Source Code is not sci-fi;
it's the eight minutes of a dead man.
What if I told you
the 2011 film "Source Code"
isn't actually a science fiction movie?
Instead, it's a film about how a person should die.
Would you want to watch it again?
Hello,
everyone.
I'm Wang Lijie.
Recently, a reader wrote to me
to talk about this movie.
She analyzed a film review using concepts from Yogacara philosophy.
It was a very earnest piece,
layering concepts like Alaya-vijnana, Vishaya-pratyaya, and Seed-perfuming
into the plot.
She asked me
if Yogacara could truly provide a complete explanation of the film.
I re-watched the movie because of her.
Her interpretation works,
but I want to enter through a different door.
Because what strikes a chord in my heart about this film
isn't its sci-fi premise;
it's that it portrays one thing from start to finish: a dead man
being pulled back from the edge of death by technology,
and then, over and over again,
practicing how to die.
Let's first address a fact that is easily overlooked.
In the first twenty minutes,
the audience and the protagonist, Colter, are both kept in the dark.
He thinks he's on a time-travel mission,
projecting his consciousness into the last eight minutes of Sean's life,
reliving the train explosion
to find the bomber.
But as the story unfolds,
we learn the truth:
Colter is already dead.
While flying a helicopter in Afghanistan,
he was shot down.
The entire crew perished.
His body is mangled beyond repair;
only a portion of his brain still emits faint electrical signals.
He's kept in a container where day and night don't exist,
barely hanging on through life support.
The military told him a lie: "You are alive."
"Your mission isn't over."
Colter believed them.
So every time he woke up back on that train,
he thought he was someone with a future,
someone who could go home once the mission was done.
But do you see?
He isn't on a mission.
He is compensating for death.
Every time he restarts,
he is helping the military delay a farewell that should have ended long ago.
This reminds me of a chilling insight:
Most of us
are dead people who don't realize how many times we've died.
I don't mean biological death,
I mean
you think you're alive,
you think you have a future,
you think today can always wait for tomorrow.
But the protagonist in your heart,
that 'ego' constantly performing various tasks,
might have died at some point long ago.
You just haven't noticed.
You are still fulfilling that ego's past obsessions,
collecting the wages it is 'owed,'
fighting the battles it left unfinished,
proving your worth to people who are no longer there.
Colter sitting on that train
isn't sci-fi;
it's a metaphor.
Now, let's talk about the second twist.
Those eight minutes in the film—
most interpretations treat them as a simulation,
brain wave reconstruction, quantum computing, parallel universes...
all sorts of things.
But after several viewings, I feel more and more
That eight-minute window is actually a sci-fi interpretation
of a very ancient state of consciousness.
There's an Eastern theory about death
called "Bardo."
I know some viewers, hearing the word "Bardo,"
might immediately think:
"Here we go again,
more mysticism."
But please, just treat it as a regular term for now
and let me explain it in plain language.
Bardo.
Literally, it means the intermediate state between two lives.
It's not a mystical otherworldly realm,
nor is it a place for drifting souls.
It refers to the unique state of consciousness after death
but before the next life begins.
Why is this state unique?
Because in this state,
all the habits accumulated over your lifetime,
all your thoughts and lingering attachments,
become intensely concentrated.
They condense into a single thought.
What that single thought is
determines the direction of what comes next.
The elders say your final thought determines your next life;
that's exactly what this is about.
Look at what Colter is doing.
Every time he restarts,
he's thrown back into the same eight minutes.
Every time, he thinks he's moving forward,
but he's actually running in place.
He's trying to do one thing—shift that thought
from chaos, fear, and a sense of duty
to clarity, compassion, and a lack of regret.
The first time back,
he's grabbing people randomly.
The second time, he's spiteful.
The third time, he's in despair.
The fourth time, he starts to observe.
And the final time,
he's no longer trying to catch anyone.
He just wants every person doomed to die on that train
to have a slightly better experience
in their final moments.
This is the flip in the final thought.
From "I want to win"
to "I want you all to be well."
This transformation
has a name in Buddhism:
the "Orientation of the Mind."
This shift isn't about doing good deeds in a moral sense;
it's structural—the entire direction of consciousness changes.
Before, he was oriented toward himself,
so the world was just a series of tasks,
puzzles to solve, and killers to catch.
