I still acknowledge Christmas in my own Buddhist way, and I love spending the day with my family, which may include the lovely story of Scrooge and the bodhisattvas who helped to save him. It has to be the 1951 film with Alastair Sim, preferably in black and white. It first aired on TV when I was 5 and I sat with my father and watched it. It scared me silly, and I loved it. Jacob Marley appears, with his long chain of bad causes which he has forged in life. He says “I made it link by link and yard by yard; I girded it of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it,” and he warns Scrooge that his chain is longer. Scrooge replies that they were only being good men of business, and Marley passionately screams: “Mankind was my business. Their common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business.” He then points Scrooge in the direction of the window where there are a number of spirits with huge chains similar to Marley’s surrounding a homeless women and her baby on the street below. They are screaming and moaning and Scrooge asks why they lament. Marley replies they lament because they have lost the power to do any good in the world; now that they are merely spirits. When I was a child this scene horrified me, now as a Buddhist it has significant meaning.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 20:41:03 +0000