Well I’m not really an expert on that subject but people have yelled at me about it a lot so I’ll try my best.
Ok so, as many tumblr Buddhists and Star Wars prequel apologists have informed me recently, “letting go of attachments” is supposed to mean that you don’t let your love for others or yourself to become obsessive. It’s sort of a combination “if you love it set it free” and accepting that bad things can happen without dwelling on them - an acceptance that you can’t be in control of everything, and that the world doesn’t revolve around you.
In Kung Fu Panda 2, Po, compassionate and heroic though he may be, is weighed down by a great deal of anxiety about his life. He still isn’t sure if he really deserves to be treated as a hero, he discovers he was adopted and is filled with anxiety about his family, and just as he’s finally making friends with his fellow martial artists a threat rises that is trying to kill them all. Po’s friends, family, and very sense of self are threatened in this story.
His antagonist, Lord Shen, is a perfect foil for him. Shen was born into a wealthy family that was renowned for making fireworks, but wants to use that technology to make canons and guns - weapons that, in the world of this story, are unthinkably powerful - which he can then use to conquer all of China. He is warned that if pursues this scheme that a hero of black and white - a panda, he assumes - will rise to kill him. Rather than pursue a less horrible goal, Shen opts to wipe out all the Pandas in China. Horrified at what he has done, Shen’s parents exile him from their family home, and later die of grief.
Yet despite being given palpable evidence that his current course is wrong, Shen remains committed to his mad dream. He refuses to question the morality of his actions, or accept the consequences of it. He paints his parents as traitors who rebuked his love of him, believing that they were the ones who wronged him by exiling him rather than supporting his ambitions. After all, wouldn’t his plan have benefited them as well? Did they not see that he was trying to bring glory to his family, to increase their wealth and status? Did they not see how special and important and perfect he was?
Shen is defined by his attachments. He obsesses over what he feels he is owed, what he deserves, and is incapable of seeing any of his own actions as wrong as a result. He’s incapable of accepting the consequences of his mistakes, even when they cost him things he loves and values. Every setback he faces can’t be accepted as an accident or a result of his own mistakes - it HAS to be a result of other peoples’ faults, of some monstrous conspiracy to keep him from claiming his rightful place.
He assumes others think like this as well. When Po finally confronts Shen, Shen assumes Po would be furious and vengeful at him for, y’know, exterminating Po’s race. The fact that Po is unaware of their personal connection is amusing to him, and being the egotist that he is, Shen can’t help taunting Po about it.
When Po finally presses Shen to tell him what Shen knows about his family, Shen tells a horrible lie. “ Oh, you want to know so badly? You think knowing will heal you, eh? Fill some… crater in your soul? Well, here’s your answer: your parents didn’t love you.” Interestingly, this exact lie is what Shen has told himself to justify his actions - he knows how much it hurts to believe your parents hated you, how much of a betrayal that is, how much you suffer when someone you’re attached to does not share the sentiment, and tries to trick Po into suffering the same way.
Of course, we learn that this is false for both Po and Shen - Shen’s parents did love him, and were killed by the grief of what they allowed their son to become.
By Shen’s logic, Po should be consumed with grief and anger over what Shen has taken of him. Shen expects Po to be just as deranged and vicious as he is - he expects Po to be broken.
Instead, when Po learns the truth, including what Shen has taken from him, Po… let’s go. He let’s go of the sorrow. of the anger, of the grief. He let’s go because he knows he was loved and, more importantly, is loved. He let’s go because he knows that while there are bad times, there are also good times. He let’s go because he knows he can’t control the past. He can’t control what happened to his mother or to his people. He can’t control Shen’s actions. The past is history - it’s the here and now, the present, that matters. Po has people he loves and who loves him, and he has the opportunity to act on their behalf now.
Shen: How did you find peace? I took away your parents. Everything! I I– I scarred you for life!
Po: See that’s the thing, Shen. Scars heal.
Shen: No, they don’t. Wounds heal.
Po: Oh yeah. What do scars do? They fade, I guess?
Shen: I don’t care what scars do.
Po: You should, Shen. You gotta let go of that stuff from the past ‘cause it just doesn’t matter! The only thing that matters is what you choose to be now.
Even after learning everything that Shen has taken from him, Po tries to heal and teach Shen during their final battle. He doesn’t dwell on the grief, he doesn’t succumb to hatred, he simply tries to stop the violence by any means, the ideal way would be to change Shen’s mind rather than to kill him. Shen ultimately forces Po to fight back, and in the process kills himself. Shen was the warrior of black and white who spelled his own doom all along.
But Po isn’t the best example of a character letting go of attachments in the Buddhist sense that this series has to offer. No, the best, most literal example, would be Master Oogway.
In the first Kung Fu Panda movie, Oogway selects what is, essentially, an heir to his role as the ultimate master of Kung Fu. His choice is Po, which surprises everyone since Po is a big, out-of-shape noodle vender, and has no training in kung fu. Yet Oogway is confident that Po is the correct choice, even though everyone else, including his greatest student Master Shifu, insists it was an accident. “There are no accidents,” Oogway says to Shifu, “You must learn to let go of the illusion of control.”
Oogway’s final words to Shifu are to accept that, while we can affect important change in the world, we cannot control everything - that we have to work with what we are given, and accept that things will not go the way we expect or want them to. His plea for Shifu to believe in Po is also a plea to try and work with the situation as it is, instead of stubbornly trying to force it back into the plan that Shifu had concocted in his head.
And when Shifu agrees to do so, Oogway lets go in the exact way Buddha intended - he leaves the material plane and ascends to a higher existence.
In Kung Fu Panda 3, Po briefly ascends to the same spiritual realm that Oogway currently resides in, and Oogway explains how he knew Po would live up to his legacy - how he saw the past, present, and future of Kung Fu in Po, and knew that the world would be safe in the panda’s hands. Oogway’s last attachment to the physical world was his concern for its safety in his absence, and since Po could and would ensure its safety, Oogway was finally ready to let go completely.
Completely letting go of attachments does not work for a traditional hero’s narrative, because the concept isn’t about heroism - it’s not meant to be, either. It’s a philosophy geared towards breaking the cycle of reincarnation, and transcending the problems of a mortal life. Letting go of attachments is what you do to prepare to die, not what you do to prepare for a fight with the Evil Empire.
But letting go of some attachments can be used in a heroic narrative, which is what the Kung Fu Panda series does. It applies Buddhist and Taoist philosophies to a heroic story in a way that makes sense and stays true to both, because it was written by people who are much smarter than George Lucas.
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