Buddhist Stereotypes continued
2. Since I’m a big fan on The Simpsons, I decided to take a subject from that for this part of my blog; that subject being Lisa as a Buddhist. Although The Simpsons creators tend to make a lot of parodies or take serious subjects and turn them into comical ones, they still tend to teach important lessons or viewpoints that have a deeper meaning. It was hard for me to find a clip online about Lisa being a Buddhist and I wanted to find one from the episode where she converted from Christianity. But I guess do to copyright infringement or something I couldn’t find one that was in English, let alone with English subtitles. So I decided to use one of the clips I could find where Bart not only mistakes Buddhism for Hinduism, but that he comments on a common misconception that all Buddhists are supposed to love everyone and everything and be happy. Lisa responds by being pissed off and even kicking a side table, showing some violence which could go against the precept of Ahimsa (nonviolence) or not, since it was a table she kicked instead of Bart. However, Lisa does not personify the commonly viewed Buddhist who is always peaceful, does not lash out at others and is constantly meditating. She does, however, show that she is compassionate and protective of others and animals, even stuffed ones, getting hurt and that she can have other emotions such as anger and rage and is not happy or calm all the time. For these reasons, I think that this clip shows both a positive and a negative stereotype of a Buddhist practitioner
3. I think the stereotypes Lisa shows in the clip can relate to some of what Brad Warner writes about in his book, like that not everything goes great in the life of Buddhists, which is what his entire book is pretty much about, and that everyone has different ways of dealing with their negative issues. “A Zen master, at least in the popular conception, is a mystical being, an Enlightened One who can rise above all human affliction and discontent” (p. IX). Not everything in a Buddhist’s world is sunshine and roses, sometimes there’s darkness and negativity, and the clip with Lisa shows this by how she gets frustrated with Bart and his negativity toward her religious beliefs.
Warner also talks about how Buddhism tends to emphasize the Middle Way, or an ideal of living between two extremes (p.18). I suppose that in the end of the clip, Lisa was taking the Middle Way by not going so far as to hurt Bart physically or not doing anything to let her frustration out. Instead she kicked the table, showing a reaction instead of none, but not to an extreme. This could be stretching it however as that may not have been the creators intention.
