gives you enough space to investigate and question so as to understand

Rating: 7/10 (29 December 2012)

Thought I'd write this down while it's still fresh in my mind.
What struck me during the movie was how relevant it was to my own life, especially with regards to my relationship with my husband, Beat seen through the eyes of everything I have learnt through Buddhism.
We come face to face with our deepest fears when we are forced to live with a being as dangerous as the tiger with the soul in its eyes being only a reflection of our emotions. Or is it? The tiger is merely a manifestation or projection of what is within ourselves. This same tiger could symbolize a person, situation or thing.
The tiger is our teacher however and we should thank it for teaching us greater understanding and compassion once we can open up and accept it for what it truly is and its nature hence also accept that part inherent in ourselves which we fear and fight. The tiger keeps us alert, tending to its needs gives us purpose and ultimately keeps us alive within a seemingly helpless situation.
We are all teachers in even just what we do silently and the boy is as much a teacher to the tiger as the tiger is to him. Actions transcends language as evident in the relationship between man and animal. Being forced to live together on a lifeboat and a makeshift floating platform at sea taught them both the greatest virtue of patience. The roles of the predator/prey or hunter/hunted becomes reversed at some point in the story. Compassion prevailed instead
We can also learn to appreciate the impermanence and transience of life in that this too will pass which is a proverb indicating that all material conditions, positive or negative, are temporary in the greater scheme of things.
Perhaps when we finally reach shore to safety, the tiger would walk right out of our lives and leave us unceremoniously once and for all without even 'looking back' hence help us acknowledge the truth of what's happened, that a final separation from that person has occurred. And in that acceptance we come to peace. The departure of the tiger could also just signify the change of quality within a relationship.
In the same way, life doesn't go according to plan anyways and we could lose our loved ones suddenly in an unexpected turn of events in a shipwreck. We will all grow old and die someday. Our whole lives is a grand orchestration of letting go.
But we are not the same boy as we were when we unwittingly started out on the greatest journey of our lives that would change our lives forever.
Does God exist? Who knows for sure? Perhaps our individual journey is to discover the mind; with the realization of the ultimate reality or enlightenment being the closest quality of experience in proximity hence intimacy to a God we could experience as stated in the Hindu scriptures.
Now I can honestly say that I can appreciate all the above-mentioned in the movie; Life of Pi.