Avatar: The Last Airbender (and how it relates to Buddhism)

All my friends have been obsessed with this tv show forever, and I’ve finally gotten around to watching it. I really like it, for a children’s show it’s really well developed and realistic. What I find really interesting is the history behind the ideas shown on the show, such as the Buddhist influences and the classical elements.

Obviously, there’s a lot of influences from Buddhism in this show. Let’s start with the parallels of the Avatar and the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama is the bodhisattva of compassion, as in he is an enlightened being who decided to remain on earth to help the rest of us along. As such, he is continually reincarnated every time that he dies. This is similar to the general concept of the Avatar, the Avatar is a being who bridges the gap between the physical and the spirit world and maintains peace. They both are here to help the rest of the world, and are continually reincarnated. There are a few differences though. For the Dalai Lama, his state is achievable by anyone, which is the nature of Buddhist enlightenment. Becoming the Avatar isn’t really possible. Also the relationship of the Avatar to the spirit world is very important for what he does. Buddhism does not really focus on their equivalent of the spirit world. There are several different planes that contain different spirits, but many of them are vestigial from when Buddhism developed out of Hinduism and are not essential to the religion.

Then there’s how they select the next Dalai Lama or Avatar. The Avatar reincarnates into the next element in the cycle, obviously the Dalai Lama has nothing like that, but the monks usually know where the next one will pop up because of a statement from the previous Dalai Lama or something like that. However, the actual mechanism is the same. In one of Aang’s memories, they said that he selected the same toys as the previous Avatar. This is basically how they find the next Dalai Lama. After meditating on his location (and if he was cremated noting which way the smoke blew) they present objects to kids that they determine are possibilities that all look similar, but one belonged to the previous Dalai Lama. This procedure is repeated several times. It’s pretty fascinating really.

Of course, the lifestyle of the air nomads is the most similar to a Buddhist monk. You only ever see Aang meditating heavily, and the Air leaders are referred to as “monks” as well. Their shaved heads and clothing resemble them as well.

Just in passing really, but one of the swamp guys mentioned that he reached enlightenment underneath a tree. This is the same as the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. Zuko’s journey is also pretty similar to his as well.

Then there’s the elements. The classical elements get mentioned in many different cultures, but they are most similar to the ones described as the Five Classical Elements of Hinduism and Buddhism. These are earth, air, water, fire, and aether. Aether is the fifth element and is more intangible than the others. It’s basically nothingness, space, what have you. It’s shown as the Avatar state or energy bending in the series.

It’s a very well thought out series, of course I have heard rough things about the first half of “Legend of Korra”, so I hope I can get through it all right. :/