korrastuff

Buddhist observations: Obviously, a lot going on this season, though it’s far more theologically consistent than last season. But let’s focus on Zaheer.

Name: Zaheer is an Urdu name. Urdu is a language spoken in India, and was a big part of Muslim culture in India before Partition (It’s now popular in Pakistan). This isn’t the first time the Air Nation has pulled from India. Almost all the Air Nation names come from the Himalayan region. Aang is a Sherpa name (meaning “bright one”), and the Sherpas are a Nepalese people who practice Tibetan Buddhism and immigrated from Tibet about 400 hundred years ago. Tenzin is the most popular Tibetan name in the world because the current Dalai Lama is named Tenzin Gyatso, and he mass-names people in ceremonies, and in accordance with the tradition, he gives people his own name. I would say in the Tibetan exile community about a third of the people are named Tenzin (it’s also gender neutral). Pema is also very very common, mostly but not always for women. Tenzin’s youngest child, Rohan is a Sanskrit name, originating in India and popular among Hindus. (The Tibetan language is also based on Sanskrit). Back to Zaheer, his name, like Aang’s, means “Shining, Luminous.”

“Guru” “Laghima” – It’s actually a girl’s name, popular in India as being related to the Goddess Parvati. While the Airbenders are generally on the Eastern, Buddhist side of culture, there’s some Hinduism thrown into the mix. But “Guru” is actually a bit more interesting. We’ve seen it before with Guru Pathik. Pathik is another India-based name, Hindi language in origin, meaning “the traveler.” A guru, in both Induism and Buddhism, is someone you take as your spiritual master. This is generally a HUGE deal. If you learn from a person who happens to a guru, that’s one thing. If you take someone (living) as your guru, your entire spiritual journey relies on them, and you do everything they say, without question. A lot of modern people get into trouble with this, which is why the Dalai Lama advises people to not take someone as their guru after they’ve checked the person out for “about ten years.” If your guru says to jump off a bridge, you jump off a bridge. Once they’re dead, people can’t really take spiritual refuge in them in the same way, but they can take refuge in their teachings.
Monk Gyatso (Tibetan – “Long-lived) wasn’t called “Guru” either because he wasn’t a spiritual master of his generation or whatever, the writers didn’t want him to have that title. The “Monk” title is a little odd, but I think it was their way of skirting what should have been his real title, Lama Gyatso, because that would have just been a little too obvious. “Lama” doesn’t mean monk – it means “wise” and it’s closer to guru, though here things get a little hazy between regions and cultures.

There is one super famous Guru in Tibetan culture – Guru Rinpoché, whose name translates to “Precious Guru.” His real name was Padmasambhava, and he was born in what is now Afganistan but was then a kingdom of India in the 8th century. After becoming a spiritual master by meditating in a lot of caves in India and Nepal, he was invited to Tibet to bring Buddhism to the country, which at the time was controlled by a Bon priesthood. He was a Tantric practitioner and a yogi – another cross-culture Buddhist-Hindu spiritual occupation – who was said to be able to fly, tear open mountains, ride on a tiger riding on rainbows, and subdue the demons that lived in the Tibetan lands (like St. Patrick driving out the snakes of Ireland). He was “Lotus-Born” – he was born in a lotus flower and emerged fully-formed, without his feet touching soul, as an eight-year-old boy. He is considered a “second Buddha” in Tibet, and at least one Tibetan sect regards him as being as important as the first Buddha. (As a real historical figure, his influence on Tibetan history is greatly exaggerated)

Actually, the ability of highly-realized yogis to do things like move mountains and fly and project their spirits elsewhere is pretty much taken for granted even today, though most of the important traditions are said to have died with the Chinese invasion of 1949 and the Cultural Revolution that followed. There are films on Youtube about modern practitioners in Tibet, often living in hiding, who live in caves he was said to visit and can pour freezing water over themselves without getting cold. (No images of them flying, though)

