Though the intro is weak, my teacher said the rest was "excellent." Hell, he some parts he even said were "brilliant"! Ha! Imagine that, something I wrote, being called brilliant! Amazing.

Enjoy!

Fight Club is rich with Zen Buddhist symbolism and contains themes of death and rebirth, enlightenment, salvation, and letting go. The movie is shocking and it can be difficult to get past the violence and blood to see the spiritual messages underneath, but they are there. The fighting parallels meditation in its own odd, unique way. Death and rebirth are seen in a number of different scenes, starting with Jack’s support groups all the way through to the very end, when Jack shoots himself to kill Tyler. Throughout the movie Tyler and Jack both talk about achieving enlightenment by hitting bottom, a ironic Zen take on the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. Jack finds salvation in a number of different places, from support groups to Fight Club and, ultimately, we are left at the end to think he found it by letting go of the illusion of Tyler. Of course, Jack has to shoot himself in order to do it, but that is just keeping along with the rest of the movie by being dark, violent, and shocking.

Though may think it rather paradoxical that a movie titled “Fight Club” could be so parallel with a faith primarily seen as nonviolent, Japanese Zen Buddhism has been called “the samurai’s religion” (Miklos) because it was practiced by the great samurai warriors in ancient Japan. The first precept of Buddhism is to abstain from killing other beings, but it does not say that one cannot fight. Indeed, many Zen masters strike, hit, or throw objects at their students in an attempt to shock them into awakening (Hooker, 1996).

In this same way, members of Fight Club strike one another as a sort of moving meditation, or a violent yoga (Dzilna). Jack described Fight Club as not being about winning or losing. “When the fight was over, nothing was solved, but nothing mattered. Afterwards we all felt saved.” Fight Club was a way for him to further free himself from his attachment and aversion to maya, the illusions of the world. Like meditation, Fight Club was without purpose; it just was. Meditation is about just being present with the here and now, without trying to change it, grasp it, or judge it. “Without purpose” does not mean that meditation is also without worth or value, however. Americans often tend to equate the one with the other, and they also think meditation is a way to achieve enlightenment. In actuality, this is incorrect. Shunryu Suzuki says in the book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, “We do not slight the idea of attining enlightenment, but the most important thing is this moment, not some day in the future,” (101). Being present in the moment is fundamental to all forms of Buddhism. Jack and the other men achieved this when fighting. Jack said, “You weren’t alive anywhere like you were there,” and this can be what being present with yourself, in your true Buddha nature, feels like.

Being present can also be incredibly painful, as Tyler showed Jack during the lye scene. Tyler kisses the back of Jack’s hand to moisten it then pours lye over the area. As Jack scrambles in desperation from the pain, Tyler tells him to stay with the pain, not to block it out “the way those dead people do,” (referring to the people in the support groups Jack used to attend). He continues to say, “What you’re feeling is premature enlightenment!” The ability to experience deep pain, whether physical or emotional, without rejecting it or running away from it, is indeed a profound expression of our Buddha nature. Who do you know in your life that can experience such agony with calm and compassionate acceptance? Instead our habit is to shun pain, which feels “bad” and chase after pleasure, which feels “good.” In Buddhism, we learn to accept what is, good or bad. Indeed, Suzuki asserts that “We should find the truth in this world, through our difficulties, through our suffering… Good is not different from bad,” (101). Before giving Jack the vinegar needed to neutralize his burn, Tyler tells him, “First you have to give up, first you have to know, not fear, know, that someday you are going to die. It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we are free to do anything.” Tyler must have read Suzuki’s book, because he says, “For us, ust now, we have some fear of death, but after we resume our true original nature, there is Nirvana,” (94).

