Groundhog Day - Again

I have lost count of the amount of times I have seen this movie over the years. I hadn’t seen it for quite some time and only vaguely remembered that it had a strong Dharmic theme.

When it came up as one of the choices for the Abbey’s Friday night movie I groaned inwardly. I was craving some real entertainment, something shiny and new and clever. But they say that you get what you deserve and it seems I deserved Groundhog Day (again). I could hardly complain, as I was one of the three people who voted for it.

I was pleasantly surprised at how well it had aged. This is still a very funny movie, quite slapstick in some places and Bill Murry’s cynical weatherman character is fantastic, if a little too close to home for comfort.

The Dharmic quality of the movie unfolded gradually as our hero has to re-live the same day again and again. It becomes clear that yesterday is now irrelevant to his situation and tomorrow never happens. He is stuck, stuck in the present.

It’s like he suddenly becomes possessed of some involuntary mindfulness, he is aware for the first time of his real situation. Like most of us, he panics a bit and starts looking for a coping mechanism, a strategy to make it OK.

Because he is aware of the conditioned nature of his situation he is able to manipulate it to fit his wants, even at the expense of others around him, including memorizing details of women’s lives and likes in order to seduce them over a period of time.

I think there is a stage on the spiritual life a little like this. Through meditation and Dharma study we find ways to tinker with the conditions in our life in order to satisfy us and make us happy. We settle down. Eventually of course we get bored.

He seems to pass through many of the realms of the Wheel of Life, the craving of the Hungry Ghosts ( a great cream cake scene) , the manipulation of the Asura’s and the despair of the Hell’s eventually leading to repeated suicides.

Eventually, it wears him down. What dawns is what Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche or Pema Chodron might term the Wisdom of No Escape. He realizes there is no escape for him, no matter what he does and that all he is doing is running in smaller and more frustrating circles.

The only thing left for him to do is surrender. Out if this comes an awareness of those around him and the needs of those beings. He tries to make the best of it by helping others. Having tried all the alternatives, nothing else makes any sense.

Our hero opens his heart and gets the girl in the process. Through this he is released from the recurring wheel of his day and is able to settle down in a romantic happy ending - yuk!