Seeing Samsara.

I watched the first two thirds of Samsara last night. I watched the final third tonight. Throughout it all I was gripped by a sense of something I couldn’t put a name to without sounding foolish and pretentious even to myself. This is powerful stuff, but knowing why it is powerful is the elusive part.

And yet I’m gripped, as I usually am, by the need to say something. Saying something is what I do. We all do whatever it is we do, and maybe that’s the point of it all. Or, to put it another way, maybe there is no point.

This was never more evident than when I allowed myself the time to read the credits at the end. There are a lot of them, and the purpose of presenting them seemed futile. Why does anybody ever take credit for anything, I asked myself. What is credit but the expression of ego, and what is ego but the empty heart of physical existence… the air in a flimsy balloon which disappears when the plastic is pricked… the strutting of an illusion destined to implode?

If there is any meaning to take from this most powerful collection of images and music, it is simply that we are born, we walk our respective roads with blinkered eyes, and then we pass. The rest is mystery.

Others will no doubt view it differently.