Buffy The Vampire Slayer

As earth and the other elements, together with space, Eternally provide sustenance in many ways for the countless sentient beings, So may I become sustenance in every way for sentient beings — Excerpt of the “Bodhisattva Vow”

The thing about much of reality TV is how depressing it is. It often seems only to appeal to our lesser qualities: greed, arrogance, belligerence, vindictiveness, and the like. Take an average episode of "Survivor." Contestants insult each other, betray each other, and treat other like dirt in an effort for nothing more than to enrich themselves with a prize. (And that’s only in the first five minutes of the show.)

The folks on these type of series don’t provide much to their viewers in the way of offering their audience the idea of, "These are people I would want to try to be like." (Or, at least, I sure hope not.) Frequently, science fiction shows, by contrast, are different.

Not always, certainly, but often times, scifi series offer us something better: characters who consistently put others’ welfare and even happiness above their own as a model to show all of us that there is more to life than self-centeredness.

In Buddhism, we call such people bodhisattvas, or "wisdom beings." They are people who, on the road to bringing all beings to Enlightenment, put their lives in service to others to help ease their suffering and increase their happiness, putting the fulfillment of their own cares and concerns second.

History is filled with such beings, like Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Albert Einstein, and many more. Bodhisattvas, of course, need not be famous. In our lives, whether we realize it or not, we may be fortunate enough to have our lives touched by such beings.

Science fiction, too, provides many examples of bodhisattvas: Buffy and Angel, the "Stargate SG-1" team, and Aslan of "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe," are just a handful of examples of often-ordinary people reaching above themselves and making big sacrifices—occasionally including the ultimate sacrifice—to care for the needs of others. A growing number of scholars and writers have also noticed the abundance of bodhisattvas and other aspects of Buddhist philosophy within scifi and have authored books talking about them.

Scifi bodhisattvas are not limited to the Buffyverse, however.

In the recent film "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe," Aslan proves himself to be a great being by trading his life to the White Witch in order to save Edmund’s.

But, perhaps the most compelling are the heroes of "Stargate SG-1" who regularly put our welfare above not only their own lives, but their own happiness.

Unlike some other scifi characters, the SG-1 team have no superhero powers or supernatural abilities. They are just people, like you and me, who simply believe in what they are doing to help so strongly that they not just risk death on a regular basis. Their work is no mere day job; they also clearly have made their mission their lives. They essentially live in their office and have given up many of the pleasures and creature comforts we take for granted.

Maybe more than any other characters, the folks on SG-1 show us that all it takes to be a bodhisattva is aspiration and determination.

And being a bodhisattva isn’t easy. To regularly think of the happiness of others ahead of your own is not something we are automatically accustomed to. Walking the bodhisattva path isn’t easy for Buffy, Angel, or the rest. As we see, even they face obstacles along the way. But, eventually, they overcome.

And in that way, scifi characters can be a comfort, a role model to the rest of us who have taken vows to be aspiring bodhisattvas.

No, we aren’t facing anything as dramatic as demons, witches, or malevolent aliens like the fictional characters do. But we often face challenges just as thorny in our real lives.

We can all start on the bodhisattva path simply by being mindful to extend kindness and assistance to those in need and by being more gentle in our thoughts, speech, and actions toward others. It sounds easy, but often it’s easier said than done.

When I am encountering problems in my life, I turn on some good science fiction and allow these fictional bodhisattvas to inspire me to continue on in my own non-fictional path. If these characters can overcome what they have to, then eventually I can too.

Please allow me to close this column with this aspiration: "May all sentient beings find happiness and the cause of happiness. May they be free from suffering and the cause of suffering."