Now, he is oriented toward others.
For him, the world becomes a group of strangers who,
in their final eight minutes, deserve some peace.
At this point, you should understand how
the movie's greatest miracle happens.
When the final loop ends,
the director doesn't let the world vanish.
He doesn't let Colter exit the system after the mission.
That eight-minute world, once just a simulation,
suddenly becomes an enduring reality.
Colter occupies Sean's body,
lives on,
and walks into his next life with Christina.
Explaining this through science is difficult,
but if you follow the logic I just laid out,
it's not surprising at all.
Colter's final thought
was pure, unconditional kindness toward every stranger.
This thought
has a very ancient description in Buddhism:
"Universal kindness without conditions,
and great compassion through shared identity."
It's not "I'm good to you because of our relationship."
It's "I want you to be well because we are fundamentally the same."
And so, I wish you peace."}]}```
The power of this thought is absolute.
It doesn't just decide the direction of the next life;
it creates a new life itself.
That eight-minute world became real
not because the machine calculated faster,
but because Colter's intent
was strong enough to inhabit that world.
He truly saw that world as a place to love,
to protect, and to live in with his beloved,
rather than just a mission simulation.
That thoughts can create worlds
is a concept Eastern wisdom has taught for 2,500 years.
The movie simply visualizes it for you.
Speaking of this,
I want to pause here
to discuss a colder plot point in the film.
Dr. Rutledge, the scientist in charge of the Source Code project,
is a brilliant man.
He designed the entire system.
He brought Colter's shattered brain back from Afghanistan.
He gave a soldier who should have been dead the ability to serve again.
But he missed one thing.
From beginning to end,
he treated Colter as a tool.
When Colter asked when he could go home,
he used rhetoric to stall, deflect, and deceive.
When Colter pleaded to be allowed to truly die after the mission,
he said, "Your country still needs you."
He thought he was doing good—saving lives,
solving a terrorist case,
and protecting innocent people.
But what he failed to see
was that Colter was already dead.
What truly needed to be accomplished
wasn't what else he could do for his country,
but what he could complete for himself.
This is a massive blind spot of modern rationalism.
We treat death as unfinished business.
We use medical technology to prolong the process of dying,
stuffing the terminally ill with tubes.
We use "meaning-making" projects to tell the dying they can still contribute.
We've even invented the concept of digital immortality,
wanting to upload consciousness to the cloud
to make a person live forever.
We never ask the dying person: "What is it
that you actually want to complete?"
In that movie,
every time Dr. Rutledge pretended there was a future,
he was robbing Colter of his most precious right:
the right to die a good death.
That right
has a very simple name in Eastern wisdom:
"Shan-zhong" (a good end).
Not just dying of old age in bed,
but being clear-headed, composed, and without regret.
Not being pushed along by external lies,
but actively and completely finishing your exit from this life.
Through repeated loops,
Colter slowly transformed from a victim of deception
into a man of clarity.
His final decision—"Let me die,
but let me finish that one thought first"—is the film's most powerful stroke.
I suspect many remember the romance,
the heroism,
or the twist ending.
But what I remember is this: a man long dead
finally winning back the dignity to end his own life.
This is far more significant than catching a bomber.
Goodwin, the female officer who always responded gently over the headset,
is my favorite character in this movie.
She is also a soldier,
and an executor of this project.
She should have stood with Dr. Rutledge,
treating Colter as a tool.
But she couldn't.
In the entire film,
she is the only one who treats Colter as a human being.
She listens to him.
She remembers the call he wanted to make to his father.
In moments between his many deaths,
offered him a shred of respect and warmth.
In the end,
it was she who pulled the plug on Colter's life support.
To pull that plug,
in conventional morality, is murder.
It's disobeying orders,
and it's the end of a career.
But in a deeper sense,
this act was a form of fulfillment.
For a soul hijacked by technology,
she cut the tether keeping him forced in this world.
She allowed him, truly and with dignity,
to complete his own death.
Buddhism calls this kind of action 'compassion.'
Compassion is not softness.
Softness is an attitude;
compassion is an action.
Compassion is when a life reaches its end,
and you gently open that door for them
so they can walk through.
This action carries great weight,
because it means letting go of your obsession to 'save' someone.
