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Pema Chödrön's 4 Keys To

Pema Chödrön's 4 Keys To

RUTH OZEKI • NATALIE GOLDBERG • GETTING BEYOND BLAME • DOES THE BUDDHA EVER LIE?

SBUDDHISMHAMBHALA CULTURE LIFE SUNMARCH 2014

“You can connect with the mind of nowness at any moment” Pema Chödrön’s 4 Keys to Waking Up

Rise Up! GPS for the Mind Thanks to Yoko bell hooks & Eve Ensler Sylvia Boorstein Lisa Carver says the spiritual resonance so many people felt with his quirky comedy came as a surprise. After a chance meeting, author PERRY GARFINKEL embarks on a mission to explore the film- maker’s life in the limelight. And if he sees his shadow...

So there I am at a literary cocktail party on Martha’s Vineyard, and this man who looks like a Vineyarder I know comes up to our small circle of writers. Just as I’m about to say, “Hi Fred,” he extends his hand and says, “I’m Harold Ramis.” I know the name, but can’t quite remember from where. I say, “Wow, you look like someone who looks just like Harold Ra- mis.” A lame opener, but it gets a chuckle. I do a double-take when the conversation turns to and he rattles off the and the eightfold path. “This guy knows his Buddhism,” I say to the group. “Not really,” Ramis smiles sheepishly. The man who brought us such rollicking comedies as , , and Groundhog Day, wants to make it clear that he is not a Buddhist.

Director Harold Ramis on the set of his new comedy, Year One. photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures “I don’t want to be the Buddha,” he says, with what I would come to learn is his typical self-effacement and a you’re-in-on-the-joke smirk. “I just want to admire him.”

34 SUN JULY 2009 SHAMBHALA SUN JULY 2009 35 Ramis seems so sincere, thoughtful, and intelligent in this drunkards; , the Indian teacher who brought short encounter that I realize he is someone I would really like to Buddhism to Tibet and was known for his trickster qualities; know. Months later, we arrange to get together. and Chögyam Trungpa , widely acknowledged for in- C ou r Groundhog Day, the 1993 film Ramis directed and co-wrote troducing American Buddhist practitioners to “crazy wisdom.” with , pinged a deep spiritual nerve, despite the fact “Harold Ramis should be considered a revered holder t e s y o f C l neither Ramis nor Rubin intended it to be Buddhist or Christian in the crazy wisdom tradition of the Tibetans,” Nisker says. or Jewish or any of the other denominations that say it speaks to “The primary rule of Buddhist humor is that you never laugh

them and for them. And despite the fact that the film is, after all, at someone else’s expense. But, rather, laughter arises when we re- umb ia P a comedy. That alone could earn points these days, when alize our futile attempts to escape the first noble truth. Pointing

many Buddhist meditators and scholars seem to have forgotten to our common bumbling deluded nature—with humor—appar- i ctu re s, © 1993 A ll R igh ts R e s erved the light touch of numerous teachers over the centuries. ently relieves some of the suffering. Ramis has done that in most “There seems to be some stigma lately against joking about of his films, but especially inGroundhog Day, where he seems to be Buddhism, as though the so-called three precious jewels are saying, ‘This is what it’s like. Every day is the same thing; we make too precious to poke a little fun at,” says Wes Nisker, a longtime the same mistakes over and over.’ Ramis is always trying to shatter vipassana meditation teacher, Buddhist stand-up comedian, and our ordinary take on reality, to reveal hidden dimensions. He is Left to right: Harold Ramis as Dr. in Ghostbusters; Ramis with , , and Ernie Hudson on the set of Ghostbusters; in the role of L’Chaim author of several books on Buddhism. trying to create what Buddhists would call ‘beginner’s mind.’ ” from Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story; and acting in his new comedy, Year One. “But there are longstanding traditions and practices of do- When I ask Ramis for his take on Buddhism, he recites, from ing exactly that,” Nisker says, a few prominent examples: memory, something he had written when he and his second of becoming—an ongoing miraculous creation. Every day we And, as if to underscore that, we discover during an interview Drukpa Kunley, a.k.a. the Divine Madman, the fifteenth cen- wife, Erica Mann Ramis, helped sponsor the Dalai ’s visit awaken to that miracle with gratitude, respect, and compassion that his ukulele teacher was, years later, a friend of mine when tury Tibetan rascal saint who blessed fornicators, beggars, and to in May, 2008: “The universe is in a constant state i ctu re s for all who share the gift of being.” I lived in San Francisco. Ramis hadn’t talked to him in twenty “To me,” he says, “that felt like a nice distillation. I thought it years, so I called him, and when Ramis got off the phone he pat-

