A Guided Tour of Hell

-

At the Asian Art Museum, there was one exhibit that drew my attention very powerfully. This was "A Guided Tour of Hell: A Graphic Memoir" by Samuel Bercholz, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, and Pema Namdol Thaye, a Tibetan multimedia artist. Museum visitors weren't allowed to take photos of the artwork. Instead we were invited to go on a guided tour of the Guided Tour so we could better understand what the exhibit was all about.

NB: I have very little knowledge about Buddhism so I'm writing about how I understood the topics covered by the exhibit.

Bercholz is a teacher of two major schools of Tibetan Buddhism: Nyingma and Kagyu. The lessons that are being promoted by these schools were similar but the emphasis was different: Nyingma is focused on "the view" while Kagyu is focused on "one's true nature" (1). Apparently, Bercholz had a near-death experience in which he had visions of hell. He enlisted Pema Namdol to put his mind's images on paper. The results, as I was looking through them, reminded me a lot about Dante's Inferno (not the Dan Brown version but rather the Italian masterpiece). There was a piece that showed bodies being sucked into a void surrounded by red clouds; these looked like they could be an interpretation of Dante's nine layers of hell (2). The other paintings by Pema Namdol showed the equivalent of Dante's "deadly sins" portrayed by different people: among them were a suicide bomber, a socialite, a nuclear scientist, and a warlord. In life, each of these characters were successful in what they wanted to do. But in the afterlife, their attachment to Earthly possessions or their obsessions was keeping them back from getting out of hell. There was respite and hope amid all the pain, however. Just like Dante being guided by Virgil, Bercholz was guided through the underworld by a silvery, wispy being until he was able to escape this hellish realm.

The exhibit sparked an insightful conversation among the patrons who I was with on the docent tour. We saw how different the Buddhist views of hell are from the Christian views. It also gave me a few ideas on why Buddhism became such a widespread religion in Asia. For people who face challenges in life, Buddhism gives them hope that the next Earthly life would be much, much better. In some ways, Christianity provides the same promise; however, the promise of a better life is not for the physical body.

I'm still trying to get my head around this exhibit. But one thing's for certain: this guided tour through hell was not as terrifying as I expected.

References:
(1) https://learning.tergar.org/course_library/mingyur-rinpoches-monthly-teachings/the-differences-between-the-four-tibetan-buddhist-schools/
(2) http://historylists.org/art/9-circles-of-hell-dantes-inferno.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe...
Read more

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in...
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma...
Read more