Mujou and its Influence on Today's Culture

“The Doctor: ‘Sonic Blaster. Fifty-first century weapons factory at Villengard?’
Captain Jack: ‘You’ve been to the factories?’
The Doctor: ‘Once….’
Captain Jack: ‘Well, they’re gone now, destroyed. Main reactor went critical and vaporized the lot.’
The Doctor: ‘Like I said, once….there’s a banana grove there now. I like bananas. Bananas are good.’”
- Jack and the Doctor, Season 1 (2005) Doctor Who, ep 8


“He could feel a special affinity to the banana plant, which like himself was lonely and defenseless, torn by the storms of this world. It symbolized the fraility, the tranciency, of his own life – as he liked to picture it.”
- Shively, on Bashou.

Mujou…a Buddhist concept has been discussed in class since the very start of the semester, but to properly grasp it and to be able to truly utilize it and understand it in the world that we live in today, I feel that it’s important to look at how it is expressed in our own culture. Surprisingly, while we have older media (such as: haikus and other forms of poetry) that we’ve analyzed to bits, I feel that by mixing this older form of expression of mujou with today’s pop culture (relevant material related to our interests, and pop culture meaning the twentieth and twenty-first century) that, forgive me for almost sounding redundant, we can see how this idea has permeated in our lives.

First, what is mujou? Mujou, quite simply, I define as being a state of change, where ultimately everything dies, but is always in a constant state of change. For example, Kamo no Chomei writes, “the current of flowing river does not cease, and yet the water is not the same water as before.” (Traditional Japanese Literature 624) The water acts in the concept of mujou, because it is never the same. Every time you step in the river, the water is always different...always changing, always flowing.



Here, Disney’s tale of Pocahontas, we see how mujou affects her life. Her father wants her to be steady, “like the river”, but Pocahontas disagrees, because the water of the river is constantly changing. Instead, she wants to be like the river, to be able to change constantly, and not to be “steady”, like her father points out, and marry, settle down and stick to what her father has planned. And, we also get the “house” imagery. “For a handsome sturdy husband who builds handsome sturdy walls” is the opposite of mujou. Instead, Chomei would say that the more dilapidated the home (“hut”) the more it becomes a symbol for what mujou represents. A handsome sturdy home is not meant to change, so it cannot represent what mujou stands for. Fortunately, Pocahontas meets John Smith, who then gets injured and has to be sent back to England to recover, and manages to keep her life constantly in a pattern that reflects mujou (especially when she goes to England and meets John Rolfe and has to decide between the two – as soon as she decides, her life then becomes “steady”).

For other modern culture references, I think a great example of a movie that has touched a lot of young girls hearts, seen even today, and doesn’t symbolize the concepts of mujou, is Disney’s The Little Mermaid. However, I do think that the Hans Christian Andersen version does better represent mujou. This is interesting, because, the former movie is very popular, and some see it as the ultimate love story, but while the latter version is what the former is based on, it isn’t popular. One version symbolizes mujou and one does not.

Strangely, it is the happier tale that doesn’t. Does this mean that if we are happy, we aren’t able to live in a state of constant mujou?



This, for those that are unaware, is the Disney retelling. After rescuing the prince, the mermaid says “what would I pay to stay here beside you,” and of course, after making this point, meets the sea witch and goes through the change of becoming a mermaid to a human, willing to sacrifice her life – and her voice, to be able to be a part of this world. The fact that she does get to be a part of his world, and the prince does fall in love with her, negates what could have been an awesome representation for mujou. If she had actually given up her life, then that would have been very mujou.



Now, in this Hans Christian Andersen version, the mermaid cannot sacrifice the prince’s life to save her own, and so ends up killing herself to become sea foam so she can continue to be with the prince, even though her love is unrequited.
The quote that I used, between the Doctor and Jack, in the opening of my paper, I believe reflects Mujou to Bashou and today’s society, using the television series Doctor Who. Bashou is compared to a banana because he was a very lonely person, much like the Doctor who is referred to as “the Oncoming Storm,” especially to his enemies, and the “lonely angel,” by his companions. The Doctor feels the need to fill this loneliness by taking on “companions”, people that he allows to travel with him. What makes the Doctor a very good reference when talking about mujou, perhaps one of the best modern references, is the aspect of time in the series.
The Doctor is a Time Lord, so he’s able to travel through time. This does leave some complications though, especially where the companions are concerned. Because of the difference of time, the Doctor is constantly meeting new companions, but can never stay with them because he will always outlive them. The Doctor has a way of cheating death, where he regenerates and changes his body (very mujou). He’s “old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one. In the end you just get tired. Tired of the struggle. Tired of losing everyone that matters to you. Tired of watching everything turn to dust. If you live long enough, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone.” (Doctor Who 2005, Season 3, Episode 6)
Another very mujou part of Doctor Who is the fact that, before the meet him, his companions live their lives in almost complete ignorance to what is out there beyond what they experience every day. Rose, his first companion of his ninth regeneration, even goes as far to say, “for the first nineteen years of my life, nothing happened. Nothing at all, then I met the Doctor…the man who could change his face. And he took me away from home. Showed me the whole of time of space; I thought it would never end.”

I admit, that while I do have a certain obsession with television and movies, knowing what I know now about mujou and what it entails from our readings in class, everything I see now I try to look at in terms of mujou. That’s why I think it’s important to see how it relates to some of our media today, particularly movies, since they are a reflection on how our society operates today. When we watch movies, we’re supposed to be able to relate to the main characters. When I watch Doctor Who, the people we are supposed to relate with are the companions. We’re supposed to feel their loss when the Doctor leaves them, another mujou point, and knowing this, are we supposed to live our lives living through mujou, especially since we can’t really avoid it?


(This took longer than expected to format >>. Hopefully, my explanation of mujou and it's relationship to today's culture is okay. Mujou is a very open topic =D)