The movie "My Reincarnation" narrates the personal story of Tibetan spiritual master Rinpoche and the development of the complicated relationships with his son over time. This very unique documentary let us see what is happening inside the families of the religious teachers and make the viewers look at them from absolutely different perspective.
What makes this film special is the versatility of its perception by every person. Some people may take out from this story the Buddhist religious ideas and principles about which Rinpoche is talking. Some people may view this film as a drama between son and father. Some may argue that it is the story about how you should raise your children. And all these thoughts were running in my mind as I was watching this movie.
I liked the philosophy of Rinpoche which highlights the main Buddhist principles about detachment, impermanence of everything and importance of present. The lifestyle of Rinpoche breaks all the stereotypes about the life of a holy person, and we can see that the greatest Buddhists can also enjoy life, have families like regular people. On the other hand, I personally saw the reason why it is better for such people not to do that. Rinpoche is on very high spiritual level, he is detached from everything as it is prescribed in Buddhism, but this detachment hurt people, who are close to him, his family. By making happy a lot of students and people all over the world, he makes unhappy people near him, who probably do not have to understand Buddhist canons, but just need his attention and love. Throughout all these years, his son was seeking for a connection with his father, for love, which would be independent of the path that his son would choose: singer, lawyer or master like his father. And all the time he did not get that. Could we say that Rinpoche is bad father? Probably, but he is a good teacher. He is so compassionate that he not only himself devoted his life to the good of community, but made his son do the same thing. He sacrificed his life, his family, to please a lot of people, to give them at least a little hope. Does this justify him? This question is left unanswered, and make every viewer to think about his family. What I think is that if you choose such complicated way of life as being the religious master, you do not need to pressure people around you, you do not need to make them feel like they do not deserve your love, you do not need to make them unhappy. Nobody is perfect, nobody can please everyone. That is why religious people should live the way they live, and ordinary people should live in other way.
Overall, I enjoyed watching this documentary. I was impressed that throughout 20 years the recordings were kept and it made this film so interesting to watch. I loved the plot and the main ideas of the film. It made me reevaluate the family values, and gave me some deep Buddhist ideas also.
Review of My Reincarnation
