The Surfing Guru: “Life is a wave…”

The first time I hit rock bottom was in Y2K. My career in filmmaking was over; I was living in my car; and I had ostracized myself from the professional surfing community that I had called home. When you are down to your last $200, your options for weekend entertainment recede to zero. So when I received complimentary tickets to the premiere of a surf film by Jack McCoy, a legendary surf filmmaker and mentor, I jumped at the opportunity.

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Celluloid Gurus: 5 Films that Increase Empathy

For many spiritual pilgrims “the path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men,” especially the iniquities of the entertainment industry that make films like Pulp Fiction from which this quotation was taken.In my experience, however, God speaks to us in a variety of mediums including Lucasfilm THX digital dolby. If we free our minds, films can serve as everyday gurus that guide us out of the Matrix of samsara and into the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. With this in mind, here are five films that have taught me empathy and compassion.

Obi Wan and The Force

This post is on the topic of “The Power of We” for Blog Action Day 2012. One of the lines from Star Wars that I still think about to this day is when Obi Wan Kenobi says, “You can’t win, Darth. If you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.” Obi Wan says this right before he altruistically allows Darth Vader to strike him down in order to force Luke Skywalker to escape. Being that Obi Wan Kenobi was one of my first gurus–I even thought about changing my name to Obi Wan Hattori–I’ve spent the last 30+ years trying to figure out what this line really meant. After years of studying Buddhism, the Bible, and the Japanese martial art aikido, I think I have finally unlocked the secret of this koan.