The Matrix and Buddhism

Being a computer programmer might be the best job ever. especially if you are a hacker at night and goes by the name of Neo. Thomas Anderson is always the person you need for the job. then one day, he gets a wake up call from Morpheus, the greatest computer hacker in the world.That starts off the movie of the famous title of "The Matrix" "To do no evil; To cultivate good; To purify one's mind; This is the teaching of the Buddhas" The word Buddhism translated means "awakening" Siddhartha Gautama was always searching for nirvana. comparing Neo's life and the Buddha's life, we can sense a connection between the two

Neo's life would probably never be the same ever again. In the Movie, he is given a choice by Morpheus to take the blue pill or the red pill. In fact, he always has a choice to do something. Buddhism is applied into the making of the movie this way. Buddhism in short, can be described as leading a moral life filled with awareness and thoughts development and understanding. One quote in the movie that seems to sum up all of Neil's actions is "Can I go back?" "No, but would you really want to?" Neil's decision to take the red pill is always questioned and he is always questioning himself. The reason behind this is probably the reason is that he would have taken the blue pill instead. The symbolic reason that there is a red pill and the blue pill can be related to Buddhism.

 Buddhists ultimate goal in life is to reach Nirvana and Neil is always making the choices to try and get there. he chooses the red pill and that can be taken as suffering and hardships and reincarnation and the blue pill is the path to nirvana. That is why Neil questions himself a lot. He wants to reach nirvana. "There's a difference between knowing the path and walking it."He knows that nirvana is the road less taken and he wants to go back

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c1/The_Matrix_Poster.jpg

Groundhog day 5 stages of Grief (blog 15)

How would it feel to wake up to the same day every day? Would you crack up and not handle the stress of it all? Exploit others with what you learned about them the day before? Or use the situation to better yourself? That is what Phil Conners played by Bill Murray is going through in the movie of Groundhog Day. Using the Elisabeth Kubler Ross model, we will see the 5 stages of grief e has expressed through out the film

The First stage in the cycle is Denial. Phil as done that by simply by just saying that this is not real to his coworker. When someone does not want to accept any fact that they are not ready for, the person will resort to reject any information.

The second stage in the cycle is anger. it was simple, "Phil?! Phil Conners!?" was the dude that just sucker punched without even knowing what he did wrong, if it had just been a regular day. Phil Conners was angry at the fact that he did not know what was going on at the time and he got flustered.

The third stage is denial. Phil hijacked a car. That was pretty much all he had to do. Knowing that he was going to relive the same day, he might as well take some people with him so he can try to get himself out of there.

The 4th stage is depression. After so much time has passed, why not decide to end I all? Phil Conners repeatedly kill himself knowing that he has nothing to live for.

the last stage is acceptance. If Phil was going to be here for a while, why not benefit from it? He started robbing a bank, taking piano lessons, and tried to get the perfect date with his coworker. Phil knows all too well that he had nothing to lose.