10 Movies About Zen to Inspire Creative Well-Being
What is zen? Although a relatively simple way of living that helps people discover joy and peace through practice like meditation, the many lessons of zen can still be challenging. Here are 10 movies about zen to inspire creative well-being.
When people think of learning and practicing zen, it’s a good chance movies aren’t at the top of the list, which is a real shame. There are many great books, online and offline courses, and other ways of learning zen, but there are also some great zen movies to aid your journey of self-development and creative well-being. Especially if you’re a visual learner, movies are a great way to experience the stories and experiences of others to see deeper into the lessons and values of zen.
To add more to your movie experience and zen practice, use these movies to trigger journal prompts, discussions with others, and stories to inspire you to go deeper into the history and lessons from others who have found zen practices to support creative living.
Golden Kingdom (2015)
Story of four young monks left alone in their remote monastery in Myanmar. Shot entirely in newly-opened Myanmar with non-actors, the film bridges spirit, cinema, and traditional Burmese storytelling to open a view onto an unseen world.
Creative Lessons
- The impermanence of life as revealed in sickness, aging and death.
- Meditation is a tool to center yourself amongst a world of things you can’t control.
The Razor's Edge (1984)
Somerset Maugham’s Larry Darrell (Bill Murray) goes from World War I to a coal mine to the Himalayas seeking inner peace.
Creative Lessons
- “The pathway to salvation is as narrow and as difficult to walk as a razor’s edge.”
- Searching for meaning in life leads to transformation in one’s own nature.
- Find yourself through introspection.
- One has to find for oneself what the meaning of life is.
Kundun (1997)
From childhood to adulthood, Tibet’s fourteenth Dalai Lama deals with Chinese oppression and other problems.
Creative Lessons
- To inspire change in the world, lead by example.
- Wisdom and compassion will set us free.
- Growth doesn’t only come from learning but also through humility.
I Heart Huckabees (2004)
A husband-and-wife team play detective, but not in the traditional sense. Instead, the happy duo helps others solve their existential issues, the kind that keep you up at night, wondering what it all means.
Creative Lessons
- “How come we only ask ourselves the really big questions when something bad happens?”
- We’re all connected.
- “Everything is the same, even if it’s different.”
- Everything you could ever want or be, you already have and are.
Seven Years in Tibet (1997)
True story of Heinrich Harrer (Brad Pitt), an Austrian mountain climber who became friends with the Dalai Lama at the time of China’s takeover of Tibet.
Creative Lessons
- A spiritual transformation requires the death of the ego.
- Don’t worry about things you can’t control.
- Dalai Lama: “We have a saying in Tibet: If a problem can be solved there is no use worrying about it. If it can’t be solved, worrying will do no good.”
- Serving others is the path to greater meditation.
- Salvation requires hard work and constant practice.
Little Buddha (1993)
After the death of Lama Dorje, Tibetan Buddhist monks find three children – one American and two Nepalese – who may be the rebirth of their great teacher.
Creative Lessons
- Free your mind with meditation.
- “It is being totally quiet and relaxed, separating yourself from everything around you, setting your mind free like a bird, and you can then see your thoughts as if they were passing clouds.”
- “To learn is to change. The path of enlightenment is in the middle way. It is the line between all opposite extremes.”
- The path to enlightenment is in the middle way. It is the line between all opposite extremes.
Samsara (2001)
After undergoing 36 months of continuous meditation, Buddhist monk Tashi (Shawn Ku) arrives at a prominent monastery and promptly has a troubling revelation — he wants to experience sex. When Tashi fails to squelch his growing desire to explore life’s carnal pleasures, he leaves the monastery behind. But, as he struggles to adjust after his sudden marriage to local peasant Pima (Christy Chung), he realizes he may lack the tools necessary to cope with everyday troubles and temptations.
Creative Lessons
- Man’s search for ultimate purpose and meaning should be in the world.
- Don’t depend on external sources like materialism to make you happy.
- Can you renounce things that you’ve never experienced? Can you reach enlightenment without experiencing all aspects of living?
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... And Spring (2003)
A boy is raised by a Buddhist monk in an isolated floating temple where the years pass like the seasons.
Creative Lessons
- The cause of our suffering is the “self”.
- Desire leads to impractical thinking.
- Everything that we get attached to is impermanent.
- Everything that we desire and avoid in life is a form of attachment.
Hector And The Search For Happiness (2014)
Disillusioned with the tedium of his existence, a psychiatrist (Simon Pegg) searches the globe to find the secret of happiness.
Creative Lessons
- Making comparisons can spoil your happiness.
- A lot of people think happiness means being richer or more important.
- Many people only see happiness in their future.
- Happiness could be the freedom to love more than one woman at the same time.
- Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story.
- Avoiding unhappiness is not the road to happiness.
- Does this person bring you predominantly a. up b. down?
- Happiness is answering your calling.
- Happiness is being loved for who you are.
- Sweet Potato Stew!
- Fear is an impediment to happiness.
- Happiness is feeling completely alive.
- Happiness is knowing how to celebrate.
- Listening is loving.
- Nostalgia is not what it used to be.
Zen (2009)
Dogen, a monk (Kantarou Nakamura) from Japan travels to 13th-century China in search of true Buddhism, then brings the art of Zen meditation to Japan.
Creative Lessons
- Surrender yourself to the flow of nature.
- “To study Buddhism is to study ourselves. To study ourselves is to forget ourselves.”
- Stillness and meditation is the path to self-discovery and enlightenment.
- “Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things.”
- “If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?”
- “Those who seek the easy way do not seek the true way.”
Waking Life (2001)
A man shuffles through a dream meeting various people and discussing the meanings and purposes of the universe.
Creative Lessons
- How do you know you’re not living in a dream?
- Which is the most universal human characteristic: fear or laziness?
- “The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams. Because, if you can do that, you can do anything.”
- “Things have been tough lately for dreamers. They say dreaming is dead, no one does it anymore. It’s not dead it’s just that it’s been forgotten, removed from our language. Nobody teaches it so nobody knows it exists.”
Zach is an international writer, photographer, filmmaker, martial artist, and creator of Creative Enso, the Zen art of creative living. His goal is to empower and inspire creatives to live healthier, happier, and more creative lifestyles.
