Parry

I really enjoyed the final episode of Bruce Parry's Tribe series. If you missed it he spent a year living with tribes all over the world. Last night he was with a group in the Amazonian jungle who had particularly strong Shamanistic beliefs. I didn't see the entire series but of those I caught this seemed to be the saddest episode. The tribe were traditionally nomadic but had stayed in one village for twenty years so that they could be nearer Western medicine. They weren't really happy. Apart from that I particularly enjoyed seeing Bruce Parry in a loin cloth covered with red paint and little white feathers. He's like a younger, sexier, less condescending but perhaps less nice Michael Palin.

I've read a bit more of Introduction to Buddhism. I've realised that cold metallic edge I keep coming up against is the requirement to spend a lot of time meditating on suffering. Intellectually I can see its purpose and I know we'd all be better people if recognised how precious life is. Part of the world's problems must be that we have this head in the sand approach to other people's suffering. So on those levels I do like Buddhism. I also like the way it encourages us to have a clean and balanced mind and not cling onto empty chalices like status. I have some difficulty with the whole if you're not good in this life you could end up as a hungry ghost aspect of it. I think for me the barriers are partly cultural, partly an unwillingness to sit around thinking about suffering in case I get morbid and partly because books can never explain things the way a person can. Bruce Parry commented in last night's programme that his different cultural background would prevent him from ever really seeing what the South American Shamans do. With Buddhism I find that even though I'm not a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim I have this angel and trumpet idea of heaven and a single God at the back of my mind.