The Dude and the Zen Master (16 page)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

B
ERNIE
: It was fun hanging, but it seems like there were a lot of other folks also hanging around to make this happen.

J
EFF
: Yeah, I’m feeling a bunch of gratitude bubbling up. First, to the Brothers. They created the whole thing. Before we started this project, I gave Joel Coen a call and asked him if it would be okay with him and Ethan for us to do this. I wanted to make sure that we weren’t pissing on their turf and that they knew what we were up to, and he said go for it. He gave us their blessing. Without that I wouldn’t have done this.

And what about our lady friends?

B
ERNIE
: Yeah man, our partners.

J
EFF
: Your lady friend, Eve, really pulled all our words together to make a book out of them. You know, in music, all the musicians get together to make their music, but they need a producer to make sense out of it all, and that’s what Evie did for us.

B
ERNIE
: And where would you be without Sue, man? She’s prominent not only in this book but in your whole life. She gives you the space to be where you want to be and do what you want to do.

J
EFF
: Yeah, keeping to the whole “rowing your boat” metaphor, without her I’d be up the creek without a paddle.

And speaking of family, I got to thank my brother Beau, sister Cindy, daughters Isabelle, Jessie, and Hayley, my parents, everyone in my family—living and dead—who’re still holding me.

B
ERNIE
: I want to really say thank you to Alan Kozlowski for being such an important part of the hang in Montana. He wired us for sound and took some amazing photos. And don’t forget the wonderful team you got working with you.

J
EFF
: How can I forget? David Schiff, Bob Wallerstien, Jean Sievers, Becky Pedretti, and my daughter Jessie, who’s been my assistant on the last three movies. And what about your team, Bern?

B
ERNIE
: Ike Eichenlub, the great Dudist fact-checker, made sure we got that brilliant dialogue straight. And Peter Cunningham, who’s photographed me on my journeys for over thirty years, did the same for this book journey. And we were lucky to work with David Rosenthal and Sarah Hochman at Blue Rider Press!

J
EFF
: They had the faith, stupidity, and patience to work with us.

B
ERNIE
: I deeply appreciate my teachers, not just in Zen but also in the world of math, who encouraged me to take all this esoteric stuff and put it into street language. Nobody better than the Dude for that. And I especially have to thank Yogi Berra, Groucho Marx, and Lenny Bruce for their help with my koan practice.

J
EFF
: And to Billy Shore and Jerry Michaud, who continue holding the torch to end hunger in our country, and—you know, Bern, we got to thank the whole world!

B
ERNIE
: Yeah, we got to attach the
Encyclopaedia Britannica
to this page.

J
EFF
: Not just everyone who’s ever lived but also all the people who haven’t been born yet, because they’re kind of pulling us along, you know?

B
ERNIE
: And also to those who will never be born.

Hey Jeff, let’s go bowling.

J
EFF
: Nah, let’s go smoke a cigar.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

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

Bernie Glassman founded the Zen Community of New York, which later became Zen Peacemakers, an international order of social activists. A longtime Zen teacher, he also founded the Greyston Mandala, a network of for-profits and not-for-profits creating jobs, housing, and programs to support individuals and their families on their path to self-sufficiency.

*
Ethan and Joel Coen wrote and directed
The Big Lebowski
, released in 1998.

*
Matthew 25:45.

*
In Zen Buddhism, a person who, motivated by compassion, vows to work for the complete enlightenment of all beings.

*
Exodus 3:14.

*
Linji Yixuan said, “Behold the puppets prancing on the stage, and see the man behind who pulls the strings.”

*
Bernie Glassman was an aeronautical engineer who worked in the 1960s and 1970s on designing manned missions to Mars.

*
Cinematographer Alan Kozlowski, songwriter John Goodwin, and acoustical designer and musician Chris Pelonis.

*
Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, doing deep prajna paramita, perceived the emptiness of all five conditions and was freed of pain.

*
Jon Kabat-Zinn is a professor of medicine who, through his work on mindfulness-based stress reduction, has brought mindfulness into the medical mainstream as a way to help people cope with illness, pain, stress, and anxiety.

*
Both the Dude and Bernie Glassman like to smoke cigars.

*
Among the Buddha’s foremost teachings, saying in essence:

a. life is suffering;

b. suffering arises from attachment or desire;

c. suffering ends when attachment or desire ends; and

d. the way to achieve that is by following the Eightfold Path.

*
Jeff Bridges’s middle name is Leon.

*
Translation by Thich Nhat Hanh as it appears in the
Plum Village Chanting Book
(Parallax Press, 1991).

*
This relates to the story surrounding the life of Gautama Shakyamuni, who was later called the Buddha, the Awakened One.