The Dude and the Zen Master Read Online Free PDF Page B

just when you cross the goal line, because don’t forget, wherever you are, that’s the goal line.



4.
YEAH, WELL, YA KNOW, THAT’S JUST LIKE, UH, YOUR OPINION, MAN
     
    J EFF : I dig the Dude; he’s very authentic. He can be angry and upset, but he’s comfortable in his skin. And in his inimitable way, he has grace. He exudes it in every relationship: an unexpected kindness, unmerited good will, giving someone a break when he doesn’t deserve it, showing up even when he has a bad attitude just because it means so much to the rest of the team. Hugging it out instead of slugging it out. You know what a
Lebowski
fan told me once? He thought that Donny was a figment of Walter’s imagination, an old army buddy of his who may have been killed in Vietnam. And the Dude was going along with the fantasy, participating in the three-way conversation even though he knew Donny didn’t exist. I talked to Ethan and Joel Coen about it and they hadn’t intended any of that. Either way, it says a lot about the Dude; he can just go with the flow.
    B ERNIE : You might call him a Lamed-Vavnik. In Jewish mysticism, there are thirty-six righteous people, the Lamed-Vav Tzaddikim. They’re simple and unassuming, and they are so good that on account of them God lets the world continue instead of destroying it. But no one knows who they are because their lives are so humble. They can be the pizza delivery boy, the cashier in a Chinese takeout, the window-washer, or the woman selling you stamps in the post office.
    J EFF : You also like the word
mensch
, which is German and Yiddish for a real human being. It takes a lot to be a mensch, but the real mensch doesn’t know that she’s a mensch; she’s just living her life.
    And what does that mean? My life isn’t only my life; everything has brought me to this point: my parents, their parents, everyone before them, and everything else in life, too.
    B ERNIE : Eons of karma, trillions of years of DNA, the flow of the entire universe—all lead up to this moment. So what do you do? You just do. I think the mensch is not caught up with how to do things or even what to do.
    J EFF : And
The Dude abides
. According to Merriam-Webster’s official definition, to abide means to wait patiently for something, or to endure without yielding, accept without objection. That is no easy feat, especially in a culture that is success-driven, instant-gratification-oriented, and impatient, like ours. True abiding is a spiritual gift that requires great mastery. The moral of the story, for me, is: be kind. Treat others as you want to be treated. You never know when the stranger you meet on the road may be an angel—or the Dude—in disguise.
I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least among you, you did not do for me.
* Whether the Dude is a Lamed-Vavnik—
    B ERNIE : —or Lamed-Lovnik—
    J EFF : —an angel in disguise, or merely a kindhearted loser, we should treat him as he treats us, with respect and compassion. We should all treat everyone we encounter as a righteous soul on account of whom the world abides. That’s very Dude.
    B ERNIE : At the same time, the Dude’s a lot like us. Stuff upsets him, like when someone pees on his rug. He has thoughts, frustrations, and everything that we all have, but he doesn’t work from them. He works from where he is.
    J EFF : He does his thing, he’s very authentic, but the chaos of life throws him off time after time. He’s rowing his boat merrily, but new things always happen and he has to make an adjustment.
    B ERNIE : Because there’s no perfect place anywhere. One of the Buddha’s first teachings was that life is suffering. He didn’t just mean heartrending, painful, traumatic suffering, but something more basic than that. It doesn’t matter how good we have it or how basically happy we are, things arise every day that leave us feeling discontented or disappointed.
    So the movie opens up with a bit of suffering for the Dude because