I don’t think Guru Lahima’s poem, which Zaheer turns into a mantra (something meant to be repeated over and over as a meditation practice), is pulled from any source, but it lines up neatly with Airbending philosophy and what Guru Pathik told us in A:TLA about letting go of worldly attachments. Of course that’s easier said than done; it’s easier if you live in a cave, own one set of clothing, only visit your teacher, and rely on food donated by locals who leave it outside your door. It’s another if you have a family and participate in society. Not all yogis or even monks are required to be celibate (Guru Rinpoché helped his female consorts attain Enlightenment by having sex with them, which sounds sketchy when I say it that way), but they are required to have no attachments, which was one of the reasons Aang had so many problems achieving the Avatar state in season 2 and why, in perhaps his greatest triumph, he refused to use it to kill Ozai, not because it required detachment, which he had achieved, but because the negative karma associated with killing someone would have burdened him (and the new air nation) forever.

It’s interesting that after years of living in a cave, Zaheer only attains his limited Enlightenment (he misses the forest for the trees with the whole anarchy thing, just as Tenzin misses it with too much structure) after his last earthly attachment, P’li, dies. Rather than be stricken by grief he is able to let go. And it’s also part of yogi culture that people could gain these powers and use them for evil. Tibetan history’s most famous yogi, Milarepa, originally learned Tantric magic to get revenge on his in-laws by sending a giant scorpion to kill everyone at a wedding after they’d cheated his mother out of her inheritance, and he spent the rest of his life repenting for it. When you see him pictured, he’s usually a skeleton with skin turned green from eating only nettle fruit, but he eventually attains Enlightenment.

Obviously, Zaheer got a lot of wrong. I don’t think Guru Laghima would have at all identified with him. Buddhism provides instructions for personal spiritual development, very often at the expense of engaging in society, but it isn’t anti-hierarchical. Someone without a teacher can get into a lot of trouble (or just go crazy in a cave, which happens more than they advertise), and there’s a reason this teacher needs to be a living person and you need to rely on them for your own development. When important teachers are about to die, they often pass on their secrets to their most important students, then task them with finding their reincarnations and continuing the cycle by passing on their wisdom to their next lives. Usually the teachers of young children who are recognized reincarnations (rinpoches) are former students themselves. This is referred to as the “golden mala” (rosary) in the spiritual lineage of the Dalai Lama and the “diamond mala” in the spiritual lineage of the Karmapa. (This very often gets fucked up by bad or greedy or feuding students, or China tries to fuck it up by putting important teachers or reincarnations in jail, so it’s not a perfect system).

Finally, let’s talk about Zaheer’s clothing: He doesn’t identify with the Air Nomads, so he doesn’t wear the yellow-red of Tibetan Buddhists, but his clothing is still significant. Tibetans generally wear skirts or gowns (when Tibet was closed to the West, they regarded people who did not wear long shirts over their pants as “monkeys” because the cut of their legs was visible). Obviously this isn’t practical for Airbenders, who are always leaping and floating, and jumping, so everyone wears pants. He does, however, wear the “left side over right” robe on his upper chest. He’s also wearing a vest with side shoulders, called a tongak. This is unique to Tibetan Buddhism. As the legend goes, Indian Buddhists kept their right arms totally exposed, but when they went to Tibet, they were incredibly cold, so they adopted vests that would at least protect their upper arms. These vests are always maroon, though they sometimes have yellow panels, which differ in meaning today but are supposed to signify an accomplished monk. Here’s an example of a tangak:

http://www.tibetanspirit.com/all-it...ak-vest-maroon/

As a side note, they generally wear a vest under it for more warmth called a ngulen (blouse) that can be either gold or red. It’s astoundingly similar to what Tenzin’s daughter Jinora is wearing when she takes off her hooded robe in the final shots of the season.

http://www.tibetanspirit.com/all-it...n-cotton-blend/

Today Tibetans are a bit more casual about their robes, partially because cotton tank-tops are so cheap in India and many monk clothing shops sell them, and partially because they rely on donations from the community for their clothing, so they’re not always in silk or wool.