The Dude and the Zen Master

Zen master Bernie Glassman compares Jeff Bridges’s iconic role in The Big Lebowski to a Lamad Vav—one of those men in Jewish mysticism who “are simple and unassuming, and so good that, on account of them, God lets the world go on.” His buddy Jeff puts it a different way: The wonderful thing about The Dude, he says, 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 world-renowned Roshi Bernie Glassman have been close friends. In The Dude and the Zen Master,they offer an intimate glimpse into the conversations between a student and his teacher, a shared philosophy of life and spirituality, and the everyday wisdom of Buddhism. Inspiring, insightful, and often hilarious, The Dude and the Zen Master captures a freewheeling dialogue about life, laughter, and the movies, from two men whose charm and bonhomie never fail to enlighten and entertain—and their remarkable humanism reminds us of the importance of doing good in a difficult world.