Reincarnation In Vietnam

The plot focuses mainly on Buddha’s life, his beliefs, his followers and the basis of Buddhist religion. The element of reincarnation is employed throughout the movie. Reincarnation is one of the most important Buddhist teachings. Buddhist’s believe that death is not the end of life but the end of a body one occupies and the spirit continues its journey to another life. Lama Norbu explains reincarnation with an analogy by using a cup of tea. He states “In Tibet, we think of the mind and body as the content and container.” Norbu breaks the cup of tea on the table and observes as he says “The cup is no longer the cup, but what is tea? Like the mind after death, the tea moves from one container to another.” (little buddha 1993) The tea stayed

in its form while the cup was destroyed symbolizing that the mind is changeless where as the body one inhabits has to be abandoned when the time comes showing that just because the container is gone, the contents continue to be. The scene is consistent with the idea that death is not the end of life as the forces continue to live and seek out its need for attachment to a new body and a new life. However, the scene is inconsistent with the idea of reincarnation because it states that the mind is changeless. In reality the Buddhists do not conceive the human mind as eternal just like the body because both of the mind and body are “ a combination of physical and mental aggregates or forces that are identifies ad the Five Aggregates” which implies that neither the mind or the soul is eternal but the Five Aggregates are. However, director Bernardo Bertolucci imploys three of the Five Aggregates late into the movie showing that the forces can travel into more than one body after death. In some cases, the mind, speech and body could all be reincarnated into different bodies as in the case of Lana Dorje. Jesse, Raju and Gita were three separate manifestations of Lama Dorje’s body speech and mind with Raju being the body, Gita being his speech and Jesse manifesting his mind.