Documentary About Enlightenment

Why does a Buddhist monk climb a mountain? To reach enlightenment on the other side.

In Frederick Marx’s strangely old-fashioned documentary, the monk is Geshe Lobsang Yonten; the “Geshe” means he’s a doctor of Buddhist Philosophy. The mountain is a 5,200-metre pass in northern India. And the enlightenment is the only Tibetan-language school for hundreds of miles in any direction.

Yonten, who grew up in the dirt-poor region of Zanskar, has decided to ferry 17 local children to Manali, where they can be schooled in their native language and culture. (Before partition, the Kashmiri region of Zanskar was part of Tibet.)

He must choose between three routes, each with its own perils. One requires expensive road transportation and could be snowed in. Another is beset by anti-Buddhist extremists. (The onscreen map helpfully adds cartoon explosions to denote danger.) The most direct path requires a 300-kilometre slog on foot, accompanied by packhorses and the occasional snow-ploughing yak. The monk decides to hoof it.

Marx, one of the makers of the 1994 Oscar-nominated doc Hoop Dreams, creates a simple structure consisting of various voiceovers, footage of the children en route, and narration by Richard Gere, Hollywood’s go-to guy for Buddhist and Tibetan causes. We watch as the children’s mostly illiterate parents weigh the benefits of proper education against the likelihood of not seeing their offspring, aged between four and 12, for several years.

The on-foot route at least allows some parents to accompany their children, although the adults -- and particularly Yonten himself -- seem the most affected by the cold and high altitude. The caravan is dealt a blow when the crucial pass is deemed impassable, and they must double back and try a different way.

“We lose everything,” says Yonten cheerfully; his serenity is such that even the possibility of death seems to strike him as no more than a minor distraction or modest setback. “We are not bodhisattva but we took bodhisattva vows,” he adds, the kind of joke that probably plays better to a Buddhist crowd.

Yonten then decides to raid his monastery’s coffers and go for broke, but he can’t find an inexpensive ride through the mountains. Unfortunately, Buddhists are not Jedi; calmly repeating to drivers that their prices should be lower has no affect.

By the end of the film, which also features an appearance by the Dalai Lama, the whole thing has started to feel suspiciously like an advertisement for the monks’ doubtlessly worthy causes. Sure enough, as the credits roll the first thing we see are instructions on how to donate.

Nevertheless, the journey is a compelling one to behold, and its leader is an inspiring, soft-spoken figure. He explains at one point that he only chose monkhood over marriage (at age 10!) because he liked the idea of chanting and tea ceremonies. But he has grown into his vocation, and if his vows -- to relieve all humans of suffering -- may never be completely fulfilled, he’s determined to do right by his 17 young charges.