This agreeable documentary from Maurice O’Brien, a study of the Dzogchen Beara Buddhist centre in west Co Cork, accidentally touches on a fascinating demographic phenomenon of the 1970s. During that period, a significant number of hippie-adjacent Europeans – Germans and British in particular – set up alternative communities in rural Ireland. Some eventually returned to whence they came. Quite a few stayed.
The late Peter Cornish, born in England of Irish stock, was one of the latter. We hear how he bought the land in 1973 and subsequently turned it into a spiritual retreat. In the decades that followed, both committed Buddhists and those seeking unaligned peace have taken refuge there.
Cornish, who died in 2023, proves a congenial host. Gaunt and bearded by the time of filming, he injects humour and pathos into tales of defying naysayers – friends warned of “small-minded” Catholic Ireland – to establish a then most unusual community. Many of their neighbours took them for Muslims.
O’Brien meshes footage from those far-off days with contemporaneous shots of his subject pacing about the now-lavish facilities. Staff and visitors celebrate the healing properties of the site and ponder the wider philosophies.
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In truth, some viewers, particularly those who don’t acknowledge that much ballyhooed “spiritual dimension”, will find their attention wandering during the lengthy encomiums to the Rigpa school of Buddhism. As we are told that life is akin to a dream, thoughts turn to Dr Johnson kicking his large stone sceptically after exposure to Bishop Berkeley’s notion that matter does not exist. Many others will, of course, be warmed and comforted.
[ Peter Cornish’s dream was to build a refuge from the mayhemOpens in new window ]
Then something disturbing happens. We are reminded that Sogyal Rinpoche, the lama who acted as chief inspiration, became caught up in convincing accusations of sexual abuse that led, in 2017, to his resignation as Rigpa’s spiritual director. There is no attempt here to make excuses. Nobody tries to obfuscate. But the story can’t help but cast a pall over an otherwise celebratory documentary.
Receiving a limited theatrical release, Chasing the Light is worth seeing on the big screen to savour breathtaking vistas of the Atlantic coast. That view will, in itself, offers balm to troubled minds. So will the apparent decency and good humour of Peter Cornish. “I’m not really a hermit,” he says early on. “I’m just living alone.”
In cinemas from Friday, December 13th