Many have heard the term nirvana before, and most may equate it with a grunge band in the 1990s whose lead singer ironically committed suicide. Before it was associated with songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the Sanskrit word was used to describe enlightenment. Enlightenment is fundamental to Buddhism, but The Four Noble Truths, which are less familiar to the mainstream, are the wellspring from which all Buddhism flows (BuddhaNet, 2008). They are as follows:
The First Noble Truth is dukkha, suffering. Suffering is inherent in life.
The Second Noble Truth is the cause of Dukkha, which is attachment, grasping, or desire.
The Third Noble Truth is nirvana, awakening or enlightenment. This is freedom from attachment and aversion, from the viscous cycle of death and rebirth (samsara) and from illusion (maya).
The Fourth Noble Truth is the Dharma, the Way, the path to enlightenment is the way of the Buddha, also called the Eightfold Path.
The Four Noble Truths tell us that life is suffering, desire causes suffering, nirvana is freedom from desire, and the way to nirvana is the way of the Buddha. Many have followed this path in order to achieve enlightenment. Zen Buddhism is slightly different from other schools of Buddhism in that it largely rejects traditional Buddhist scriptures in favor of practice and the belief that enlightenment can be achieved spontaneously at any time by any person (Watts, 77).
There is an ancient Zen koan that states, “If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him.” When taken literally, this statement can seem quite shocking and confusing, its deeper, truer meaning is not. One of the beliefs of Buddhism is that we all have a Buddha nature within us at all times. Each one of us is capable of achieving enlightenment, or nirvana (Sanskrit), and becoming Buddha in this lifetime. Zen Buddhism teaches that “enlightenment is achieved through the profound realization that one is already an enlightened being,” (Department of Asian Art, 2002). The Buddha in this koan represents the self, the concept of one’s own enlightenment or the assumed belief that the self should already be enlightened and the assumptions of what enlightenment is like. It is not a profound realization; it is an illusion, a distraction, and a hindrance to our practice. The road is a metaphor for the practice of Buddhism and meditation. To kill the Buddha is to remove our illusions of who and what we are and return to our practice without the distraction, judgments, or confusion. (Ordinary Mind Zendo, 2008).

Buddhists encourage simplicity and discourage material possessions because of the attachment, the desire, that accompany them. Acquiring material things is fun, and we may feel good about the stuff we have, but this feeling is temporary, impermanent, fleeting. Soon, it is gone and we look for something else to acquire so we can again experience that momentary happiness. This is the viscous cycle of consumerism, what Jack called, “the IKEA nesting instinct.” This is an example of the First and Second Noble Truths, and Jack is deep in this viscious cycle when the movie begins.

When Jack loses all of his “flaming worldly possessions” when his condo blows up, he is forced to take his first tentative steps on the Way. He expresses afterwards, “I loved every stick of furniture in that place. That was not just a bunch of stuff that was destroyed. It was me.” This statement show how confused Jack was. He had no sense of self, only stuff. He defined himself by his material possessions. As Tyler had told him, “The things you own end up owning you.” Alan Watts states that a man who identifies himself with the illusions of the world “condemns himself to the perpetual frustration of one trying to catch water in a sieve,” (p 42). Destroying that stuff was killing the Buddha, killing the illusion of self that Jack had built. It is a process of breaking down that had to take place before he could begin to find his true self, it is a death of one self and the birth of another.

Jack continues this path of self destruction to free himself from the cycle of samsara, death and rebirth. Death, rebirth, and salvation are major themes in the movie. When Jack starts going to his support groups, he says that every night he died and was reborn again. After he starts Fight Club, he says that after every fight all the men felt saved. Marla and Tyler first hook up when she attempts suicide by overdosing on Xanax. This is a turning point in the relationship and the movie because it is the “birth” of Tyler’s & Marla’s affair. Tyler threatens to kill Raymond K. Hessel in order to make him appreciate his life and live it to the fullest.