Below: Harold Ramis directing Bill Murray during the filming of Groundhog Day. umb ia P was good enough to remember.” ted his heart. “I feel warm,” he beamed. He went on to sing with folk groups, covering songs from the Harold Ramis was born in 1944 to a Jewish couple of likes of the Kingston Trio and the Limelighters. He sang in the

t e s y o f C l modest means but rich in love. At age twelve, he started work- high school chorus, was selected for all-city chorus, and per- ing in his father’s grocery and liquor store, in a largely African- formed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. . C ou r . American neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. He attributes “All of these experiences were peepholes into worlds that were his humor to his father, who would critique comedians on TV heretofore alien to me,” he said. “But it helped demystify things. like , Sid Caesar, Steve Allen, and Red Skelton. At that time, I was part beatnik folksinger, part choirboy, and “Dad would point me to the good stuff,” he said. “Red—‘too part entertainer.” cloying, too sentimental.’ Steve Allen—‘funny, intelligent.’ Sid At Washington University in St. Louis, he was still trying to Caesar—‘great stuff.’ I grew up going to movies: Abbot and Cos- decide between writing and showbiz when he became friends tello, Laurel and Hardy, and of course the Marx Brothers.” with fellow student , whom he described as “When I was twelve, I read the line, ‘An unexamined life is not an “extraordinarily confident, snide, and brilliant guy who was worth living.’ I took it seriously to heart. And literally. Like it was a sort of spiritual brother and creative co-conspirator.” He and a requirement in life, akin to the Buddha’s suggestion that we Shamberg wrote skits and performed them on campus. maintain ‘sufficiently inquiring minds.’ ” “Michael and I made a pact and shook hands on it,” Ramis said. By sixteen, they’d moved to Rogers Park, a middle-class neigh- “We agreed to never take work that wasn’t fun, to do only what we

ts R e s erved ll R igh ts A I n c., i ctu re s I nd ust rie s, borhood on Chicago’s North Side. He got In Groundhog Day Phil says, “I’ve killed myself so many times, I don’t his first peek into the umb ia P world of journalism even exist anymore.” “Now,” Ramis comments, “Phil is ready for change.” when he was hired by the as a messenger for its ad department. He was wanted to, and never take a job that we had to dress up for.” ” © 1984 C o l ” editor of his high school yearbook, and thought his logical career Shamberg went on to become a Hollywood producer of such step would be ad copywriter. But the seeds of a growing interest in films as Erin Brockovich, A Fish Called Wanda, and Pulp Fiction. entertainment were planted when he took ukulele lessons from a “Harold is my most enlightened friend,” Shamberg said. “I always friend, and found he could sing. thought he was funny, but the reason I was drawn to him was that ER S OSTBUST “GH His life, as he puts it, has been a study in “coincidences that in he was smart, honest, and had a generosity of spirit. As far as I un- retrospect were probably what you would call karma.” derstand Buddhism, it’s a system of seeing things with clarity and

36 SHAMBHALA SUN JULY 2009 SHAMBHALA SUN JULY 2009 37 Ramis takes particular glee in a zany rant in by Bill Murray about caddying for the , which he says is perhaps the first time His Holiness is mentioned in an American film.

Laughs” list. He proudly displays the plaque in the foyer of the small Irwin Kula, a spiritual advisor to Ramis, said he found offices of his production company,O cean Pictures, upstairs from his the shadow of what Buddhists call the “hungry ghost” in one of favorite Greek restaurant in Highland Park, north of Chicago. Ramis’ darkest films,, a 2005 black comedy about Pointers to things spiritual abound even in the light comedy larceny, lust, and lethal behavior in icebound Kansas on a Christ- Caddyshack, starring as a loudmouth who mas Eve, starring and . He told abhors the protocols of a snooty country club, as the Ramis the movie “demonstrates that you can never get enough unflappable playboy with no apparent source of income, and Bill of what you really don’t need.” Murray as the demented Vietnam vet turned golf course grounds- Rabbi Kula, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning keeper who takes out his hatred of the Vietcong on gophers. and Leadership and author of Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messi- Reference is made to the Japanese haiku poet Basho, and Chase’s ness of Life, recognizes the ethical thread interweaving Buddhism and character encourages a golf protégé to “be the ball,” a nod to Golf in . He took part in a seminar with the Dalai Lama in Decem- e s erved R A ll R igh ts © 1996 i ctu re s, the Kingdom, a book by Esalen Institute founder Michael Murphy. ber, 2007, and met Ramis at High Holy Days services in Chicago. Ramis takes particular glee in a zany rant by Murray about caddying “I would call Harold an ethically responsible spiritual plural- Left: the Dalai Lama greets Ramis after His Holiness’ public talk at Chicago’s Millennium Park in May, 2007. Ramis helped produce cultural events during the visit. Right: umb ia P for the Dalai Lama, which he says is perhaps the first time His Holi- ist with Jewish roots and Buddhist tendencies,” he said. “Both with his wife, Erica Mann Ramis. Opposite: on the set of the film Multiplicity. ness is mentioned in an American film. And it’s from the mouth traditions understand that we laugh so we don’t get too attached of Judge Smail, played by , that the quintessential Ramis to our suffering, that we are not our suffering. Both are comfort- P t e s y o f C l realism. It turns out, great filmmaking is a way of seeing things time I consider the incredible synchronicity of what happened, h oto lef t: J e ss i c a Tam pa s ph oto question arises: “The most important decision you can make right able asking difficult questions in a light-hearted way. Harold is

