Dude & the Zen Master

The New York Times bestseller from Academy award-winning actor Jeff Bridges and Zen leader and author of Bearing Witness, Bernie Glassman.

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.” His buddy Jeff puts it another 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 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 about life, laughter, and the movies with a charm and bonhomie that never fail to enlighten and entertain. Throughout, their remarkable humanism reminds us of the importance of doing good in a difficult world.

“[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 jam session in book form....An exercise in likeability....What's not to love?” The Hairpin

“Like relaxing in a nice literary bubble bath....It's nice to take comfort in such simple insights when the whole world seems to be going crazy around us....The Dude and the Zen Master can help you do just that.” Dudespaper.com

An extraordinarily inspiring — and often hilarious — dialogue between the Oscar-winning actor and his longtime spiritual guru — a conversation about life, the movies, laughter, and trying to do good in a difficult world.

Jeff Bridges is an Oscar-winning actor, performer, songwriter, and photographer. He is a cofounder of the End Hunger Network and the national spokesman for Share Our Strengths 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 the path to self-sufficiency.