The Big Lebows­ki at 25: How embrac­ing ​‘Dudeism’ can lead to a hap­pi­er life

Of all the holy deities human­i­ty has invent­ed over the years, none are quite as laid-back and rug-obsessed as the Dude. First appear­ing in the Coen Broth­ers’ 1998 slack­er detec­tive mas­ter­piece The Big Lebows­ki – a cult hit that turns 25 this week – Jef­frey Lebows­ki AKA the Dude (he’ll also answer to ​‘Dud­er’, ​‘His Dude­ness’ or ​‘El Dud­eri­no’) has emerged as an unlike­ly hero for the trou­bled times we con­stant­ly find our­selves in.

Played com­fort­ably high by Jeff Bridges, the Coens’ ruf­fled the Dude’s zen by send­ing him on a quest to retrieve his beloved rug – some­thing that, as he’s keen to remind us, ​“real­ly tied the room togeth­er.” What fol­lowed was a hard-boiled tale that skewed the worlds of bowl­ing and crime, as LA’s lazi­est res­i­dent crossed paths with a tricky mil­lion­aire shar­ing the same name, his miss­ing porn star wife and a group of Ger­man Nihilists deter­mined to sep­a­rate the Dude from his Johnson.

Still, through­out it all, the Dude man­aged to stay rel­a­tive­ly chill. With a White Russ­ian in one hand and a joint in the oth­er, this robe-adorned, shades-wear­ing hero set a shin­ing exam­ple of the best way to react to life’s many unpre­dictable prob­lems. It was not only enough to make The Big Lebows­ki an unlike­ly fan favourite — one that’s since inspired ded­i­cat­ed Lebows­ki Fes­ti­vals all over the world — but lead to the cre­ation of its very own religion.

“I wasn’t raised reli­gious­ly but I was encour­aged to be very philo­soph­i­cal,” remem­bers Oliv­er Ben­jamin, author of The Abide Guide: Liv­ing Life Like Lebows­ki and founder of Dudeism, a new way of look­ing at life that, despite billing itself as the world’s ​“slow­est grow­ing” reli­gion thanks to the Dude’s laid-back atti­tude, has man­aged to attract thou­sands of fol­low­ers. ​“My inter­est in reli­gion was always ​‘Why do so many peo­ple believe things that are so clear­ly untrue or at least unprov­able?’ I came to the con­clu­sion that the desire for mean­ing was greater than the desire for truth – and I realised that I des­per­ate­ly want­ed more mean­ing in my life as well. My stud­ies in Bud­dhism and Tao­ism led me direct­ly to cre­ate Dudeism – a sim­pli­fied and mod­ern­ized ver­sion of those two traditions.”

Urg­ing mankind to ​‘Take ​’er easy,’ Benjamin’s Lebows­ki-inspired life view has its own man­i­festo boast­ing a set of rules designed to teach us how to be more Dude and treat oth­ers as we’d like to be treat­ed. Ordained ​‘Dudeist Priests’ can deliv­er wed­dings and over­see oth­er reli­gious events, with the church’s Abide Uni­ver­si­ty dish­ing out degrees on ​‘Lebows­ki Studies’.

“I’d always been a big fan of Coen Broth­ers’ films and yet most of their movies were dark and depress­ing inves­ti­ga­tions of human greed and mis­con­duct. The Big Lebows­ki also had these ele­ments but it also had some­thing most of the oth­ers didn’t: hope and a ​‘solu­tion’ to the prob­lem – ​‘The Dude Way’,” explains Ben­jamin. ​“I fell in love with the film imme­di­ate­ly, although it took sev­er­al view­ings to make prop­er sense of it. I’d sort of giv­en up on my quest for an all-encom­pass­ing world­view when I stum­bled across it and realised it’d work as the per­fect fram­ing for what I believed about the best way to achieve some sort of har­mo­ny with the world.”

So what was it that Ben­jamin saw in the Dude that made him feel that he deserved his own fol­low­ers? ​“Pri­mar­i­ly, his resilien­cy. It’s almost like some sort of under­rat­ed super­pow­er,” he tells us. ​“Although he briefly los­es his cool in tough sit­u­a­tions, he also snaps back to his cool, laid-back demeanour extreme­ly rapid­ly. I don’t believe tru­ly saint­ly peo­ple exist – even the most advanced Bud­dhist monks get pissed off or depressed. The ques­tion is, do they wal­low in those bad feel­ings or do they find their ​‘cen­tre’ again after quick­ly shrug­ging them off?