clearly. The essence of comedy is seeing things clearly when others do and how it happened, and who I met and when, I smile because C ou r now is what do you stand for, goodness…or badness?” especially comfortable dancing with uncertainty.” not, and playing with the disparity between what people perceive and it still amazes me. It’s about karma, isn’t it? I read karma as cause reality. Harold does that so well because he, like Oliver Stone, who and effect, triggering a chain of causation.” describes himself as a practicing Buddhist, is willing to entertain dia- If the start of his film career could be traced to one person, metrically opposite ideas at the same time to get to the truth.” place or thing, it would be the hefty manifestation of John Be- After college, Ramis said, he “drifted.” He spent some time in lushi. First, when Ramis chose not to return to Second City after San Francisco, then went to graduate school, lasting only two his travels, Belushi was hired to replace him. Later, Belushi, by then weeks. He worked in a psychiatric ward for seven months, got a rising star, got the call to go to New York for National Lampoon’s married, moved back to Chicago, drove a cab, and worked as a first stage show, Lemmings. He was allowed to tap whomever he graphy substitute teacher. Around the same time, he started freelance wanted to be part of the company. Ramis had become known as writing for the , and enrolled in acting work- a consummate straight man, and was among those called. That shops at Second City, the improvisational comedy troupe that led to him being asked to write a treatment for a possible Lam- launched the careers of stars such as , Dan Aykroyd, poon film, to be directed by John Landis and produced by Ivan Bill Murray, Mike Myers, Martin Short, and . Reitman. He worked on it with National Lampoon editors Doug Meanwhile, on a lark, he grabbed the name of an editor off Kenny and Chris Miller, and while he served as head writer for the the masthead of Chicago-based Playboy magazine and talked his TV version of Second City, the three toiled on the script. way into an interview, landing a job as a writer for the Party Jokes The film became Animal House, considered the spearhead section. He became editor of the page, and later broadened his of the gross-out genre. Since its release in 1978, the film has scope to include celebrity Q&As. garnered an estimated $140 million in ticket, video, and DVD But then his acting career kicked in. As coincidence, or karma, sales. In 2001, the Library of Congress deemed the film “cultur- would have it, his Daily News editor had a connection with the di- ally significant” and selected it for preservation in the National rector of Second City, and wrangled him an audition. Now he was Film Registry. It also introduced into our cultural zeitgeist such working forty hours a week at Playboy and six nights a week at Sec- phrases as “food fight” and “toga, toga!” ond City. His first wife, Anne Plotkin, noticed they didn’t have a life “When we were writing Animal House, we thought we were writ- together, so Ramis quit it all and the couple traveled. It was 1970. ing the funniest movie in history—we were that arrogant,” Ramis “When I look back on it,” he said, breaking into a grin, “every recalled. Asked if that might sound a tad egotistical, he quipped, “Well, I always say false modesty is better than no modesty at all.” What’s your favorite Buddhist moment in a non-Buddhist movie? Four Ramis films—Animal House, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, and Let us know at www.shambhalasun.com/sunspace. Groundhog Day—are on the American Film Institute’s “100 Years, 100

