Khyentse Norbu’s Film Travelers and Magicians: Experiencing Impermanence, No Self, and Emptiness

Abstract

This article examines the filmmaking of writer and director Khyentse Norbu (Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche), a Tibetan-Bhutanese lama with major responsibilities as a senior Vajrayana teacher, and recognized as the third incarnation of the founder of the non-sectarian Khyentse lineage. Focusing particularly on his film Travelers and Magicians (2003), the article explores how Khyentse Norbu creates an experience of Buddhist seeing: an experience of impermanence [anitya], no self [anātma], dependent arising [pratītyasamutpāda], and emptiness [śūnyatā]. The filmmaker draws the audience into worlds that appear to exist and not exist, shaped as they are by these interrelated Buddhist realities. Moving back and forth between a frame story and its embedded narratives, the film invites the viewer to experience the emotional turmoil of two protagonists as emotions shape and re-shape their behavior and influence the actions of those around them. Identifying with the protagonists in Travelers and Magicians, the audience experiences the Buddhist perception that life is a myriad of mutually dependent realities: the powerful reality of illusion and the illusory nature of reality.

Keywords

• causes and conditions
• dependent arising [pratītyasamutpāda]
• Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche
• emptiness
• Guru Rinpoche
• illusion
• impermanence
• liminal
• no self
• Padmasambhava
• ritual
• transformation