Paul Bright, Buddhist Movie Director, Shrine Donator

Background Music Intoduction Platinum Tithing Review from Tithe, the Movie, The Tithe CD, Sonic Love Bird and the Loving Kindness Chicks

Director Paul Bright, known for his movies including, Buddha's Enlightenment, a story of Buddha's Life, Tithe, the Movie and the Shaolin Mystic Vinaya Series and also becoming known for his innovative way of donating Buddhist Shrines used in his movie sets for use as real life Buddhist Shrines.


And we have also started to give Sacred Cities.
Let's talk about some of your movies and how that led to donating Buddhist Shrines and the other types of Buddhist construction you're involved with.
Buddhas Enlightenment, A story of Samma Sambuddha Gotama's Life
How did you get the idea?
The movie is based on quotations of Buddha.



Long Discourses of the Buddha, Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, Connected Discourses of the Buddha, Numerical Discourses of the Buddha and of course we had to work with the Vinaya because the Maha Vagga, Great Chapter there has much of the early history of Buddha's life after he became Samma Sambuddha.
The movie is played by actors and actresses up until around the time when the Bodhisatta became a Samma Sambuddha and then contines as illustrated with voice overs. How did you get the idea?
I was working very much with the suttas because I wanted to and did make a movie that was very based on Buddha's authentic quotations. There use to be series about Superman, back in the day, before Smallville, and even before some of the Superman series before Smallville portrayed by actors and actresses except when Superman would fly it was done with illustration.
I thought suppose we did the rest of the movie after the Bodhisatta became a Samma Sambuddha. Nowadays we have some techniques that make the process of illustration ect. easier, but there is still a significant amount of time involved with the work. Back in my earlier days when my career was getting started and I worked for Disney, the illustration process was even more time involved.
For me the details of the illustration paralled the idea of a life lived with mindfulness and clear awareness. Like when people practice walking meditation they can developed clear awarenes. They can practice clear awareness about everything they do.
We have a type of story called a teaching story. Samma Sambuddha Gotama got on a roll with the Turning of the Wheel of Dhamma Discourse in Sarnath and continued with his teaching activities and meditation activitie for the rest of his life.
Tithe, the Movie.
10 Percent of the Movie's Proceeds will be donated to charity.
The first part is inspired by some Bible story concerning Tithing and about how people recounted their tithing tradition to address their concens about decline. I maintain a relationship with my Christian friends. My wife and children are all Buddhist and some of our extended family calls themselves Christians.I took something about Tithing and put it in a Buddhist context, but at the same time used my knowledge about Chritianity to get my game on about our social responsibilities.
Goldie Hawn calls herself a Jubu.
She is Buddhist and still maintains a relationship with her Jewish ethnicity. I am sort of like that. I am Buddhist and I maintain a relationship with my extended ethnicity.
Is there some insight you can share that you feel would help society?
Yes the 5 precepts. Abstaining from killing. Abstaining from stealing. Abstaining from sexual misconduct. Abstaining from false speech. And abstaining from intoxicating drink and drug causing heedlessness and infatuation.
I've seen too much talent including right here in the Los Angeles area not used as well as it could then because of substance abuse. We want to use our brain power for helping to perform the duties of a Dharmaraja, the factors of a Dharmaraja, a ruler who rules in accordance with the dhamma.
Teetotaling.
Tough teetotaling.
I have used a section from the Bible that is very relevant with your with the 7 Principles for Preventing Decline. The middle part takes on the Homeless Issues in America which I believe is timely. A number of people in the media have been looking at the homeless issues more seriously which I believe shows a willingness to get deeper involved in the solutions.
That is true. We are seeing many more stories on the news about the homeless issue and I believe it indicates that more people in America are willing to take more time and effort about our real social issues. Maybe we are learning our lesson from history.
When children study about the roots of decline such as what led to World War II, they can see that the 7 Principles for Success are very relevant to our vested issues in society.
With the third part we get a happy ending. I get such an inspiration from Long Discourses of the Buddha #5 which tells about how Great King Maha Vijita consults a Brahmin Chaplain who advises him about developing the economy with examples of farming, commerce, and government service to address his concerns about issues in his country. I find inspiring with the Lakkhana Sutta, Marks Discourse: Section 5 and Section 20. Philanthropy with Economic Features and Businesses with Philanthropy Features such as Promos, Tithing etc. which also has to do with how we want to develope more.

How did the Buddhist Shrine Donation start?
In the early days Disney was putting food on my table.
You were working for Disney.
That is true and it was good quality food. You see how it is when you are putting good quality food on my family's table we tend to buy more of your product or something. So we were taking a look at the Magic Kingdom.
I feel the same way about interesting interviews.

The Jungle Cruise. There was a section that reminded me of a temple.
Of course when I visited the actual Buddhist temples what I was really seeing inside then were Buddhist Statues and such and such things as one would see in a Buddhist Temple.
So when I was developing the Shaoling Mystic Vinaya I movie I had in mind these Buddhist Kung Fu types who could take on an adventure for Buddhism and I got the idea of the Shrine which I had remembered.
The movie projects especially the ones with huge budgets we had often had constructed elaborate sets for use in the movie. Then what are the sets used for after the movie?
So suppose I build a Buddhist Shrine for my movie. I'm a Buddhist Director. Then I started talking with my friends. Where's a place I can use for those sections of my Buddhist movie and then we can donate the Shrine. And that was how we got started with our Buddhist Shrine Management then.
So that became like the game within the game of working with the script, working with the other screenwriters working for me on my script of putting something I could donate like a Buddhist Shrine in the movie.
And now we have started doing Sacred Cities also.