Footprint of the Buddha

Film Summary

1. The film opens with a voiceover from our trusty English narrator, Ronald Eyre. The first person w/whom he meets and interacts is the Venerable Ananda Maitreya, one of the seniormost Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka (not only in terms of his age and time since ordination, but more particularly for his learning and wisdom). Ananda Maitreya appears on and off throughout the film, and is one of the anchors for this particular "search." In this opening segment, when asked to describe Buddhism in a nutshell, AM gives a famous formula: "To shun all evil, to do good, purification of mind, these are the teachings of all the Buddhas."

2. The next segment goes to a Buddhist Sunday school, run by Dr. Ratnapala, a Prof. of Anthropology and a Buddhist layman. One of the scenes in the school shows a young boy telling one of the Jataka tales (tales of the former lives of the Buddha), this one featuring a monkey, elephant and a partridge, with the theme of respect for elders.

3. The narrator then goes back to India to visit some of the historical sites connected with the Buddha, in particular the temple at Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha is believed to have gained enlightenment, and the deer park at Sarnath (near Benares), where he preached his first sermon.

4. After returning to Sri Lanka, we visit a Buddhist temple with Ananda Maitreya. AM first talks talks about the uses of images, and then see the ordination of a young man as a novice monk--complete with a little discussion about monastic life, and the gift-giving by his parents as an act of religious merit.

5. This is followed by a break in the action, during which the narrator tries to explain the notion that "life is suffering" in a more comprehensible way and sensible way.

6. After this break the narrator follows the Buddhist monks out on their morning rounds to beg for food. The monks are directed to project their loving-kindness to the people around them, as a beneficial act; for their part the lay people give voluntarily, but with the knowledge that such gifts generate great religious merit.

7. The narrator next goes to a full-moon day celebration at a forest hermitage, to mark the end of the 3 month rain retreat. The film shows the line of people bringing gifts to donate to the monks, with the others standing on the sides touching the gifts as they pass, to share the religious merit. Part of this segment shows the narrator talking with an older woman who had come to cook food for the monks on that day, and so gain religious merit. There is also a short look at twin boys believed to be the rebirth of two Tibetan monks killed in a bus crash in India, and finally a brief interview with an American Buddhist monk, who talks about simplicity.

8. Here comes description of the 8 Fold Path, of the practice of meditation, and of the notion of nirvana.

9. There's a short sequence of Buddhist lay people going possession sequences to ask the gods for favors, underlining the belief that the gods do in fact exist (as beings on another plane of reality), but that they are immaterial for the ultimate goal of gaining freedom from rebirth.

10. The last sequence shows interviews with some forest monks near Dambulla in Sri Lanka. Bhikku Soma was an engineering student and lived in England for 8 years. His interview is remarkable both because it shows his ambivalence at remaining in the monastery ("that's unpredictable") and at the same time his conviction that this is the right thing to do ("you can't return to childhood, and it's an illusion to think so"). The film ends with a sequence showing another monk, Bhikku Paramananda, doing a walking meditation (back and forth) on a small walking path in the forest, with the jungle noises as the only sounds.