The Dude and the Zen Master

Published by the Penguin Group

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•
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Copyright © 2013 by Zen Peacemakers Inc. and Jeff Bridges

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Published simultaneously in Canada

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bridges, Jeff, date.

The Dude and the Zen master / Jeff Bridges and Bernie Glassman.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-101-60075-7

1. Big Lebowski (Motion picture). 2. Philosophy in motion pictures. 3. Zen Buddhism—Doctrines. 4. Conduct of life. I. Glassman, Bernard (Bernard Tetsugen). II. Title.

PN1997.B444B75 2012 2012037782

791.43'72—dc23

Photographs
here
,
here
,
here
,
here
,
here
, and
here
by Alan Kozlowski

Photograph
here
by Jeff Bridges

To all the hungry spirits

CONTENTS

Also by Jeff Bridges and Bernie Glassman

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction by Jeff Bridges

Introduction by Bernie Glassman

JUST THROW THE FU**ING BALL, MAN!

1.
Sometimes You Eat the Bear, and Sometimes, Well, He Eats You

2.
It’s Down There Somewhere, Let Me Take Another Look

3.
Dude, You’re Being Very UnDude

THE DUDE ABIDES
AND
THE DUDE IS NOT IN

4.
Yeah, Well, Ya Know, That’s Just Like, uh, Your Opinion, Man

5.
Phone’s Ringin’, Dude

6.
New Sh** Has Come to Light

THAT RUG REALLY TIED THE ROOM TOGETHER, DID IT NOT?

7.
You Know, Dude, I Myself Dabbled in Pacifism at One Point. Not in ’Nam, Of Course.

8.
You Mean Coitus?

9.
What Makes a Man, Mr. Lebowski?

10.
What Do You
Do
, Mr. Lebowski?

11.
Nothing’s Fu**ed, Dude

ENJOYIN’ MY COFFEE

12.
Sorry, I Wasn’t Listening

13.
Strikes and Gutters, Ups and Downs

14.
Some Burgers, Some Beers, a Few Laughs. Our Fu**ing Troubles Are Over, Dude.

15.
Say, Friend, Ya Got Any More of That Good Sarsaparilla?

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

JEFF’S INTRODUCTION

So . . . my buddy Bernie Glassman says to me one day, “Did you know that the Dude in
The Big Lebowski
is considered by many Buddhists to be a Zen master?”

I said, “What the fuck are you talkin’ ’bout, man?”

He said, “Oh yeah.”

I said, “You gotta be kidding. We never talked about Zen or Buddhism while we were making
Lebowski.
The brothers
*
never said anything about that.”

“Yeah,” laughed Bernie, “just look at their name—the Koan brothers.”

Koans are Zen stories that only make sense if you can see that life and reality are different from your opinions about them. Most of the famous ones were written in China a long time ago.

Bernie went on: “
The Big Lebowski
is filled with koans, only they’re in the ‘parlance of our time,’ to quote the Dude.”

“What are you talkin’ about, man? What do you mean?” I asked him.

“It’s filled with ’em, like:
The Dude abides
—very Zen, man; or
The Dude is not in
—classic Zen; or
Donny, you’re out of your element
, or
That rug really tied the room together.
It’s loaded with ’em.”

“Really?” I said.

Now, my buddy Bernie is a Zen master himself. In the early sixties he left his job as an aeronautical engineer at McDonnell Douglas to study at the Zen Center of Los Angeles with his teacher, Maezumi Roshi, a great Japanese master who helped bring Zen to this country. Bernie became one of the first American teachers. He not only started the Zen Peacemakers, he also built homes for homeless families, child-care centers, housing and medical treatment for folks with AIDS, and companies—including a big bakery—to hire people who didn’t have jobs. That bakery won an award one year for best New York cheesecake and now makes brownie products for Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream. He’s considered a major player in socially engaged Buddhism around the world.

I met Bernie at a dinner thrown by a neighbor of mine for him and Ram Dass, author of
Be Here Now
and many other wonderful books. I sat between these two guys and had a great time. Bernie and I really hit it off; we both cared about a lot of the same stuff.

This is where
Lebowski
comes in. Bernie has been interested for some time now in making Zen more accessible to our times and culture, relevant and down-to-earth, and he felt that
Lebowski
did that big-time. So he asked me if I wanted to write a book about that.

I said, “Okay.”

So here’s what we did. We went up to my ranch in Montana with our fellow jamster, Alan Kozlowski, and jammed for five days. Alan was the photographer/recorder cat; he recorded our dialogue, took pictures, gave his opinions, etc. After that we went home. Bernie’s wife, Eve, started working with the transcripts. We met some more, hung out on the phone and on Skype, tweaked some things, and . . . here it is.

To me, this book is sort of like a snakeskin. A snakeskin is something you might find on the side of the road and make something out of—a belt, say, or a hatband. The snake itself heads off doing more snake stuff—getting it on with lady snakes, eating rats, making more snakeskins, et cetera.

I look at movies the same way. The final movie is the snakeskin, which can be pretty interesting and valuable. The snake is what happens while we’re making the movie—the relationships, the experience. I try to open wide and get really connected with the people I’m working with—the director, the cast, the production crew—all of us cooking in a safe and generous space, trying to get the job done. And we have to get that fire going as soon as we can, because our time together is finite, two or three months, maybe six. That’s all the time we’ve got to come up with what we intend. Or, every once in a wonderful while, with something that transcends all our desires and intentions. I love it when that happens, and it does quite often because of all the unknowns involved. I think that’s why I’m still making movies.

The actual “snake” of this book was the hang, the jam, with Bernie, Eve, Alan, and everyone else who helped. It was the chance to dance, create, be intimate, and be free.

So, here it is. Hope you dig it.

Hope’s interesting, isn’t it? I can’t turn hope off, it’s hopeless.

Jeff Bridges,
Santa Barbara, California