Is Project Mayhem, or Tyler Durden, buddhist?
It'd seem that there are zen/buddhist practices and elements in Fight Club:
- Narrator does bunches of haikus
- Narrator's home intends to be zen-like looking
- Penguin says slide
- Car crash scene Tyler says Stop trying to control everything and just let go!
- Detachment is a major theme since first conversation between Narrator-Tyler
- Project Mayhem candidates are requested to have a minimal amount of possesions
- Buddhist aspect of Project Mayhem? Searching for truth. 4th rule: No lies.
- And Tyler even quotes a buddhist idea regarding the selection of candidates.
Excerpt from Book, Chapter 17 (= the movie). This is how Buddhist temples have tested applicants going back for bahzillion years, Tyler says. You tell the applicant to go away, and if his resolve is so strong that he waits at the entrance without food or shelter or encouragement for three days, then and only then can he enter and begin the training.
Best Answer
IMHO, there's not a buddhist philosophy motivating Project Mayhem, or the main character/s.
- Haikus are more likely a way of escaping reality, this is why Narrator needs Tyler.
- A zen-liking home is mostly just simple consumerism.
- Detachment is an awesome point, and one of the major plot-magnets (if I may). But not very buddhist when one destroys everything. That is, anarchism could be ok with burning buildings, and buddhism too. Also good point that no one gets harmed with explosions. However, in the process of getting people into Fight Club first, and later same for Project Mayhem, mayor harms are involved. Maybe this is ok for buddhism in some sense, but compassion, as far as I understand, should be above destruction. In this sense Fight Club, more than Project Mayhem, seems more compassionate under rule # 3: : If someone says "stop" or goes limp, taps out the fight is over.
Rules seem fascist in Project Mayhem (although pyschologically... faith?).
- 1st rule: You don't ask questions about Project Mayhem.
- 2nd rule: YOU DON'T ASK QUESTIONS ABOUT PROJECT MAYHEM!
- 5th rule: You have to trust Tyler Durden.
The political implications of not being able to make questions seems has too harmful consequences.
Pictures about "Is Project Mayhem, or Tyler Durden, buddhist?"
Is Fight Club about Buddhism?
While a movie entitled Fight Club would seem to go against the very concepts of Buddhism, the film shows remarkable similarities to the major tenants of Zen Buddhism.Is Project Mayhem real in Fight Club?
Palahniuk insists there is no such real organization. He has heard of real fight clubs, some said to have existed before the novel. Project Mayhem is lightly based on The Cacophony Society, of which Palahniuk is a member, and other events derived from stories told to him.What does Project Mayhem represent?
He meets a man named Tyler Durden and the two of them start, what they call, fight clubs where men meet and fight. This initiative develops into "Project Mayhem", where the goal is an anti-consumerist one, to find purpose in life for men like the narrator and doing so by the use of violence, murder and bombings.Fight Club | Project Mayhem
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