The Dude and the Zen Master

by Jeff Bridges, Bernie Glassman

Overview

The perfect gift for fans of The Big Lebowski, Jeff Bridges's "The Dude", and anyone who could use more Zen in their lives.

Zen Master Bernie Glassman compares Jeff Bridges’s iconic role in The Big Lebowski to a Lamed-Vavnik: one of the men in Jewish mysticism who are “simple and unassuming,” and “so good that on account of them God lets the world go on.” Jeff puts it another way. “The wonderful thing about the Dude is that he’d always rather hug it out than slug it out.”

For more than a decade, Academy Award-winning actor Jeff Bridges and his Buddhist teacher, renowned Roshi Bernie Glassman, have been close friends. Inspiring and often hilarious, The Dude and the Zen Master captures their freewheeling dialogue and remarkable humanism in a book that reminds us of the importance of doing good in a difficult world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101600757
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/08/2013
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	982,391
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jeff Bridges is an Oscar-winning actor, performer, songwriter, and photographer. He is a cofounder of the End Hunger Network and is the national spokesman for Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign.

Bernie Glassman is a Zen master and the first dharma successor to Taizan Maezumi Roshi, founder of the Zen Center of Los Angeles. He is well known for integrating Zen practice with social, economic, and educational initiatives. He is also the author of Instructions to the Cook and Bearing Witness: A Zen Master’s Lessons in Making Peace.

Table of Contents

Introduction Jeff Bridges 1

Introduction Bernie Glassman 7

Just Throw the Fu**ing Ball, Man!

1 Sometimes You Eat the Bear, and Sometimes, Well, He Eats You 13

2 It's Down There Somewhere, Let Me Take Another Look 29

3 Dude, You're Being Very UnDude 47

The Dude Abides and the Dude is Not in

4 Yeah, Well, Ya Know, That's Just Like, uh, Your Opinion, Man 59

5 Phone's Ringin', Dude 77

6 New Sh** Has Come to Light 99

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 123

8 You Mean Coitus? 142

9 What Makes a Man, Mr. Lebowski? 159

10 What Do You Do, Mr. Lebowski? 173

11 Nothing's Fu**ed, Dude 187

Enjoyin' My Coffee

12 Sorry, I Wasn't Listening 215

13 Strikes and Gutters, Ups and Downs 231

14 Some Burgers, Some Beers, a Few Laughs. Our Fu**ing Troubles Are Over, Dude 245

15 Say, Friend, Ya Got Any More of That Good Sarsaparilla? 257

Acknowledgments 269

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Mr. Bridges and Mr. Glassman are likable, and smart, and interesting...[The Dude and the Zen Master] includes compelling discussions of Mr. Bridges’s marriage, acting technique and close relationship with his father...you’ll always be grateful for the hang.”
—The New York Times

“[The Dude and the Zen Master] is an odd and wonderful little work that makes use of the transcendentally funny characters and language of [The Big Lebowski] as the starting point for a relaxed philosophical discussion about a wide variety of topics.”—Los Angeles Times

“[A] truly incredible book about two friends talking about the good life.”
—Huffington Post
 
“Whether he knows it or not, The Dude’s laissez-faire attitude has become a model for coping with life’s complexities...[in] The Dude and the Zen Master, one gets the impression he or she is eavesdropping on an intimate conversation...It’s more than chicken soup for the soul, [it’s] cacciatore for the spirit, a winner’s guide to optimal living—a manual on how to Dude-ify oneself and just abide, man.”
—Examiner.com (Cleveland)
 
“The Dude and the Zen Master is an exercise in likeability....[Bridges] is in rare form here....To know the Dude (and, by extension, Bridges’ own meditational endgame) is to love him.”
—The Hairpin
 
“[A] good conversation between good friends...One of the unexpected treats of The Dude and the Zen Master is the insights into who Jeff Bridges is behind the Dude persona...touching remembrances of his parents, his reflections on life as a devoted family man, and his behind-the-scenes stories of movies he’s worked on [and] profound little Zen observations and insights sprinkled throughout the book.”
—The Dudespaper
 
“The Dude and the Zen Master doesn’t read like a traditional book at all—but rather riffs like a jam session....you’ll feel as though you yourself sat in on the sessions with the dude behind the Dude in The Big Lebowski and Buddhist buddy, Bernie....And what’s so cool is that the two of them manage to address many of life’s profundities—relationships, politics, working, aging, living, dying—in this very funny and readable jam session.”
—Rock Cellar Magazine

“The Dude and the Zen Master [is] a wonderful book of conversations...about acting and Zen and the long, fond relationship between these men.”
—Sheila Heti, Financial Times

Editorial Reviews

"The dude" of the title is Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges' "the Zen master" is Bernie Glassman, the Buddhist mentor who changed Bridges' life. This inspiriting book consists of their dialogues about the life lessons they share.

