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Tricycle Film Club | Buddhist films and discussion for the Tricycle Community |
Edge of Dreaming
How real are our dreams?
Each month, Tricycle Supporting and Sustaining Members will be treated to a select feature-length film, presented in partnership with Alive Mind Cinema and BuddhaFest Film Festival, June 14-17 in Washington, DC. The benefits of membership continue to grow, so if you're not already a Supporting or Sustaining Member, upgrade now and watch our February selection, Edge of Dreaming, written and directed by Amy Hardie.
Join the Tricycle Community to be a part of the Tricycle Film Club.
Edge of Dreaming (February 2012)
Scottish filmmaker Amy Hardie built a career on making science documentaries, reflecting her staunchly rational mind. Then one evening she had a haunting dream of her horse dying, waking to discover that her beloved horse had passed away that same night. Shaken, she tried to pass it off as mere coincidence. But then she had another disturbing slumber, a nightmare where her deceased ex-husband predicts that she will die at age 48. With the love and support of her family, Amy chronicles her quest to untangle the knots in her unconscious and the meaning of her destabilizing dreams.
Read more about Edge of Dreaming—and purchase the film—here.
exactly, and beautifully put. Amy x
Thanks James,
I guess I answered this below!
"The Edge of Dreaming" is a riveting film with a wonderful story and great images. I am not sure I completely agree with filmmaker Amy Hardie's final conclusion (that we should live each day as though we will live forever), though. For me, "living like we will never die" seems likely to diminish the respect and gratitude one might experience for life if one were to rather, 'live each day as though it might be our last'. Impermanence is a very fundamental aspect of the life experience, after all. Failing to accept that can open one up to disappointment and yes, suffering. Embracing the impermanence of all things (including our own life) makes us acutely aware of the special gift that each day brings. Some refer to this as 'mindfulness' or being in the moment. But those moments seem far less important if we delude ourselves into believing we have an endless stream of them before us.
The fear of death arises from a fear of the unknown. The more familiar we become with death, the less 'unknown' it becomes and the more comfortable we will be with it when the time comes. Death is like a train coming toward us from the distance and we are standing on the platform waiting to board that train. Boarding that train is not the end of our journey though, it is only the continuation of a very long journey. Once we adopt that perspective, the fear factor begins to diminish.
Many rivers lead to the sea....I am just finishing a film for a group of women with secondary cancer and we begin the film with the lovely story of the mustard seed. I guess you know it well? I have made it short, probably too short, but it is at the very start of the film. It is a lovely way to find the truth of impermanence.
There was a woman sorrowing-to-madness
after the death of her son.
She asked the buddha for a remedy.
'Then bring me a mustard seed from every house which has never known death'.
After a year she returned.
The buddha asked her for the mustard seeds.
She held out empty hands.
'I am restored', she said.'There is no such house.'
Buddhist text.ThigA X.1
W O W !!! What an unbelievable film. What courage she had to make it
and be so honest with what was occurring within her mind and body. Lots to ponder.
Thankyou! I actually am still stunned that I was willing to be so honest! And my promise to myself is that I never have to put myself in front of the camera again... Amy x