Crazy Wisdom: The Life and Times of Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Tibetan Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche left his homeland after Chinese occupation, and this is the first part of the title Crazy Wisdom: how does one find wisdom in a world gone mad? It’s said that we have as much to learn from what drives us crazy as from what calms us, that everybody and anybody can be our guru. Chogyam Trungpa eventually came to America where he laid down centers for meditation from coast to caost, but personal problems raise the other side of crazy wisdom. The teacher discarded his prospective student’s drug paraphernalia as “destroying deception,” but he smoked and had a chronic drinking problem, and married a British teenager when he was 30. Among his acolytes were the poet Allen Ginsberg and Buddhist writer Pema Chodron, who admires his teachings but does not know how to reconcile the man and his flaws. —Pat Padua
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Tonight at 9 p.m. and Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. at the Goethe-Institut. $11.
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Carlos Ferrand is on a quest. A quest to understand yoga and how people use it to better their lives. In his film Planet Yoga, Ferrand searches out a diverse variety of people who teach or practice yoga. In San Francisco he finds an African American yogi in who seeks to include more people of color in the practice, in Vancouver a paralyzed yogi who teaches class from her chair, and in the Arctic a “yoga nomad” who reaches out to restless Inuit youth to help them find focus. While the people in the film are strikingly different from each other, their beliefs about how yoga can settle the mind, awaken the spirit, and strengthen the body are remarkably similar. Ferrand takes the audience on a circuitous, and sometimes rambling journey, that offers a more expansive understanding of yoga than just its role as a method of exercise. —Elisabeth Grant
View the trailer
Tonight at 6:30 p.m. and Wednesday at 8:45 p.m. at the Goethe-Institut Washington. Tickets: $11.
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DCist’s highly selective roundup of films playing at FilmFest DC continues throughout the festival. See previous coverage here and here.