…this meandering exchange is likable because Mr. Bridges and Mr. Glassman are likable, and smart, and interesting…

The New York Times - Mark Oppenheimer

Actor Bridges engages in a philosophical dialogue with friend and Zen master Glassman, an aeronautical engineer and mathematician in his early years, for an easy, fun read that poses some serious questions. The presentation is light-hearted and analogies are frequent; in discussing a fear of taking action, Glassman invokes "Joe, the centipede with a hundred legs, trying to figure out which leg to move first." Later, Glassman recommends a musical approach to dealing with change: "Bear witness to the voices and the instruments-whether it's a jazz band or life-and then move with them, flow with them, because in life you're always in a band and you're always swinging." The Zen influence means a lot of nature imagery, with "Leaves turning, flowers popping open, rain falling on a leaf," but it's not cheap spirituality. Both men are involved in programs to promote peace and defeat hunger and they share stories of community artists, Holocaust survivors, and even Bridges's long-time stand-in. Recognizing that frustration results from expectations, they say, "Work with whatever you have and make something beautiful." Lest it all get too lofty, Glassman recalls his judo master's advice: "When you get into trouble, the best judo defense is to run."
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Publishers Weekly

Mr. Bridges and Mr. Glassman are likable, and smart, and interesting...[The Dude and the Zen Master] includes compelling discussions of Mr. Bridges’s marriage, acting technique and close relationship with his father...you’ll always be grateful for the hang.”
—The New York Times

“[The Dude and the Zen Master] is an odd and wonderful little work that makes use of the transcendentally funny characters and language of [The Big Lebowski] as the starting point for a relaxed philosophical discussion about a wide variety of topics.”—Los Angeles Times

“[A] truly incredible book about two friends talking about the good life.”
—Huffington Post
 
“Whether he knows it or not, The Dude’s laissez-faire attitude has become a model for coping with life’s complexities...[in] The Dude and the Zen Master, one gets the impression he or she is eavesdropping on an intimate conversation...It’s more than chicken soup for the soul, [it’s] cacciatore for the spirit, a winner’s guide to optimal living—a manual on how to Dude-ify oneself and just abide, man.”
—Examiner.com (Cleveland)
 
“The Dude and the Zen Master is an exercise in likeability....[Bridges] is in rare form here....To know the Dude (and, by extension, Bridges’ own meditational endgame) is to love him.”
—The Hairpin
 
“[A] good conversation between good friends...One of the unexpected treats of The Dude and the Zen Master is the insights into who Jeff Bridges is behind the Dude persona...touching remembrances of his parents, his reflections on life as a devoted family man, and his behind-the-scenes stories of movies he’s worked on [and] profound little Zen observations and insights sprinkled throughout the book.”
—The Dudespaper
 
“The Dude and the Zen Master doesn’t read like a traditional book at all—but rather riffs like a jam session....you’ll feel as though you yourself sat in on the sessions with the dude behind the Dude in The Big Lebowski and Buddhist buddy, Bernie....And what’s so cool is that the two of them manage to address many of life’s profundities—relationships, politics, working, aging, living, dying—in this very funny and readable jam session.”
—Rock Cellar Magazine


“The Dude and the Zen Master [is] a wonderful book of conversations...about acting and Zen and the long, fond relationship between these men.”
—Sheila Heti, Financial Times

From the Publisher

A rambling conversation on all things Zen between the mystic-minded movie star and his spiritual teacher. As the title suggests, this book targets (and might most please) the ardent cult attracted to The Big Lebowski, the movie that gave Bridges (Pictures, 2006) his iconic role. He explains of the book's genesis, "So…my friend 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?' " The two proceed to explore one of the movie's signature lines, "The Dude abides," from every possible perspective, punctuated by anecdotes from Bridges' film career and personal life and spiritual sagacity from Glassman (Infinite Circle: Teachings in Zen, 2002, etc.). Perhaps the most revelatory is a close reading of "Row, Row, Row, Your Boat," where even readers who have heard it thousands of times before will understand "gently," "merrily" and "life is but a dream" with fresh ears. Some of the rest belabors the obvious, suffers from cliché and hippie vernacular, and even borders on self-parody. When Bridges talks about fan letters, most of which he doesn't answer and then occasionally feels guilty, Glassman advises, "You need to befriend Jeff. It's got nothing to do with the letters. You've got to befriend the fact that Jeff can only do so much….The Dude does not get angry with himself for all the things he's not doing. He befriends the self." Bridges makes it a point to distinguish himself from that role, though sometimes he wishes he could be more like the Dude. He writes things like, "Dig is beyond understand. I like digging where I am and what I'm doing, I like jamming with myself." May lead readers to plenty of better introductions to Zen. You dig?

Kirkus Reviews