38 SHAMBHALA SUN JULY 2009 SHAMBHALA SUN JULY 2009 39 It was Groundhog Day that dramatically raised Ramis’s objectionable—until he found out that the placards read: “Are profile in the spiritual community. When the Museum of you living the same day over and over again?” Then came letters Modern Art put on a film series in 2003 called The Hidden God: and calls from Buddhists, Christian fundamentalists, and yoga Film and Faith—with work by icons such as Ingmar Bergman, practitioners. Roberto Rossellini, Alfred Hitchcock, and Luis Buñuel—the “It always seemed ironic to me,” Ramis said, “that it didn’t lead opening-night feature was Groundhog Day. It was such a popu- people to recognize the commonality of all their points of , lar choice that a squabble erupted among thirty-five critics over but rather, ‘This must be about us and only us.’” who would get to write about it in the retrospective’s catalogue. Even the psychoanalytic community found its angle on it. For anyone who is somehow unfamiliar with the movie, cyni- In 2006, the International Journal of Psychoanalysis published a cal and egotistic TV weatherman Phil Connors gets stuck in an scholarly paper entitled Revisiting Groundhog Day: Cinematic inexplicable time warp that makes him relive the same day over depiction of mutative process.” The film, it stated, “shows us a and over. First it depresses him; then he realizes he can control man trapped by his narcissistic defenses. The device of repeti- it, perhaps even win the love of his field director, Rita. When that tion becomes a representation of developmental arrest and clo- fails, he sinks further until he discovers that goodness may be just sure from object relatedness. Repetition also becomes a means the ticket to win her love, as well as break the cycle. He delivers the of escape from his characterological dilemma. The opportunity line that so many of us relate to: “What would you do if you were to redo and learn from experience—in particular, to love and stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same and noth- learn through experience with a good object—symbolizes the ing really mattered?” To which his drinking buddy responds, “That redemptive, reparative possibilities in every life.” i ctu re s about sums it up for me.” Ramis said co-writer Rubin based the weatherman’s evolution Ramis said he was taken by surprise when on the stages of grief, as outlined by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross: deni- umb ia P the film hit a spiritual nerve for so many. He al, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. first got wind of what was to come when he “I had high hopes for the film, but I had no heard Hasidic were carrying placards in idea the phrase would enter our lexicon and the front of a theater where it was playing. He idea would become part of our consciousness t e s y o f C l worried that they had found something the way it did,” Ramis said. “Like when I heard it was entered in the Congressional Record” after a

congressman likened a particularly long debate to r cou oto ph Groundhog Day. Left to right: , Jack Black, and director Harold Ramis on the set of his new film, Year One. A selective list of Angela Zito, co-director of the Center for Religion Harold Ramis films and Media at New York University, screens the film for students in her Buddhism class. She says it perfectly il- “I would call Harold an ethically responsible spiritual pluralist with Jewish roots and Year One (2009) writer, lustrates the Buddhist notion of samsara, the continuing director, producer, actor cycle of , a cinematic version of the teachings in Buddhist tendencies,” says Rabbi Irwin Kula. “Both traditions understand that we laugh The Ice Harvest (2005) director Buddhism. “In Mahayana,” she told the New so we don’t get too attached to our suffering.” (2002) writer, director York Times, “nobody ever imagines they are going to es- Bedazzled (2000) writer, director, producer cape samsara until everybody else does. That is why you have (1999) writer, director , who reach the brink of , and stop and come It’s nothing.” He also suggested that Rita, the love interest, could overindulging in food or punching nerdy high school chum Ned Multiplicity (1996) writer, director, producer back and save the rest of us. Bill Murray is the . He is be compared to a , a representing the feminine aspect in the mouth—he says, “I’m not going to live by their rules any- (1995) director not going to abandon the world. On the contrary, he is released of enlightenment who can help practitioners wake up. more.” “Yes, no consequences, no cause and effect, so empow- Groundhog Day (1993) writer, director, back into the world to save it.” I admit I saw none of this when it came out, nor even after watch- ered,” Ramis said. “He doesn’t realize yet it’s a trap his ego has producer, actor The film has been analyzed more times than weatherman Phil ing it again. And again. I was relieved to hear the same reaction from set for him. The power to do whatever you want is a common Ghostbusters II (1989) writer, actor seems to live the same day, which Ramis said the original script David Cohn, a college friend of Ramis’s who became a longtime delightful fantasy.” Caddyshack II (1988) writer suggested was 10,000 times, a number that carries some signifi- member and ordained priest of the San Francisco community, And when Phil drives his truck off a cliff in an effort to end Ghostbusters (1984) writer, actor cance for Buddhists. Dean Sluyter, author of Cinema Nirvana: managing the ’s culinary spin-offs, and eventually open- the cycle, only to wake up at 6:00 a.m. on Groundhog Day once Vacation (1983) director Enlightenment Lessons from the Movies, contends the film shows ing his own restaurants. “I can see it now that it’s pointed out, but it again, he tells TV viewers that “it’s going to be cold, and it’s going Stripes (1981) writer, actor Phil repeat parts of the same day forty-two times, or six weeks, didn’t strike me as great spiritual text,” Cohn said, adding, “Ramis is to be gray, and it’s going to last a long, long time.” Caddyshack (1980) writer, director exactly the time we will wait for winter to end if the groundhog a wonderful warmhearted guy, a bodhisattva who makes everyone “This is the state of total nihilism,” Ramis said. “Even death is Meatballs (1979) writer sees his shadow. “In other words,” he said, “we are the groundhog around him feel better, and he has always had that.” no escape from our demons. It usually takes hitting the bottom Animal House (1978) writer and we are afraid of our own shadow, a shadow created by light. Ramis pointed to several lines that do suggest a Buddhist sub- of the barrel for man to seek spiritual redemption.” Phil says, That light is truth, reality. Ultimate truth, then, is not a bummer. plot. When Phil discovers he can do anything he wants—like ➢ page 96

