The new documentary "Vajra Sky Over Tibet," is a rare and intimate glimpse inside Tibet’s most sacred, spiritual sites – a cinematic journey that starts in the capital Lhasa and travels to Gyantse in central Tibet, Gandan monastery, Jokhang Temple and Norbulingka, the Dalai Lama’s former summer palace. Vajra is the sanskrit word for the thunderbolt of awakening and this film is clearly meant to wake up its viewers to both the beauty of the Tibetan landscape and the horror of China’s repressive policies. LIME recently chatted with the film’s writer-director John Bush.
LIME: While most documentaries about Tibet are actually filmed in neighboring Nepal or India, you actually shot within Tibet. Why did you go ahead and film without permission from the Chinese authorities?
BUSH: Seeing these places, often for the first time myself through the lens, was a revelatory experience and I didn’t feel I needed official permission to have that experience. And we also knew that if we asked for permission that many doors would close, not open, and we didn’t want to expose our sources. That is, the people who were welcoming us into these very unique places.
LIME: When did you shoot this film?
BUSH: We shot during the summer of 2002. We were in Tibet for a month and it was pretty much shooting 16 hours a day. Every waking moment we were recording what we saw.
LIME: Why do this film now, especially when it seems the Chinese are allowing the Tibetans greater autonomy?
BUSH: I didn’t go there to make the film I made. I meant to just show the pilgrimage to these amazing places but in being there, I found that what seemed to be spiritual freedom was more an elaborate stage management and manipulation by the Chinese authorities, an attempt to co-op this tradition for their own ends.
LIME: In what ways are the Chinese exerting their control over the practice of Buddhism?
BUSH: The Tibetan people are forbidden from seeing, even having a picture of the Dalai Lama. This is a hardship beyond what we could even imagine in the West. They haven’t seen him in 44 years. Being cut off from his Holiness really affects the Tibetan people in a way we don’t understand. It denies them any true feeling of having control over their own spirituality. Also, they are being forced to worship spiritual leaders handpicked by the Chinese authorities, who have selected their own puppet lama to replace to Dalai Lama when he dies. I really didn’t know this was happening and so I felt I needed to share some of these things with the audience.
The other thing I felt is if we in the West are being called upon to help "Save Tibet," I wanted to show what it was that was worth saving. I wanted to counter a perception that Tibet is a lost cause and that we should just be happy that we have the dharma in the West, and too bad about the Tibetans, which unfortunately is not an uncommon perception.
LIME; Are you motivated by a personal practice?
BUSH: I first became interested in Buddhism in the late 1960s. I lived in India for 3 years starting in 1970 and the practice of pilgrimage is very alive there. We went on several pilgrimages to the Himalayas and. I discovered it was its own form of spiritual practice and one of the oldest around. I wanted to find a way to express that in a contemporary medium, so others could have that experience.
With the film coming out and getting it distributed, are you meditating a lot?
BUSH: Yeah, working 14-16 hours a day I found I have had to go back to the cushion more than I would normally.
The new documentary "Vajra Sky Over Tibet," is a rare and intimate glimpse inside Tibet’s most sacred, spiritual sites – a cinematic journey that starts in the capital Lhasa and travels to Gyantse in central Tibet, Gandan monastery, Jokhang Temple and Norbulingka, the Dalai Lama’s former summer palace. Vajra is the sanskrit word for the thunderbolt of awakening and this film is clearly meant to wake up its viewers to both the beauty of the Tibetan landscape and the horror of China’s repressive policies. LIME recently chatted with the film’s writer-director John Bush.
LIME: While most documentaries about Tibet are actually filmed in neighboring Nepal or India, you actually shot within Tibet. Why did you go ahead and film without permission from the Chinese authorities?
BUSH: Seeing these places, often for the first time myself through the lens, was a revelatory experience and I didn’t feel I needed official permission to have that experience. And we also knew that if we asked for permission that many doors would close, not open, and we didn’t want to expose our sources. That is, the people who were welcoming us into these very unique places.
LIME: When did you shoot this film?
BUSH: We shot during the summer of 2002. We were in Tibet for a month and it was pretty much shooting 16 hours a day. Every waking moment we were recording what we saw.
LIME: Why do this film now, especially when it seems the Chinese are allowing the Tibetans greater autonomy?
BUSH: I didn’t go there to make the film I made. I meant to just show the pilgrimage to these amazing places but in being there, I found that what seemed to be spiritual freedom was more an elaborate stage management and manipulation by the Chinese authorities, an attempt to co-op this tradition for their own ends.
LIME: In what ways are the Chinese exerting their control over the practice of Buddhism?
BUSH: The Tibetan people are forbidden from seeing, even having a picture of the Dalai Lama. This is a hardship beyond what we could even imagine in the West. They haven’t seen him in 44 years. Being cut off from his Holiness really affects the Tibetan people in a way we don’t understand. It denies them any true feeling of having control over their own spirituality. Also, they are being forced to worship spiritual leaders handpicked by the Chinese authorities, who have selected their own puppet lama to replace to Dalai Lama when he dies. I really didn’t know this was happening and so I felt I needed to share some of these things with the audience.
The other thing I felt is if we in the West are being called upon to help "Save Tibet," I wanted to show what it was that was worth saving. I wanted to counter a perception that Tibet is a lost cause and that we should just be happy that we have the dharma in the West, and too bad about the Tibetans, which unfortunately is not an uncommon perception.
LIME; Are you motivated by a personal practice?
BUSH: I first became interested in Buddhism in the late 1960s. I lived in India for 3 years starting in 1970 and the practice of pilgrimage is very alive there. We went on several pilgrimages to the Himalayas and. I discovered it was its own form of spiritual practice and one of the oldest around. I wanted to find a way to express that in a contemporary medium, so others could have that experience.
With the film coming out and getting it distributed, are you meditating a lot?
BUSH: Yeah, working 14-16 hours a day I found I have had to go back to the cushion more than I would normally.