life spent in charity and other good works, and passed away to fare according to his deserts.

When the Buddha finished this story, he identified himself as the honest trader, and Devadatta as the greedy trader. This was the beginning of the implacable grudge which Devadatta held against the Bodhisatta through innumerable lives.

Serivavanija Jataka: The Traders of Seriva (Jat 3)

Some characters in Cloud Atlas, in particular Sonmi-451, have a strong spiritual and ethical side to them. In fact, she becomes revered by future generations as a prophet revealing the truth who also died for the truth. When asked about her belief in the afterlife, she says:
"I believe death is only a door. One closes, and another opens. If I were to imagine heaven, I would imagine a door opening. And he would be waiting for me there." - Sonmi 451

Now compare this to the Buddha's description in this Sutta:
Recollection of Past Lives

"With his mind thus concentrated, purified, and bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability, he directs and inclines it to knowledge of the recollection of past lives (lit: previous homes). He recollects his manifold past lives, i.e., one birth, two births, three births, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, one hundred, one thousand, one hundred thousand, many aeons of cosmic contraction, many aeons of cosmic expansion, many aeons of cosmic contraction and expansion, [recollecting], 'There I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure and pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose there. There too I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure and pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose here.' Thus he recollects his manifold past lives in their modes and details. Just as if a man were to go from his home village to another village, and then from that village to yet another village, and then from that village back to his home village. The thought would occur to him, 'I went from my home village to that village over there. There I stood in such a way, sat in such a way, talked in such a way, and remained silent in such a way. From that village I went to that village over there, and there I stood in such a way, sat in such a way, talked in such a way, and remained silent in such a way. From that village I came back home.' In the same way — with his mind thus concentrated, purified, and bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability — the monk directs and inclines it to knowledge of the recollection of past lives. He recollects his manifold past lives... in their modes and details.

"This, too, great king, is a fruit of the contemplative life, visible here and now, more excellent than the previous ones and more sublime.

The Passing Away & Re-appearance of Beings

"With his mind thus concentrated, purified, and bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability, he directs and inclines it to knowledge of the passing away and re-appearance of beings. He sees — by means of the divine eye, purified and surpassing the human — beings passing away and re-appearing, and he discerns how they are inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate in accordance with their kamma: 'These beings — who were endowed with bad conduct of body, speech, and mind, who reviled the noble ones, held wrong views and undertook actions under the influence of wrong views — with the break-up of the body, after death, have re-appeared in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the lower realms, in hell. But these beings — who were endowed with good conduct of body, speech, and mind, who did not revile the noble ones, who held right views and undertook actions under the influence of right views — with the break-up of the body, after death, have re-appeared in the good destinations, in the heavenly world.' Thus — by means of the divine eye, purified and surpassing the human — he sees beings passing away and re-appearing, and he discerns how they are inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate in accordance with their kamma. Just as if there were a tall building in the central square [of a town], and a man with good eyesight standing on top of it were to see people entering a house, leaving it, walking along the street, and sitting in the central square. The thought would occur to him, 'These people are entering a house, leaving it, walking along the streets, and sitting in the central square.' In the same way — with his mind thus concentrated, purified, and bright, unblemished, free from defects, pliant, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability — the monk directs and inclines it to knowledge of the passing away and re-appearance of beings. He sees — by means of the divine eye, purified and surpassing the human — beings passing away and re-appearing, and he discerns how they are inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate in accordance with their kamma...

"This, too, great king, is a fruit of the contemplative life, visible here and now, more excellent than the previous ones and more sublime.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
For more on the Jataka and multiple-life stories see this thread:
http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... 43&start=0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also this blog:
Jonathan Geen and Brian Black have been pioneers in the study of characters that cross the boundaries between South Asian religious traditions, and their introduction to this volume lays out the rationale for such study. They highlight four issues: (1) Stability: the impressive stability exhibited by characters that have multiple appearances; (2) Flexibility: the ability of characters to also be adapted or even inverted to make new points; (3) Inter-textuality: since the same characters appear in different texts, examining literary characters is a good way to explore connections and dialogue between traditions; (4) Demonstrability: the ability of characters to demonstrate (or, as Lindquist prefers, embody) a particular ideal or teaching.
http://storyofstoryinsouthasia.wordpres ... character/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Last edited by gavesako on Mon Jan 21, 2013 3:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Bhikkhu Gavesako
Kiṃkusalagavesī anuttaraṃ santivarapadaṃ pariyesamāno... (MN 26)

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Re: Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

Post by gavesako »

Mapping the Ineffable: The Nebulous Flow of History in David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas
BY RYAN REFT

If only we could have some sort of “never changing map of the ever constant ineffable?” Yet, would not such a map only be relevant for a brief moment? The ineffable maybe indescribable but is it fixed? In David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, souls flow across time and space inhabiting different physical bodies but encountering their spiritual counterparts repeatedly, revealing that our actions in the future might influence ours in the past. For Mitchell’s characters, time exists more as an abstract open space within which our spiritual selves flow backwards and forwards, often intertwining with others. Even the structure of the novel suggests that our linear progressive understanding of history may be flawed. Mitchell tells six different stories, in six different time periods, in six different genres, unfolding in ascending and then descending order, visiting each story twice except for the sixth which takes place in one sitting (think of it this way, the stories are told in this order: 1,2,3,4,5,6,5,4,3,2,1). Throughout, Mitchell’s characters experience not only deja vu from the past but also evoke feelings or memories from actions their souls commit in the future. If anything the future seems to disrupt the past as much as the opposite. ...
Clearly, Mitchell wants to challenge concepts of time, history, and reality. In his earlier novels, Mitchell frequently employed Joycean techniques to create dream like sequences in which discerning reality from fantasy proved difficult. Determining what is real in Cloud Atlas and what is “fiction” can be difficult. ...
If all this seems highly theoretical, it is. Mitchell’s skill lay in his ability to interweave these intricate ideas into a text that fluidly explores issues of time, reality, and collectivity. From a historian’s point of view, Mitchell’s world remains a troubling comment. The soul that each of these characters represents fights against various forms of subjugation. Though each character seems to recognize their apparent vulnerability, they nonetheless engage in acts that doom themselves but also their reincarnations to subservience. This permanence pushes back against historian’s belief in contingency. ...

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Bhikkhu Gavesako
Kiṃkusalagavesī anuttaraṃ santivarapadaṃ pariyesamāno... (MN 26)

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alan
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Re: Cloud Atlas - epic film about karma and reincarnation

Post by alan »

He's a good writer, but not without flaws. The middle chapter in Cloud Atlas, for example, is stylized to the point of unreadability. His last book was a failure. Brilliant guy, no doubt. But I see no reason to think of him as a Buddhist, or that he offers any new thoughts on the subject.
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