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I still remember the 1980 critically and commercially successful academy award winning film Ordinary People featuring Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore and Timothy Hutton, which marks the directorial debut of Robert Redford.
The story about the disintegration of an upper middle class family in Lake Forest, Illinois following the death of the oldest son is based on the 1976 novel by Judith Guest. Now, an ordinary person or puthujjana in Sanskrit, is trapped in the endless changes of saṃsāra. Doing good or evil is influenced by his desires and aversions and unless he learns to take control over his mind and behavior, his destiny is haphazard and subject to great suffering. The ordinary person has neither seen nor experienced the ultimate truth of Dhamma, and therefore has no way of finding an end to his predicament. Thus, I suppose, the ordinary people in the movie suffer!
I still remember the 1980 critically and commercially successful academy award winning film Ordinary People featuring Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore and Timothy Hutton, which marks the directorial debut of Robert Redford. The story about the disintegration of an upper middle class family in Lake Forest, Illinois following the death of the oldest son is based on the 1976 novel by Judith Guest. Now, an ordinary person or puthujjana in Sanskrit, is trapped in the endless changes of saṃsāra. Doing good or evil is influenced by his desires and aversions and unless he learns to take control over his mind and behavior, his destiny is haphazard and subject to great suffering. The ordinary person has neither seen nor experienced the ultimate truth of Dhamma, and therefore has no way of finding an end to his predicament. Thus, I suppose, the ordinary people in the movie suffer!
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