What is Dharma?

From DharmaflixWiki

Dharma: all-that-is is questionable, even as a question.

What is Dharma? This question itself has a big problem though. For Dharma is not a what. So, who is Dharma? Well unfortunately Dharma is not a who either. Is there even a way to formulate the question? Not apparently in English. This leaves us with an enormous paradox, for we must maintain this question of Dharma at all times, a question which we cannot frame in our language. Why must we hold this question of questions in our minds at all times? To get the answer of course. No answer with no question! You have to play to win.

Is there any hint, any help for those seeking that which all these films should be about? The term "Dharma" not only stands for that for which we cannot formulate a question, but also for all the expressions of Dharma, the attempts to formulate either a description or a pointing to, or a how-to manual. Well perhaps Dharma can be described, but that description will not elicit Dharma. Very likely the description itself will be a distraction from Dharma itself. Thought itself is a subtle obstruction to Dharma. Yet we revere those who can give us expressions of Dharma, for how is the question of Dharma to arise within us, if no one provides the smoke that suggests the fire? We must see through to the fire of Dharma without being blinded by the smoke or inhaling too much of it. We have all heard of the wonderful adage of Zen that suggests expressions of Dharma are like fingers pointing to the moon.

So the flix of Dharma should be like fingers pointing to the moon. And, in the best of all possible visions, each film might be this way. But most of these films have a humbler function. Buddhism has what are called vehicles, rides to convey one along the path. The vehicles are understood in terms of base, fruit, and path; or where I am now, where I want to go, and how am I to get there. The first vehicle is called Sutra, and likely all of us beginning on the path will begin our sojourn there. The base is where our head should be at, to start the path. Where should our head be at to begin our Buddhist sojourn? Getting the head right is what these films should provide in large measure.

So where should your head be at? You should be suspicious. The base of sutra is suspicion… suspicion. Suspicion about…? The films must be a gate to arousing your suspicion. I don't want to say much here, maybe just a little. You should be suspicious about ... the very nature of Reality itself, or what you take to be Reality itself. For almost all of us, Reality is thought and therefore experienced to be me, and everything around me - the things and people and gods I know and like, don't know and don't like or know or don't know and couldn't care less about. Buddhism basically says that our everyday Reality, as we ordinarily perceive it, is a ship of fools. And we don't even know that we ride on this ship! How foolish is that, if it turns out to be true? No one wants to be a fool and yet cultivating the unpleasant sense that I might be, could be very helpful. But Buddhism also promises that we can escape the ship of fools and by doing so help others escape too. We can begin by cultivating the base of sutra. What is that base?

Suspicion. So many of these films should encourage each of us to be suspicious of the very nature of Reality itself. I take the Matrix film series, notwithstanding all its violence, to be a paradigmatic case of a Dharma film, for taken seriously it should scare the bejeesus out of you. Like Plato's Myth of the Cave, The Matrix should make you suspicious... suspicious of everything...every last thing.

May your suspicion lead you on the path.

Works of art by Fernando Casas