PBS’s recently aired documentary, “The Buddha”, was promoted as the story of the historical Buddha.
Unfortunately, the “historical” Buddha was nowhere in sight, instead viewers were presented with the same old mythological Buddha of the magical birth, who struggled with the demon Mara, performed miracles and so on. It is a nice story, but much of it cannot possibly be true, and the rest is certainly elaboration.
Perhaps those viewers unfamiliar with the traditional account, and others, found it interesting, however I can’t help but feel the program would have been much stronger if they had not relied so heavily on the myths.
As mythology, the story serves its allegorical purpose, but only if those receiving the story are able to see the allegory.
Over twenty years ago, another PBS program, The Power of Myth, a dialogue between Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell, gave the world fresh insight into the meaning of mythology. A tutorial, if you will, that came with this now-famous caveat from Campbell: “Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in its own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble.”
I do not know if we are yet capable of resisting the temptation of getting stuck, and so, I wonder if it creates any value to keep perpetuating religious myths, especially when we invest so much in our religions. I am inclined to think that we would be better off if we put these myths behind us.
I will leave that for now, to give you a glimpse of the ordinary man behind the curtain, the Buddha.