Often, we think loving someone
means forcing them to stay.
We think loving someone
means refusing to let them go,
or that loving someone
means fighting death with everything we have.
But there is a deeper kind of love
that knows when to let go.
Goodwin achieved this.
This single stroke
is the most Eastern element
hidden within this Hollywood blockbuster.
Finally, let's talk about that cross-world text message.
In his new world,
Colter sent a text to Goodwin's computer.
That message crossed two realities that shouldn't be connected,
letting her know, in the laboratory on the other side,
that he was still there.
This is the most mystical part of the film,
and where scientific explanation falls shortest.
The reader who wrote to me
explained it as karmic resonance or resonance within the 'Citta' (sea of consciousness).
That's an imaginative explanation,
but I'd like to suggest a simpler possibility.
Whether the message can physically be transmitted
is completely beside the point.
The point is—if a person's final thought
is to tell someone something,
and if that thought is pure, compassionate, and strong enough,
then the universe, in a way we can't yet explain,
will allow that message to be heard.
This isn't superstition;
it's the power of a final vow.
I've seen things like this myself.
After a relative passes away,
some people have an incredibly vivid dream,
where the person says with a smile, "I'm okay now."
From then on, the weight on their heart is lifted.
At the exact moment someone's mother died,
they inexplicably remembered a song she hummed in their childhood.
Physics can't explain it,
but in your heart, you know
it wasn't a coincidence.
The movie turns this into science fiction:
the screen lights up,
and a text message pings.
But what it's really describing
is something ancient in human experience:
a powerful final thought
traversing distances we thought impassable
to find the person it needs to reach.
This isn't religion;
it's observation.
Discussing this,
I suddenly realized
the film's most profound cut
isn't inside the plot—
it's outside of it.
It hits the moment you finish the movie, turn off the screen, and return to your life.
Because what Colter did,
is exactly what you are doing.
You are also trapped in a repeating eight-minute cycle.
The difference is,
he knows he's in those eight minutes,
so he practices how to die properly.
But you,
you might not realize yet,
that every morning you wake up is a restart.
Every night you fall asleep,
it's actually a miniature death.
Every attachment, relationship, and unfinished business,
is looping over and over again.
You can choose to be like Colter at the beginning,
obsessing over "winning."
Repeating the same tension in every cycle.
Or you can choose to be like Colter at the end,
letting go of the need to win,
and starting to ask yourself: "If I died tonight,
what's the last thing I'd want to do
for the people around me?"
That question sounds heavy,
but it's actually a liberation.
Because when you ask yourself that seriously, without joking,
many daily worries instantly lose their weight.
The colleague who annoys you, the friend who judges you,
the goals you're so obsessed with—
before the blade of "what if I died tonight,"
they reveal their true significance.
Some things will become heavier;
you'll realize you haven't truly thanked your mother.
Some things will become lighter;
you'll realize that project you've stressed over for months
doesn't actually matter at all.
This is the power of the final thought.
You don't have to wait until you're actually dying;
you can use it every day to calibrate yourself.
On that repeating train,
Colter had no other options,
so he was forced to learn this.
Most of us have plenty of tomorrows,
so we never practice it seriously in a lifetime.
But trust me,
when impermanence arrives,
it won't give you a heads-up.
If you finish this episode
and go back to watch the movie again,
I hope you won't just see it as sci-fi.
Try to see each restart
as the transition between life and death.
See each of Colter's efforts
as a final adjustment of consciousness.
See that final shift in thought
as a demonstration of what we can all do.
Then ask yourself: "If today were my eight minutes,
how would I spend it?"
We discussed Arrival before.
In that episode, I said,
knowing the end and still choosing to love
is awakening itself.
We also discussed King of Beggars.
In that episode, we talked about
his experience under the tree,
which might have been an awakening within a deathbed hallucination.
Adding today's episode on Source Code,
you'll notice something interesting.
No matter how fancy human storytelling gets,
at its deepest level,
it's always telling the same story: how we die
determines how we live.
And the true secret of how to live
has never been about longevity,
but about making every single moment
lived as if it were your last.
After discussing this movie,
I really want to hear from you.
What do your eight minutes look like?
Has there been a moment lately
where you felt this?
that you would want as your final thought?
I'm Wang Lijie.
See you next time.