The (zen) Buddhist heart of I ♥ Huckabees

This paper offers a Buddhist reading of I ♥ Huckabees (2004). I begin with an overview of director David O. Russell's Zen influence to reveal how he weaves the Buddhist metaphor of Indra's net (a metaphor for the doctrine of pratitya-samutpada) and the principles of meditation into the narrative. The main objective, however, is to demonstrate that Russell doesn't merely re-present Buddhist ideals but also attempts to "practice" Buddhism by using the visual vernacular of contemporary media culture to rework film as meditation and meditation as film. In weaving Buddhist ideals into his satire on contemporary culture, I argue that Russell is engaging us in religious and ethico-political reflection.