Table Of ContentTable of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
I - Innerductions
IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE DUDE WAY. . .
THE WHOLE DURN DUDEIST COMEDY
Pre-Ramble
What the Fuck Are We Blathering About?
The Dudeist Frame of Reference
The Abide Guide
THE DUDE TESTAMENT
All I Need to Know I Learned from Watching The Big Lebowski
The Lebowski Liturgy: Lessons for Living Like Lebowski
II - Wiser Fellers Than Ourselves—Dudeist History
GREAT DUDES IN HISTORY
Jesus and the Buddha: A Pair of Diggable Dudes
Lao-Tzu: It’s Your Thing, Tao What You Wanna Do
Heraclitus and Epicurus: Life’s All Fluxed Up, So Enjoy the Ups and
Downs
Emily Dickinson: It’s Your Roll, Dude
Mark Twain: American Idle
Bob Marley: Rasta Far Out
Georgia O’Keeffe and Diane di Prima: Strongly Vaginal Artists
Wavy Gravy: Saint Misbehavin’
Jeff Bridges: He’s The Dude, Man… That’s What You Call Him
THE BOOK OF REVOLUTIONS - Dudeist Prophecy
Mayan Is Not the Preferred Nomenclature… Meso-American, Please
Our Revelation Is Not Over
The Big Lebowski and the Three R’s of Prophecy
DUDEIST MOVEMENTS - Dudeism Down Through the Ages
THE AXIAL AGE 800–200 BCE
SUFISM 7TH CENTURY CE–PRESENT
TROUBADOURS 12TH–13TH CENTURIES
ROMANTICISM 18TH–20TH CENTURIES
THE LUDDITES EARLY 18TH CENTURY
TRANSCENDENTALISM 19TH CENTURY
UTOPIANS 19TH CENTURY
HUMANISM 20TH CENTURY
THE DIGGERS 1960s
SLOW MOVEMENT 1980s–PRESENT
CREATING A MORE DUDE-OCRATIC SOCIETY - The Politics of the Dude
“The ’90s Are the ’60s Standing on Their Head” —Wavy Gravy
Give Me Liberty or…Hell, Lost My Train of Thought
Student for a Dudeist Society
Quest for the Dude’s Uncompromised Port Huron Draft
A Duder World Is Possible
CINEMA VERTE - Stoner Films and The Big Lebowski
What Makes a Stoner Movie?
A Stoner Movie Frame of Reference
The Grandfather (or Big Bambuski) of Stoner Films
The Big Lebowski: Stoner Flick or Not?
Abiding in a Universe That Tends to Unfold as It Should
SUBJECTS LIKE WOMEN - Dudeist Feminism
1. What do you think the philosophy of Dudeism can offer modern
women?
2. Do you think the feminist tradition is at odds with Dudeism, or are
they ...
3. Would it be harder for a woman to live her life like the Dude?
4. Nominees for our Great Dudes in History are almost all male. Why do
you ...
5. Is The Big Lebowski more critical of traditional male roles or
traditional ...
6. What is your feeling about Maude, the film’s heroine? Is she
admirable or not?
What about the Dude? Would you ever pair up with someone like him?
8. What changes would you like to see in Dudeism to make it appeal
more to women?
9. The spiritual state of Dudeness is called “abiding.” What techniques
do you ...
III - Making It to Practice—Dudeist Lifestyle and
Techniques
SELF-HELP CHOPPERIN’ IN - The Dudeism Helping to Abide Movement
(DHAM)
The Seven Spiritual Laws of Takin’ ’Er Easy
Fuggedaboud the Funny Shtuff
Limberal Thinking
Ironic Jeff
The Road Less Rambled
The Power of Not Now
DUDERINOS UNANIMOUS - A 12-Step Program for Personal Dudevolution
1. Admit that the whole world has gone crazy. We may be powerless
over it. But ...
2. Believe there is a Dude Way to the universe.
3. Be determined to follow the Dude Way. And to follow it further on
down the trail.
4. Where’s the meaning, Lebowski? It’s down there somewhere, take
another look.
5. Say, “Fuck it.” That’s your answer for everything.
6. Take long baths and meditate on your rug.
7. What in God’s holy name are they blathering about? That’s just like
their ...
