The video above is a Pepsi commercial where a young boy trains to be a Shaolin Buddhist, which is a combination of Shaolin Kung Fu and Mahayana Buddhism. He is taken in by the monastery and taught by a sensei. When he reaches an adult age, he is shown performing Kung Fu in front of the other monks. When he finishes, they all enjoy a can of Pepsi. It is then that the young man reaches his “enlightenment” and realizes the other “enlightened” monks have the mark of the Pepsi can on their forehead. He crushes the can to his forehead, which is followed by an approving cheer from his fellow monks.
There are a few stereotypes here. The first is that westerners typically think that there is a sensei, or a master of knowledge, for any form of asian art, martial arts, religion, ect. However, Warner points out that sensei just simply means “teacher” and that the use of the word is “unknown in Japan”. Teachers, politicians, doctors, or any person of respect can be called a sensei. This is surprising to me, as I grew up watching Ninja Turtles and assumed the term sensei was only reserved for the person of a master status of something Asian, hard to do, and really cool. Warner kind of called me out on this. He mentioned “the absurd idea of the Eastern spiritual master as superhuman”. And he goes on to enlighten me of “how Zen teaching and Zen practice are very much human activities performed by real people in the midst of real life problems”. Knowing this, I can now see this stereotype of the all-knowing “zen master” played up in western culture.
Another stereotype I found was the assumption that enlightenment can be reached in a short amount of time. It only took the boy in the commercial around 10 years of training, and then in one can of Pepsi, he reaches “enlightenment”. Warner points out that there are Zen “scam artists” in our country who sell the idea that “there are ways to speed up enlightenment”. People eat this up, thinking there is a “trade marked technique” (in the commercial, it was by drinking a can of Pepsi) that “will give you an authentic kensho or satori experience in which you will realize your True Nature just like Buddha did under the Bodhi Tree”. When in actuality, Warner talks about enlightenment in two ways. The first way is to do zazen, the enlightenment activity of Buddha. By doing zazen, “enlightenment happens instantaneously, as soon as you sit on your cushion”. The second type happens after years and years of practice of zazen. “At some point these little bits and pieces begin to come together. Gradually a kind of deeper intuitive knowledge starts to form”. He says that enlightenment may come as a single moment or you might have several small moments. Or, even only the notion that something has changed. Either way, “there is no way to get it without years and years of practice”. In the commercial, when the young man reaches his Pepsi-induced enlightenment, although several years had gone by since the start of his training, he is still very young in terms of his total lifespan. This makes it very unlikely that he has acquired the amount of practice needed to reach enlightenment.
Which leads me to another assumption I had about Buddhism. I thought enlightenment was something that hit you all at once; you were lost but then suddenly found. You were unknowing and then all-knowing, and then, for forever. However, Warner points out that enlightenment doesn’t mean that you are fixed forever. He explains that you still have to live your life, with the same problems you had before. Only now, you have a better understanding of life, and you know how do deal with it. He also says that reaching enlightenment doesn’t always mean you’ll “do what you should” and that “enlightenment has to be practiced”.