Tyler calls the car wreck a “near-life experience.” According to Alan Watts, “When a human being is so self-conscious, so self-controlled that he cannot let go of himself, he dithers or wobbles between opposites. This is precisely what is meant in en by going round and round on ‘the wheel of birth-and-death,’ for Buddhist samsara is the prototype of all viscious circles,” (138). During the car ride leading up to the wreck, Tyler yells at Jack over and over to “just let go!” The entire car ride is a metaphor for Jack’s internal battle to take the wheel and control his life, himself, and everything within and without him. By letting go of the wheel, the car careens off the road and over the guard rail and into a ravine. Tyler pulls Jack from the wreckage saying, “We just had a near-life experience!” Jack is one step closer to completely destroying himself and thus freeing himself from samsara and maya and finding nirvana. Jack narrates, “This must have been what all those people felt like before I filed them as statistics in my reports.” Jack’s guilt manifesting, experiencing a car accident in order to experience empathy and the compassion necessary for forgiveness (Thich Nhat Hanh)

The Third Noble Truth is freedom from suffering, nirvana. This is freedom from desiring, craving, and wanting in any form. Alan Watts attempted to describe nirvana in this way: “…despair bursts into joy and creative power, on the principle that to lose one’s life is to find it,” (50). “Losing all hope was freedom.” “It is only when we have lost everything that we are free to do anything.”

The Fourth Noble Truth describes the Dharma, the Way, Buddha’s Eightfold Path, as the means to achieving nirvana, or enlightenment, liberation. Essential to the Dharma is meditation (Sanskrit dhyana). Meditation goes against Westerner’s restless temperament and need for instant gratification (Watts, 54). Instead of meditation, Tyler and Jack create Fight Club. Fighting is a replacement discipline used for gaining enlightenment, but in the same spirit as meditation, that is not the end goal. In Buddhism “where there is purpose, where there is seeking and grasping for results, there is no dhyana ,” (Watts, 54). Of Fight Club, Jack says, “After a fight, nothing was solved, but nothing mattered.”

Before Jack kills Tyler at the end of the movie, he says, “My eyes are open.” This is Jack’s way of saying that he no longer needs the illusion that was Tyler Durden in order to continue on his spiritual journey. He shoots himself and lives, while Tyler, once his master and not his illusion, his maya, dies.

The movie ends with Marla joining Jack at the window and holding his hand as they both turn to watch the buildings fall. The image of Jack and Marla suggests balance, a kind of yin and yang, male and female, somewhat sane and somewhat less insane, joined together and facing the future. The fall of the buildings bombed by the members of Project Mayhem suggests destruction and change. That change is the only constant in life is a fundamental truth in Buddhism, as it is in many schools of thought. We could call the buildings destroyed, but we could also say they have changed. They were skyscrapers, not they have changed into piles of rubble. Who is to say one state of being is better than the other? In Buddhism, there is no good or bad, only the Truth.
The end of the movie is just as rich with symbolism and meaning as the rest. The rich spiritual depth spans a broad spectrum of serious topics, from death to rebirth, from salvation and enlightenment to letting go and freedom. Statements like “It’s only after we’ve lost everything that we are free to do anything” parallel Zen Buddhism, but symbols from many other religions are dispersed throughout. Philosophy, psychology, addiction, nihilism, and Greek and Roman mythology are all notes that abound this symphony of shock, leaving the viewer perhaps confused, astounded, or even sickened. This movie challenges many aspects of our society and forces us to question what is really true in this world. What I have found to be true about the movie “Fight Club” is that it is a unique and provocative film that calls into question many aspects of our society and leaves behind tidbits of profound knowledge, philosophy, and spirituality riddled through the blood and gore like a trail of bread crumbs. Where do these bread crumbs lead? What better way to find out than to follow them?

 
Works Cited

Buddhanet.net. http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/pathmaps.htm
Hooker, Richard. “Japanese Buddhism: Zen Buddhism.” 1996. http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/FEUJAPAN/ZEN.HTM
Dzilna, Dzintars. “Fight club: Violence as Yoga.” 14 Aug 2004 http://wattage.blogspot.com/2004/08/fight-club-violence-as-yoga.html
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Zen Buddhism." Timeline of Art History. October 2000.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/zen/hd_zen.htm
Miklos, Andrew. “Zen Buddhism: Its Roots and Beliefs” http://www.ccds.charlotte.nc.us/History/Japan/02/miklos/miklos.htm
Suzuki, Shunryu. “Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind.” Ed. Trudy Dixon. New York & Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1977.
Watts, Alan W. “The Way of Zen.” New York: Vintage Books, Random House, 1957.