Hannah Nydahl was dedicated to introducing Buddhism to the western hemisphere. This is her story. Co Director/Producer Marta György Kessler spent 15 years traveling with Hannah Nydahl and some of the most renowned Buddhist Lamas, before her directorial debut with this film. “In creating this film we wanted to make something that was like no other documentary on a Buddhist teacher,”said Kessler. “Hannah and the people who know her best guide audiences through an incredible journey of a life dedicated to helping people understand the limitless potential of what lies within.”
Interview: Roger Nygard of ‘The Nature of Existence’
Posted on November 21, 2010 at 8:00 am
The Nature of Existence is a new documentary from Roger Nygard, who visited people all over the world to ask them the hardest and most important questions he could think of, about our purpose and the nature of existence. His interviews included Indian holy man Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (The Art of Living), evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion), 24th generation Chinese Taoist Master Zhang Chengda, Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind (co-discoverer of string theory), wrestler Rob Adonis (founder of Ultimate Christian Wrestling), confrontational evangelist Brother Jed Smock, novelist Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game), director Irvin Kershner (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back), Stonehenge Druids Rollo Maughfling & King Arthur Pendragon and many more. The DVD will be released tomorrow.
He was kind enough to take time to answer my questions:
Why are we here?
It took me four years, interviewing over a hundred experts, collecting hundreds of hours of footage,and tons of airline miles to find my answer. The most common answer I got from people was religious, variations on, “To serve God,” “To know God,” “To praise God,” etc… But then that begs the question, what is God? I found that definitions varied widely. As Gandhi said, “there are as many religions as there are individuals.”
We also seem to have this notion that as a goal in life we should be pursuing happiness. But as Julia Sweeney told me, happiness is a false goal, you can’t pursue an emotion — happiness comes as a byproduct of having a purpose in life. So the real question is, how do we find purpose? You can’t give somebody else a purpose, they have to arrive there themselves. But you can give clues; you can help show people where to look, which is what my film is about. I believe the answer is in the film — it’s part of the experience, the journey we’re all on. In the film, you get to see my journey; you see what I learned from Christians, Muslims, Jews, Jainists, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Confucianists, Taoists, Atheists, Pagans, Native Americans, Baba Lovers, Satanists, everyday people, scientists, and more…. And now I have collected in one movie all their answers to the biggest questions.
What unexpected similarities did you find in the different ways people have of making sense of the world?
I was surprised to discover that religious and scientific motivations stem from the same drive within us. We all share a curiosity about the world, and the Universe. Where we look for those answers is what’s different. I’ve heard the religious describe it as being born with a God-shaped hole in your heart. As you grow and mature you fill that space with something…religion, spirituality, drugs, adventure, sex, or some other pursuit, God being the most perfect fit. The scientists fill that space with questioning and learning. They describe humans as pattern-seekers making connections between things in their environment as they attempt to exert control in their lives. But control is an illusion. There is an old joke, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Quantum mechanics has made it even clearer that we exist in a Universe that is variable and unpredictable. But we have made great strides in the thousands of years that our species has existed. Where religion used to be the exclusive holder of cosmic explanations, science has been encroaching on religion’s domain, providing more and more answers for how things are the way they are. Who’s right? Whenever I asked a scientist, “Why do we exist?” They would often correct me and say the proper question is, “HOW did we come to exist?” They leave the why question to the religious and the philosophers. I think conflict between religion and science occurs when the “why” and “how” domains get confused as the same thing. To each it’s own. Render unto Caesar….
Did you find some approaches more hopeful than others?
Some approaches are more tolerant than others. I find proselytizing to be destructive. Our best hope for the future is to accept the fact that we will NEVER all agree. Given that, our most hopeful course is to allow others to have different beliefs. Jesus (and others) preached the Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is somewhat invasive, however, in that it assumes that everybody else would want the same thing as you. Confucius is known for a negative version of this, also known as the Silver Rule: Do not do to others that which we do not want them to do to us. Essentially, live and let live. To quote Julia Sweeney again, I also like her rewrite of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, but ask them first if it’s okay.
What do people understand least well about those with other beliefs?
Most people (including myself before I began this journey) are unfamiliar with the fact that there are so many other belief systems. There are over a thousand active religions on the planet. How do you know that you were lucky enough to be born into the right one, unless you investigate the others? The whole point of this journey for me was to get to know people with different beliefs, ask them what they believe and why they believe it–without trying to change them into what I think they should believe. I found there are more similarities than differences. As Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”
What have you learned about the importance of laughter?