8. Be Dude to everyone you meet.
9. Be there, man.
10. Stop making illiteral connections.
11. Adhere to a strict drug regimen to keep your mind limber.
12. Spread the Dude word.
DUDEITATION - Just Drop in to See What Condition Your Condition Is In
THIS AGGRESSION WILL NOT STAND - Dude-Jitsu, the Dudeist Art of
Self-Defense
Bruce Lee: A Brother Dudeist?
You Take the Wu Wei, and I’ll Take the Dude Way
Pacifism Is Not Something to Hide Behind
The Art of Dude-Jitsu
The Big Wu-bowski
Practicing Dude-Jitsu
The Dude’s No Mind
SOME KIND OF YOGA - A Natural, Zesty Exercise
The Dudeist Some Kind of Yoga Poses (Asanas)
THANKIE - The Power of Dudeiversal Energy
1. Belly Handles
2. Go With the Yin and Yang Flow
3. Making It to Practice
4. Further Uses of Thankie
FUNGIN’ SHWAY - The Dudeist Science of Really Tying Your Room
Together
The John
The Rug
The Bar
Sofa, So Good
Bedrock and Roll
Tying Things Up
DUDE ECONOMICS
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Copyright Page
To all the Dudeist priests around the world.
Proud we are of all of you.
Lord, you can imagine where it goes from here.
I
Innerductions
IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE DUDE WAY. . .
I wouldn’t call the Dude Way a Deity, ’cause what’s a Deity?
The Dude Way, well, it fits right in there as the lazy source of this here
universe. Verily, though, it did not run around trying to create this time and
place in a single week. That would have been too exhausting, even with the
seventh day off.
No, across the spans of time, the Dude Way just took it easy, warshing along
the ever-expanding cusp of the cosmos like fresh cream pouring into a
bottomless sea of dark Kahlúa. And wherever the Dude Way abided, there
emerged naturally an infinite array of suns, and planets, and galaxies, and other
universes, and what-have-you.
And that was cool. That was cool.
Over countless eons, the Dude Way unfolded an intricate web of life
throughout the vast universe. Everything in that web was interconnected to
everything else in the web and everything grooved together in cosmic balance
through the Dude Way.
And that was cool. That was cool.
A small part of that cosmic web of life consisted of some forms of life I want
to tell you about, some life-forms by the name of human beings. Now, these
human beings grew from a pale blue dot somewhere in the remote regions of the
cosmos—and this dot was called Earth. For a time, these life-forms abided in
harmony with the natural rhythms of the Dude Way.
Just walking around, throwing rocks, having the occasional mushroom
flashback.
And that was cool. That was cool.
But then many human beings forgot the Dude Way and their thinking about
the purpose of life became too uptight. They made up things called weekdays,
and jobs, and infomercials and ran around much of their lives wondering where
to find something else they made up called the money.
Instead of humans who were simply being, they had become overachieving
humans. And verily, it was sore exhausting.
Throughout millennia of negative energy, some humans looked around and
saw all the stress talking and said, “Fuck it.” And they abided in the Dude Way,
just taking it easy for all us uptight sinners out here.
And that was cool. That was cool.
Every so often, these Great Dudes would ramble around reminding the
overachieving humans about takin’ ’er easy in the Dude Way. Many humans
wondered what in God’s holy name these Great Dudes were blathering about.
Some of the exhausted humans, though, were listening to the Great Dudes’ story.
And they did yearn to turn away from a world gone crazy and simply abide.
And lo, on March 6, 1998, they became like little children who wandered into
the middle of a movie when the Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski appeared in a
multiplex near you. And the glory of the Dude Way (embodied by the Dude)
was projected onto the collective consciousness around the pale blue dot. And,
with the exception of some reactionary movie critics, many humans were verily
amused and wanted to turn away from overachieving and return to simply being.
And the movie said unto them, “The Dude abides…Take comfort in that.”
And this became a sign unto humans everywhere: “Ye shall abide, too, even
in the middle of a weekday, dressed like that.”
And suddenly there was with the movie a great multidude abiding in the Dude
Way, many of them bowling, drinking Caucasians, listening to whale songs,
wearing bathrobes to supermarkets, going out to look for a cash machine, having
occasional acid flashbacks, and proclaiming to the pale blue dot: “Is this a…
what day is this?”
And that was cool. Fabulous stuff, man.
