I caught the movie, “Groundhog Day,” the other night.
It’s billed as a romantic comedy starring Bill Murray.
[That’s the Bill Murray of “Saturday Night Live”
fame, not the Bill Murry of Meadville/Lombard fame.] Yet even small
children get the ethical message in it. As a child once said to me:
“He has to keep living the same day over until he learns how to
be a nice person.” Bill Murray plays a character who is as
unenlightened as they come --a vain, spoiled, ambitious weatherman who
equates happiness with bright lights, big cities, and “getting
the girl.” Sent to cover the groundhog in Punxsutawney, he views
the job, the town, and its rural people as unworthy of his time and
talent. Consequently, his fate is to wake up each morning, in that same
place, on that same day. He is stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of
mundane experiences. The clock radio blares Sonny and Cher’s,
“I Got You, Babe.” He snubs the townspeople, and “the
girl” rejects his advances. He falls asleep in despair. He tries
everything he can think of to escape --running away, over-indulging,
attempting suicide. Nothing works. Sonny and Cher keep heralding each
morning, regardless.
If this sounds bleak, the movie is actually an exquisitely accurate
modern-day rendition of the Buddhist philosophy of life. To the Buddha,
life was a seemingly endless cycle of pain and sorrow, or dukkha. The
cause of dukkha is trishna, our craving, thirst, greed, or attachment.
The cycle of continual rebirth into a life of dukkha is called samsara.
But if you bear with me, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, for
both the Buddha and the weatherman. The Buddha spent his adult life
seeking a solution to the problem of human suffering. After many trials
and some wrong turns, he reached enlightenment. “The
Buddha” literally means “the enlightened one” or
“the awakened one.” The weatherman follows a path any
Buddhist will recognize as parallel to the Buddha’s, and he too
becomes awakened, finally liberated from his former longings, greed,
and sorrow. [He also realizes how beautiful and worthy the small town
and its residents are. That’s my favorite part of the
movie…]
The Buddha and Bill Murray’s weatherman had a common concern:
despair at the seeming futility of life. The man we now refer to as the
Buddha was born about 563 B.C. Then called Siddhartha Gautama, he was
born a prince, with every possible luxury at hand. At his birth, a sage
prophesied that he would grow up to be a fully enlightened buddha.
Siddhartha’s father viewed this as a painful life, and so he
attempted to shelter his son from anything distasteful. Yet when
Siddhartha was a young man, he ventured out of his palatial life four
times. On the first trip, he saw an old man; on the second, a sick man;
and on the third, a corpse. These trips introduced him to the harsh
realities of old age, sickness, and death. On the fourth trip, he saw a
wandering holy man who had an intriguing serenity about him. Siddhartha
chose to renounce his royal title, leave his family, and become a monk.
For years he was an extreme ascetic, starving himself, barely clothed,
exposed to the elements. This manner of seeking did not help him reach
enlightenment. He reflected that neither had his life as privileged
royalty. So he decided to try a “middle way,” a life of
moderation, not going too far in the direction of either desire or
aversion. The Middle Way, also called the Noble Eightfold Path, is:
Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right
Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration.
These eight ethical guidelines fall under three categories: wisdom,
morality, and meditation. Buddhists strive to live an ethical,
harmonious, compassionate, non-violent life. This brings glimpses of
insight along the way and, for some, enlightenment. When a person has
reached enlightenment, they don’t get inappropriately angry about
anything. It’s sort of like perfect mental health. Another way to
phrase it is: nothing is important enough to get really upset about.
The Buddha reached enlightenment after he had been meditating under a
large banyan tree. He had visions of a host of demons, tempting him
with the forces of greed, fear, hatred, attachment, seduction,
delusion, and doubt. He was not overcome, and the attacks ceased. He
reached a deep awareness of his true nature; transcendent wisdom and
universal compassion were awakened in him; he was liberated from
attachment to the conditions of the world.
In the movie, “Groundhog Day,” the weatherman, like the
Buddha, also ventures out of his sheltered, pampered life, into the
harsh realities of the larger world. And he, too, sees an old man, a
sick man, and a dying man. At first he brushes by them. But as he
becomes less self-absorbed, his eyes and his heart are opened to the
people around him struggling with their own concerns. Searching for a
way out of his despair, he seeks advice from Rita, his producer, who is
“the girl” he desires. She describes to him her ideal of
the enlightened man: humble, supportive, fit, able to laugh, not afraid
to cry in front of others, musical, cultured, kind to animals and
children. He reflects on what she has said and realizes her words hold
wise teachings and noble goals he could aspire to achieve in his
lifetime. The next day, he awakens with a start, leaps out of bed,
smiles, and intentionally makes different choices. He takes a personal
interest in everyone he meets, and finds he can help in small but
important ways. He learns to play the piano, to appreciate poetry, and
to create ice sculptures. He becomes noticeably more humble and kind.
In the movie’s most poignant moment, the weatherman realizes that
the beggar he has passed by each day is dying. He calls the beggar
“Father,” and tries fiercely to save his life. But food,
shelter, and hospital care are not enough. The weatherman tries to
resuscitate him, but the beggar finally gives out his last breath into
the icy air and dies. The weatherman, kneeling in the snow, looks down
at the man and cries. Pity and compassion are at last awakened in him,
for the old man, for all humanity, for all sentient beings, for all the
world.
The next morning, in his Groundhog Day report, the weatherman says:
“When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark
and bereft of hope-- Yet we know that winter is just another step in
the cycle of life. But standing here, among the people of Punxsutawney,
and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I could not
imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter.” [And to
that I say, Amen.]
After that, the weatherman cannot do enough for the people of
Punxsutawney-- He has some small kindness for everyone he encounters.
He changes flat tires, saves children from falling out of trees, and
plays the piano to get the whole town dancing in delight. About it all,
he is humble and good humored. And at the end of the day, he says to
“the girl,” “No matter what happens tomorrow, or for
the rest of my life, I’m happy now.” That’s what
enlightenment is like.
The next day, when the weatherman wakes up, it’s finally
tomorrow. That means he could actually leave Punxsutawney, and go back
to his big city life. Instead, he says to “the girl,” as
they look out at the snow-covered town which he had for so long
despised, “It’s so beautiful-- Let’s live
here.” Let’s live here.
I’ll close with the words of Howard Thurman:
“During these turbulent times we must remind ourselves repeatedly
that life goes on. This we are apt to forget. The wisdom of life
transcends our wisdoms; the purpose of life outlasts our purposes; the
process of life cushions our processes. The mass attack of disillusion
and despair, distilled out of the collapse of hope, has so invaded our
thoughts that what we know to be true and valid seems unreal and
ephemeral. There seems to be little energy left for aught but futility.
“This is the great deception. By it whole peoples have gone down
to oblivion without the will to affirm the great and permanent strength
of the clean and the commonplace. Let us not be deceived. It is just as
important as ever to attend to the little graces by which the dignity
of our lives is maintained and sustained. Birds still sing; the stars
continue to cast their gentle gleam over the desolation of the
battlefields, and the heart is still inspired by the kind word and the
gracious deed…
“To drink in the beauty that is within reach, to clothe
one’s life with simple deeds of kindness, to keep alive a
sensitiveness to the movement of the spirit of God in the quietness of
the human heart and in the workings of the human mind-- this is as
always the ultimate answer to the great deception.”
[“Life Goes On,” in Meditations of the Heart, c. 1953]
This winter, may our eyes be opened to the beauty in every face we see,
and to our countless opportunities, each day, to be selflessly kind to
one another.