Even though The Nature of Existence deals with some very serious subjects, to me they are comedies. People are fascinating, surprising, and funny. Life is absurd and if you don’t laugh you go insane.
What are some different ways people have of dealing with grief?
Grief, sadness, and loss are necessary to know joy. As one young man says in my film, “We exist to experience emotions.” There has to be a balance, you can’t have only happiness in life. But when we are in the downward part of the cycle, laughter is our strongest tool for coping with setbacks, for combating the infinity of death. The more serious a topic, the more jokes we tell about it.
What inspires you?
I am inspired by great art, great movies, great writing, great musicians, great speakers, great teachers, greatness in human endeavor… And on the contrary, bad movies, bad television, bad art, bad music, I find it depressing that somebody at some time thought that terrible work was good. If you want to be inspired, expose yourself to greatness.
How is your journey continuing? Where will you go next?
I have continued to learn from people at question and answer sessions and post screening discussions. This movie makes people want to talk. A lot. Only half kidding I sometimes announce before a screening, “I should warn you all not to see this film because it will mess with your mind. — But if your mind is already sort of messy, you’ll be fine. If your mind has everything stacked in nice neat piles, they may get jostled though.” Taking on the most challenging questions is a self-perpetuating process, because the result is so rewarding. After finishing the film I was faced with a bit of a dilemma, however: what to do next? What topic could be even more challenging than the very nature of existence itself? I finally found one, a topic even more perplexing and inexplicable: The Nature of Marriage. Check back in a couple years for some answers on that one….
Take a look at Phil Hall’s great list of the most important religious films of all time from website Film Snobbery. My favorite film about the life of Jesus, “The Gospel According to St. Matthew” is number 2 on the list. I was pleased to see some provocative and even irreverent titles including “The Life of Brian” and “Dogma.” The list includes well-known crowd-pleasers like “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Chariots of Fire,” and “Ben-Hur” along with some almost-unknowns like “Plan 10 from Outer Space” (“Trent Harris’ low-budget underground comedy reimagines Mormon history with a singing Karen Black as the extra-terrestrial wife of Brigham Young”) and “Man in the Fifth Dimension” (“Billy Graham’s film essay on the spiritual dimensions of the human condition had its premiere at the 1964 New York World’s Fair. It is also noteworthy as the only non-theatrical film shot in the widescreen Todd-AO process”). It has a number of films that are truly inspiring. It includes some movies that frankly explore the mistakes, arrogance, and corruption that have been committed in the name of religion. It has documentaries, fact-based feature films and fiction, movies from the early silent era to a 2007 documentary. It includes films about Christianity, Judaism, Catholicism, Islam, and Buddhism, films about saints, sinners, and a pair of friends who happen to be a tomato and a cucumber. And it has one of the funniest movies I know, “The Mad Adventures of ‘Rabbi’ Jacob.”
In 2008, TED gave its annual award to Karen Armstrong, author of more than 20 books about what Islam, Judaism and Christianity have in common and their effect on world events. She is a former nun who now calls herself a “freelance monotheist.” Receipients of this prize receive $100,000 and “One Wish to Change the World.” Armstrong’s wish was for a compassion initiative:
“I wish that you would help with the creation, launch and propagation of a Charter for Compassion, crafted by a group of leading inspirational thinkers from the three Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and based on the fundamental principles of universal justice and respect.”
In every corner of the world, there’s one question that can never be definitively answered, yet stirs up equal parts passion, curiosity, self-reflection and often wild imagination: “What is God?” Filmmaker Peter Rodger explores this query in the provocative non-fiction feature “Oh My God.” This visual odyssey travels the globe with a revealing lens examining the idea of God through the minds and eyes of various religions and cultures, everyday people, spiritual leaders and celebrities. His goal: to give the viewer the personal, visceral experience of some kind of reasonable, meaningful definition of one of the highly individual but universal search for meaning and connection with the divine.
Rodger’s quest takes him from the United States to Africa, from the Middle East to the Far East, where such fundamental issues as: “Did God create man or did man create God?, “Is there one God for all religions?” and “If God exists, why does he allow so much suffering?” are explored in candid discussions with the various Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and even atheists the filmmaker meets along the way.
“Oh My God ” stars Hugh Jackman, Seal, Ringo Starr, Sir Bob Geldof, Princess Michael of Kent, David Copperfield and Jack Thompson. It opens in November.
