Content Warning: suicide
Pre-departure interview with Johannes Bronkhorst.
Starts in French, roughly at 4:50 switches to English.
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If you or a person you know is struggling with life’s challenges, mental distress or just need someone to talk to, please call a suicide prevention line, Lifeline, or talk to a counselor. You are never alone!
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If someone’s listened to the talk, could they indicate what he’s saying? Thanks!
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I’ve tried to capture it here. It’s an interesting and, at times, heart-warming discussion.
The interview is conducted with gentleness and respect. Johannes Bronkhorst goes in the direction of the interviewer’s questions and not really any further.
There is no discussion of anything other than his life’s work. There’s nothing to suggest this is a “pre-departure” interview.
0-.00.42.00 The interviewer asks questions to sum up, more or less, all of Bronkhorst’s major writings. It is a scholarly discussion.
00.42.00 Bronkhorst describes his introduction to Buddhism at the age of 15. “Life is suffering” makes sense to him.
At this point, he describes throwing out anything he may have thought or believed about religious experience, an afterlife, etc. He spends the rest of the interview mentioning, at times, the influence of his parents in this regard – particularly that of his mother, who was a devout Christian.
00.51.45 He explores the idea of rebirth and karmic retribution as central to Indian thought.
00.54.00 More on the history of Indian thought, from his perspective.
1.05 More recently, he says, he has been exploring (intrigued by?) the origins of the belief in rebirth and karmic retribution, particulary in Indian thought.
1.08-1.14 Some discussion on Buddhism in the shadow of Brahminism.
1.14-1.24 His more recent exploration into the depths of meditation absorption and the fact there is little in the scientific literature about this. This is of great interest to him.
1.40-1.52 He wraps up the questions with the reflection “I’ve been lucky” several times. He emphasizes how not breaking his mother’s heart by telling her he left Christianity always weighed on him. He briefly talks about his living siblings.
My only comment or editorial is that he seems completely at ease and not compelled to add anything or claim any “special wisdom.” Very humble man.
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He seemed to be in good physical and mental health at the time of the interview. He could have stuck around much longer and made many more academic contributions to the world it seems
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Absolutely. But we can’t continue discussing that… because reasons.