“The Dude’s ​‘shrug’ is almost Her­culean. I also find his immu­ni­ty to the pres­sures of soci­ety and the opin­ion of oth­ers extreme­ly admirable,” con­tin­ues Ben­jamin, point­ing to his appre­ci­a­tion of the Dude’s ​‘you do you’ mind­set. ​“We’re very social crea­tures and not designed to think for our­selves. It takes a spe­cial sort of mind to be scep­ti­cal about what oth­er peo­ple insist to be the truth, and at the same time not be instant­ly dis­mis­sive of their ideas. The Dude sees every­thing as pro­vi­sion­al,” he rea­sons. ​“As he jok­ing­ly puts it, he adheres to a strict reg­i­men to keep his mind lim­ber. It’s not an easy thing to do.”

It’s this mix of big ideas – shak­en togeth­er like some sort of philo­soph­i­cal White Russ­ian – that inspired the cor­ner­stones of Dudeism. ​“In a nut­shell, Dudeism is a sim­pli­fied ver­sion of Tao­ism,” explains Ben­jamin. ​“The essen­tial mes­sage is that there’s an effi­cient, har­mo­nious way to approach the prob­lems of life – main­ly we should learn to ​‘go with the flow’ and not react by cre­at­ing big­ger problems.”

To illus­trate this point, Ben­jamin points to the way the Dude han­dled one of the biggest issues to threat­en his vibe. ​“The Dude’s one mis­take was that he ​‘val­ued’ his rug so much he was will­ing to let go of his peace­ful life to pur­sue some moral rec­om­pense.” How­ev­er, despite his eas­i­ly-aggra­vat­ed bowl­ing bud­dy Wal­ter (John Good­man) adding fuel to the fire, ol’ Dude still man­aged to keep his cool. ​“The Dude is pro­found­ly patient and for­giv­ing but he takes no shit and doesn’t care what peo­ple think of him. While the Dude is lazy and unem­ployed, Dudeism is not about being lazy, but rather hav­ing the courage to be lazy if that’s what you want to do. You can be a hard-work­ing Dudeist — the key is in the attitude.”

Dudeism boasts over 700,000 ordained Dudeist Priests across the world – and while Benjamin’s keen to men­tion that these are pri­mar­i­ly based in Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­tries, he does reveal there are a sur­pris­ing num­ber of Ger­man Dudeists, despite their Nihilist rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the Coen’s film – ​“I’m hap­py Ger­mans don’t seem to take that per­son­al­ly,” he laughs. For many, he believes Dudeism offers a mod­ern solu­tion to the prob­lems of mod­ern liv­ing, where answers aren’t always black and white.

“I think for a lot of peo­ple, reli­gion mere­ly func­tions as a con­ve­nient heuris­tic to help sim­pli­fy a com­pli­cat­ed and dif­fi­cult world and while a lot of what’s in tra­di­tion­al reli­gion is very help­ful, a lot is real­ly old and out­dat­ed,” sug­gest­ed Ben­jamin. ​“I think a lot of peo­ple would love to have an easy world­view that helps them get through their day. It just seemed to me that the lessons in The Big Lebows­ki could help a lot of peo­ple be hap­pi­er and how how to act – and react – in cer­tain situations.”

If fol­low­ers are faced with aggres­sions that sim­ply will not stand, through Dudeism, they can be bet­ter equipped to han­dle them. As its founder, the religion’s pop­u­lar­i­ty still comes as a bit of a sur­prise: ​“It’s always fun to see pho­tos of Dudeist Priests mar­ry­ing peo­ple,” he chuck­les. ​“Some­times they even do so in bathrobes or Pen­del­ton sweaters like the Dude.” And no – you don’t have to be a fan of White Rus­sians and weed to join: ​“I’m all for drug legal­iza­tion but I don’t smoke weed because it makes me para­noid and I like White Rus­sians but after two or three I get a lit­tle queasy from all the dairy. I’m also a ter­ri­ble bowler,” he adds. ​“The point is not to BE the Dude but to be LIKE the Dude.”

On a more ground­ed lev­el, cre­at­ing Dudeism has also left Ben­jamin with an unex­pect­ed sense of com­mu­ni­ty and accep­tance, two things that are sure­ly the cor­ner­stones of any suc­cess­ful reli­gion. ​“I felt a lit­tle lone­ly for most of my life before Dudeism because I felt like I thought dif­fer­ent­ly than most peo­ple, ​“he admits. ​“Dudeism and Dudeists have always been around, even way before I start­ed Dudeism. Main­ly, it’s just nice to know that a lot of peo­ple see the world the same way I do.”