Daytime Television Dukkha
Life is dukkha, and I have the flu. I am starting to feel better, but I've spent most of the past three days curled up on the sofa with tissues, lots of fluids and the television remote, drifting in and out of a series of naps.
Some time yesterday I woke up to catch part of a vintage episode of CSI: NY. Detective Taylor (Gary Sinese) and Detective Bonasera (Melina Kanakaredes) were interviewing a suspect. The suspect was a former thug who had joined a Tibetan Buddhist order. But the alleged Tibetan monk was wearing Theravada monks' robes. And when the interview was over, Detective Bonasera made some flip remark about auras. No respect.
At least the screenwriters gave the monk an alibi; at the time of the murder, he was in the temple doing monk stuff. And the NYPD snarks at everybody. But they could have gotten the robe right.
Comments
Hope you feel better soon, Barbara!
There are some great “84 Mahasiddhas” stories about thugs becoming great Bodhisattvas
— e.g. Khadgapa, Thaganapa, & Nagabodhi — great material for a new TV series?
FYI – The character of the ship commander on the ABC show Defying Gravity said he was raised Buddhist in the first episode. I don’t think it has come up in any way since but it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out. Particularly since so far he’s been keeping a secret, a dangerous secret from the rest of his crew so far.
Not exactly ‘right speech’ it seems to me.