TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Richard Gere: Karma brings me to Borobudur
The Mahakarya Borobudur (Borobudur the Masterpiece) dance performance on the yard of the world heritage temple’s Askobya open stage last Sunday evening would not have been the same without the presence of Richard Gere
Change Size
T
he Mahakarya Borobudur (Borobudur the Masterpiece) dance performance on the yard of the world heritage temple’s Askobya open stage last Sunday evening would not have been the same without the presence of Richard Gere.
With his wife Carey Lowell at Borobudur. AP/Trisnadi
The Hollywood star and Golden Globe award winner was the first international celebrity who enjoyed the performance since it was first launched six years ago to attract more tourists and offer alternative evening entertainment at the temple.
“It’s wonderful. It’s beautiful. I really enjoyed it,” Gere told The Jakarta Post, which asked for comment as he stepped down from the stage after greeting the dancers and musicians after the performance.
When he was invited on to the stage for a photo session with the performers, Gere also used the opportunity to greet the dancers and musicians personally and gave them his Buddhist way of saluting by bowing his body a bit forward while putting together his palms, one facing the other, on his chest.
“You know, I’ve been thinking of this [visit to Borobudur] for a long time,” Gere told a pack of journalists who had been waiting for his arrival at the temple from late afternoon that day.
Gere said that the last time he was in Indonesia was when he came to Bali some 25 years ago. “But I never came to Java,” said Gere who visited the temple with his wife Carey Lowell and his 11-year-old son Homer James Jigme Gere.
Gere was at the temple on the invitation of the management company PT Taman Wisata Candi Borobudur, Prambanan & Ratu Boko and the Culture and Tourism Ministry.
Also known as a humanitarian activist and chairman of the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), Gere was welcomed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Sunday at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta before departing for Yogyakarta.
Gere was initially scheduled to arrive at the Yogyakarta airport at around 2 p.m. that Sunday but only arrived there at about 4 p.m., reportedly due to a flight delay. He proceeded to Magelang overland.
Because of the delay he missed a scheduled visit to the Hindu Prambanan and Buddhist Sewu Temples in Yogyakarta. The two temples are located right next to the other and thus are considered a perfect example on how the value of pluralism has been practiced for a long time in Indonesia.
The missed schedule, however, did not seem to reduce Gere’s excitement in visiting Borobudur, which he claimed in some way had connected him with a Tibetan teacher of his own who once came to Borobudur to study Buddhism and also with Dalai Lama.
Gere also considered his visit to the largest Buddhist Temple in the world as very important for his own study on Buddhism. “It’s very exciting for me to be in Borobudur. This is the first time I have been able to make it,” said Gere, who has been a Buddhist for over a decade.
When asked why it took him that long to come to Borobudur, Gere said that maybe it was because his karma thus far was not right. “Now karma has produced and I can see Borobudur,” he said.
He said that prior to his visit he had done a lot of reading about the history of Borobudur. He also followed the restoration works on it through the readings and by comparing early photographs of the temple and those pictured recently.
“Tomorrow, I’m looking for the details of the mandala and the stupa. I’m going to meditate on the stupa,” said Gere, whose presence at the dance performance had forced the organizer to double the number of seats from 500 into 1,000.
The following day on Monday, very early in the morning, Gere went up the stairs of the 35-meter high temple formed of some 55,000 andesit stones. He meditated and prayed there together with a number of Buddhist monks.
He went on by walking along the temple’s first terrace of the Arupadhatu level to observe the reliefs of the wall. Austrian multimedia expert Titus Leber played as Gere’s guide to the tour. Leber was in the filmmaking of Borobudur Path to the Enlightenment.
During the tour, Gere showed his enthusiasm for the story of the Buddha’s life as depicted on the reliefs.
He spent some two hours at the temple that morning and had only time to observe some half of the reliefs at the first terrace.
He decided to stop and return to the nearby exclusive hotel where he stayed and skipped another scheduled walk on the back of an elephant to the neighboring tourist villages.
“He was really excited with the temple and said he would come back for a more personal and peaceful meditation and walk,” said Purnomo Siswoprasetjo, president director of the temple management company PT Taman Wisata Candi Borobudur, Prambanan & Ratu Boko, after accompanying the actor on Monday.
Gere did come back to the temple that late afternoon the same day when the temple was closed for public visits and spent an hour and a half meditating.
He continued his unfinished morning walk at the first terrace and moved on to the second, third and fourth terraces for the reliefs.
“So, I suppose, his hope for a more peaceful, personal meditation and walk around the temple has been fulfilled,” Purnomo said.
Purnomo, who accompanied Gere during the visit, also said that as a scheduled royal dinner with Yogyakarta Sultan Hamengkubuwono X on Monday evening had been cancelled, the actor decided to visit the nearby Mendut Monastery and Temple just some 500 meters from Borobudur.
“He expressed the same excitement and amazement at Mendut Temple as he was observing a very big Buddha statue. He said he really want to come back in the future,” Purnomo said.
Previously, Gere said that he had been talking about having events conducted in Indonesia. “I think Indonesia has much to offer to the world,” he said.
Asked on the possibility of making a film in Indonesia, like actress Julia Roberts, his co-star in Pretty Woman (1990) and Runaway Bride (1999), Gere said “Oh, I don’t know”.
“I’ve been thinking about Raffles, the guy who rediscovered the temple some 200 years ago. So it’s like the anniversary of Raffles’ rediscovering the temple. That I think will be exciting,” he said, referring to the British colonial governor general Thomas Stamford Raffles.
Gere and his family left Magelang and then Yogyakarta on Tuesday morning for Bali, from where he returned to his home country.
