Tag Archives: Patrick McGoohan

One of the best series ever to emerge from television was the late ‘60’s The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan. It presents the human dilemma of not being “free”—both in mind and being incarcerated in the existential-gestalt from which there is no escape. The individual is merely a “unit” in the larger whole of what makes up the skandhic prison house. The Zennist’s reaction to the 2009 re-make of the series states “The trick is to make the prison big and spacious enough—hiding the bars— so that one has a false sense of freedom; so the inhabitants don’t realize they’re prisoners.” Our modern world is essentially a “fictional construct”—a “grand illusion”, or for that matter, delusion, that prevents one from seeing the “larger horizon” of the Truly Real domain of Absolute Freedom in the Dharmadhātu. Many are not even dimly aware of the nature of their own incarceration. The one sure avenue of “escape” is familiarizing oneself with the “mystical path” that alone bears the keys to unlock the gate of Self-incarceration. However, even here the Zennist pinpoints the postmodern fallacy of what constitutes the mystic element of the “here and now”: read more