Kung Fu Panda

In the past week or so, as one of my best friends & I talked about lost identities and core selves and finding or rediscovering parts of our selves, he recommended the three Kung Fu Panda movies to me; so I watched them. 

[Spoiler alert: the rest of this post might give away a lot of info, if you haven’t seen the Kung Fu Panda movies, yet.]

I watched all three of them in less than a week and just finished the third one last night. And I totally loved them! But not just as in, “Oh, I really enjoyed that movie, it was so interesting or so fun or so moving”. They truly resonated with me, touched something deep within me, while also surprising me in pleasant ways. I admit, I watched them with no idea of what to expect; but I was sort of expecting a bit of the “usual” or “standard” version of a “hero”, or that Po (the panda) would become “cool” once he discovered he was the “Dragon Warrior”. But no: he remains just his childish, fun, adorable, friendly, goofy self, true and authentic to himself, full of his own doubts and confusion even once he embraces his being the “Dragon Warrior”: and being goofy and scared or confused doesn’t stop him from achieving wonderful goals, not only for himself but also — and just as importantly — for those around him, for the well-being of his communities. 

There’s really A LOT that I loved about these three movies, A LOT that I identified and/or resonated with, so I’ll just mention a few things briefly here: Po’s being childish and yet wise at the same time; Po’s realizing that he is lots of different “things” all rolled into “one”, and coming to peace with this — the plurality of the self; Po’s “unconventional” family, as he has two dads, no moms (living), and is raised and then lives within three different communities (or “chosen families”) — that he finally brings together; Po’s being saved, at the end, by the people he was trying to save, by the persons & communities he was trying to protect — the interdependence of all their separate Qi’s coming together and strengthening Po’s Qi; the idea, expressed explicitly a couple times by some masters to their student(s): “I don’t want to turn you into myself; I want to turn you into yourselves”. 

Being a teacher myself (among many other things), I resonated a lot with this latter concept, since it is also my ideal — whether I’m then able to practice it wholly or not… It’s a concept that has always been very dear to me, partly also because when I was growing up I often felt that those who were teaching me (especially my family of origin) were not trying to turn me into myself (i.e. let me be myself) but rather trying to turn me into new, younger versions of themselves (or of what they would have wanted to be or what their ideal was), and I suffered a lot from this. 

The other feeling that resonated with me from those last two concepts is the interdependence with my students or communities in which I am involved: as I try to help them be themselves, actually it is often thanks to the fact that they see the “best potential” in my own self that allows me to give “my best” to them — or, at least, “one of my bests”, since I truly believe in the plurality of the self. 

So, yes, the Kung Fu Panda movies will definitely be on my “favorite films” list from now on!