Emotional Resonance and Rocket Launchers: A Meditation on 'Lost'

By Scott Nance

It's long been said that religion and science don't mix. Religion and science fiction -- that's another story.

Scifi has been lifting religious themes and symbolism at least as far back as Leonard Nimoy's borrowing of a Jewish blessing to create the Vulcan salute for the original Star Trek series.

Often, science fiction has adapted concepts from Eastern religions, such as Buddhism. Imbuing an alien culture with Eastern, Buddhist-like trappings and whatnot has proven to be a quick and easy way to convey a sense of the exotic upon the fictitious culture.

These Buddhist attributes tend to be things like using meditation practice, incense or some similar embellishment as a story or plot device.

The "ascension" by the Ancients of Stargate SG-1, for instance, sounds a lot like an interpretation of Buddhist Enlightenment. (However, while the recent Stargate Atlantis episode "Tao of Rodney" postulated a technological path to Ascension, Buddhist Enlightment only comes from lifetimes of meditation and dedicated practice.)

But no recent series, anyway, has made such a concerted, albeit murky, connection to Buddhism than the ABC drama, Lost. The very name of the organization that runs the research stations on the mysterious island on which Lost is set -- the Dharma Initiative -- is an unmistakable Buddhist referrence. Among other inrepretations, the word "Dharma" most frequently refers to the teachings of the Buddha, or what is Buddhism itself.

If that wasn't enough, the survivors of Lost spent much of the second season of the series living down a hatch where they had to key a series of numbers into an old computer every 108 minutes to prevent catastrophe. The mumber 108 is a very significant one for Buddhists, as Buddhist rosaries, or malas, are made up of 108 beads which we use to count out our recitations of mantras.

All of these familiarities have gotten more than one Buddhist wondering what the real connection is -- beneath the many mysteries of Lost -- between our Dharma and the Dharma Initiative.

The Buddhist magazine, Tricycle, last year ran a story on the show and its continuing flirtation with Buddhism.

"Certainly at least one of Lost's writers seems to have some real knowledge of Buddhist practice," writer Dean Sluyter says.

I don't think we Buddhists are offended by the producers' use of at least the trappings of our religion on Lost. All of the fans of Lost are left to try to figure out the many questions and mysteries the series puts out there -- these odd references to our faith only present we Buddhists with just one more such puzzle to wonder about.


A former entertainment journalist, Scott Nance has been author of the online Emotional Resonance & Rocket Launchers column for more than three years. He's also been a longtime member of the USS Chesapeake, an active Star Trek and science fiction club in the Washington, DC, region, and is the publisher of Life, The Universe Media. Email him with any comments.










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Global Earth Day broadcast to feature South Pole

Air quality research and ozone monitoring at the US National Science Foundation's Amundsen-Scott South Pole station will be showcased as part of a global Earth Day telecast scheduled for April 20, 2007, on various ABC network news programs.

Stephen Padin, the South Pole station science leader, will be featured on the network's broadcast Planet Earth 2007: Seven Ways to Help Save the World. Padin is spending the southern winter at the world's most remote scientific observatory.

Padin is expected to discuss what it is like to spend eight months of darkness at the Pole and what scientists are doing there. He will also talk about long-range scientific research to track levels of carbon-dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere since men first wintered at the Pole 50 years ago. The condition of the Earth's protective ozone layer also is monitored at the Pole.
The various reports in the daylong broadcast will air on Good Morning America, World News with Charles Gibson," an hour-long 20/20 anchored by Diane Sawyer and Nightline.

The South Pole has the most pristine air on the Earth and the record of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere derived from measurements at the Pole, which has shown steady growth for 50 years, is one of the oldest and most comprehensive in existence.

Padin lives in an elevated station that replaced one built in 1975. He oversees the operation of the South Pole telescope, a 75-foot tall, 280-ton device that will allow scientists to study the evolution of the universe.

The broadcast also airs shortly after the March 2007 launch of International Polar year (IPY), a concentrated, global campaign of research in the polar regions. NSF, which manages the U.S. Antarctic Program and chairs the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee, is the lead U.S. agency for IPY.

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