Abstract
Khyentse Norbu’s 1999 film The Cup came in the wake of several major Hollywood films that presented Tibetan Buddhism as a foil to Western secular modernity. Norbu’s film is organized around an apparent opposition between sacred and profane space and activities. While it is possible to see this opposition as relatively stable, a set of objects in the film shows the apparently stable hierarchy to be illusory. By considering the presentation of these objects in relation to Vajrayana teachings given by The Cup’s director and other prominent Tibetan teachers, we can see that the film has a muted or “esoteric” subtext in which apparently worldly possessions participate in ritual-like exchanges that result in shared experiences of relative liberation.
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