Buddhism and TV

Like the topic of our class, I have decided to go with another media that Buddhism could go along with.  However, instead of looking at films I have chosen the television show Avatar: The Last Airbender and the Buddhist influence within the series.  This showed aired on Nickelodeon and it was intended for mainly child audiences, so the Buddhism was kept light and basic so as to not upset Western TV watchers.

The first major and most obvious influence is the use of the four elements--Water, Earth, Fire, and Air.  In Buddhism these signify different aspects of the internal and external world in and around us.  In the world of Avatar the elements are controlled by certain members in each of the four nations i.e. the Water Tribe is the home of the Waterbenders, Earth Kingdom to Earthbenders, Fire Nation to Firebenders, and Air Temples to Airbenders. 

Each generation has a new reincarnation of the Avatar and their duty is to keep balance in the world.  The main character Aang is the Avatar in this generation and when searching for the Avatar among the Air Nomads, the head monks will conduct a test where they have each child select toys or relics out of many.  When Aang did this, he selected four different items that were possessions of his past Avatar lives.  The head monks then knew that he was the next Avatar.  This is similar to how the Tibetan Monks search for the next Dalai Lama by asking him a series of questions.

In the beginning of the second season, Aang and his friends get trapped in a swamp where they meet the hermit Huu.  Huu is a Waterbender who left his home in search for spiritual enlightenment and found his way to the heart of this particular swamp under a giant grove tree. Here he states that he did in fact achieve spiritual enlightenment and felt the energy all around him and learned that everything is connected.  This alludes to Prince Guatama’s own spiritual journey.  

Another main influence is the entire nation of the Air Nomads.  Their whole culture is based heavily on the Buddhist Monastic lifestyle.  There are four Air temples in each corner of this world and they are separated by gender--male monks lived in the Northern and Southern temples while female nuns lived in the Eastern and Western temples.  Air is considered the element of freedom and so those who bend it must spiritually detach themselves from the physical world and free themselves of worldly troubles. 

There are many more influences throughout the series; even from other Eastern religions and I could write for days about this series for it is one of my favorites.  I find it most interesting through a children’s TV show that we can learn about different cultures such as this, even though it is at a very basic level of understanding and could almost be passed over without viewers realizing it.