A Film Recommendation: The Yogis of Tibet

Last night we watched the re-release of a great 2002 documentary called ‘The Yogis of Tibet’ and I want to commend it to you. This is one of the great biopics out there right now.

The film is a never-before-seen look at the lives of the reclusive Buddhist yogis and yoginis of Tibet, a small group of ordained men and women who go into seclusion, often for years at a time, in order to awaken their minds through continuous meditation.

They are a Sangha of advanced thinkers of the ancient Ngakpa lineage of Tibet, some young and some very old, who apply meditation – the Yogic science of the mind - to improve the inward and outward lives of all sentient beings.

This film also revisits Mao Zedong’s ruthless invasion of Tibet beginning in 1950 with the People’s Liberation Army’s seizure of Chamdo. It’s hard to grasp Tibet’s loss since that day 69 years ago. China’s annexation led to a complete overthrow of the Tibetan government, the burning of thousands of monasteries and the killings of tens of thousands of monks, and the murder of more than one million Tibetans. Tibet was forcibly incorporated into the People’s Republic of China and historical Tibet was wiped off the map. Today, there are more Chinese people in parts of Tibet than Tibetans. And Buddhism was devastated.

Tibetan Buddhist monks are no strangers to war and turbulence. But peace is their forever quest, and for a select few - the ordained yogis and yoginis - extensive retreats of solitude and deep, deep meditation are transformative. There they enter into the Dharma, training the mind to always be at peace, until the Dharma lives within the yogi and the yogi lives within the Dharma.

We hear and watch brief interviews with yogis and yoginis during and after their seclusion. They describe the emotional and moral responses of their minds to constant meditation (some sit in asana non-stop, even in sleep) and how, after many months or years, emerge with a profound understanding of the true nature of all phenomena.

Western studies of the brain and body have affirmed the effects of meditation. Many westerners, like myself, meditate regularly. But we’re also surrounded by a world of virtually nonstop activity. The deepest states of meditation are hard to reach while the monkey mind is encouraged to chatter away.

There’s a lot to glean from this film besides the routines of reclusive monks. Solitude – a diminishing aspect of all our lives – is soul food, a chance to connect with our Buddha nature. Meditation is an undervalued practice that brings peace to the mind and medicine to the world, and its value can never be overestimated.

The world is a dizzying place, pushing us further from our true selves and our true purposes. This is tied to all the signs of diminishing compassion within society, and the increase in divisions, borders, barriers, violence, greed, anger, delusion, duality, and trauma. The yogis and yoginis of Tibet sit in silence, striving for the benefit all sentient beings. This is socially engaged Buddhism. It’s contemplation and action. Take a little more than an hour from your schedule and watch this amazing film.

Barbie xo