40 SHAMBHALA SUN JULY 2009 SHAMBHALA SUN JULY 2009 41 Harold Ramis nated red page folded in three, with lists continued from page 41 on it. “The idea was to present a simple Buddhist primer on something the size of “I’ve killed myself so many times, I don’t a Chinese takeout menu,” he wrote in an even exist anymore.” “Now,” Ramis com- accompanying note. Instead of a guide to ments, “Phil is ready for change.” putting together a dinner by choosing, say, And, typical of a Ramis film, change the five spice tofu from column A and the means Phil becomes the good guy, the egg drop soup from column B, this menu bodhisattva who performs selfless acts was called “The Five-Minute Buddhist.” It of kindness, not manipulatively, but for listed the five aggregates, the four noble their own sake. This, naturally, wins him truths, the eightfold path, the seven fac- the love of the whole town, and, naturally, tors of enlightenment, the four sublime of Rita. And not surprisingly, he comes to states, the , and the five love himself. precepts, ending with a quote from Thich “No matter what happens tomorrow, Nhat Hanh: “The miracle is not to walk or for the rest of my life,” Phil tells Rita, on water. The miracle is to walk on the “I’m happy now because I love you.” green earth, dwelling deeply in the pres- Sure, it’s a Hollywood ending. But Ra- ent moment, feeling fully alive.” mis would have it no other way. In his The last time I saw Ramis, in Chicago commentary on the fifteenth anniversary in the fall, he was deep into editing Year DVD, he confessed: “I’m such a sap. I ac- One, and had grown a beard of, well, bibli- tually believe in this stuff. The movie is cal proportions. He said it was for movie quite sincere.” publicity purposes. Ramis said that, for him, the key to He was wearing mala beads around one Groundhog Day is learning to have the in- wrist. “I tell people they’re from Neiman sight, courage, and energy to make changes Marcus if they ask their religious mean- when you come to those moments when ing.” Or, “I say I’m on the Buddha diet and “you are about to make that same-old, same- they remind me not to eat too much, but old mistake again. We face those changes ev- they keep getting in the way of my steak, ery day, large and small, every single day. If so I take them off when I eat.” you change one little thing, one little behav- At his suburban home, I meet his wife, ior, then everything might change.” Erica, whose father was director . The family lived in Kyoto during Little did I know that my mission filming The Teahouse of the August Moon, to unmask the real Harold Ramis would and her mother became fascinated with take me, months after we met on Martha’s Buddhism. Back in Los Angeles, after her Vineyard, straight to Sodom, or at least parents split up, her mother moved into to a set built to represent Sodom near the International Shreveport, Louisiana, for three days of Center, where the Vietnamese teacher Ven. interviews as he worked on his new film, Thich Thien-An was the spiritual leader. Year One. Ramis describes it as “a biblical When Erica sensed her mother was go- epic comedy.” ing through increasingly difficult times, The movie is another one in which she left Menlo College in Palo Alto, moved goodness wins. And in which, through into the center, and lived there for four the Hebrew story, Ramis years. “It was a wonderful, bizarre time,” gets to offer his comedic take, yet again, she said. “My mother ended up living on theological and moral questions, on there for more than thirty years, until the fate versus destiny, and on who is running end of her life.” Erica went on to live and the show—“all embedded in Year One,” he practice in a number of other Buddhist said, “because those enduring questions communities in New York, Rhode Island, are all embedded in me.” and California. Before I left home for Shreveport, I And, by the way, she’s not a Buddhist received a surprise from Ramis—a lami- either. ♦

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