Buddhist Themes in Lucky

Introduction: The Cinematic Hermeneutics of Mortality

John Carroll Lynch’s directorial debut Lucky (2017), written by Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja, serves as both a cinematic love letter to actor Harry Dean Stanton and an existential meditation on aging. Set in a sun-scorched, dusty Arizona desert town, the narrative centers on Lucky, a 90-year-old World War II Navy veteran living out his final years in solitary routine.

While superficially framed around an old man’s quiet routines, the film functions as a rigorous philosophical exploration. It weaves together core principles of Buddhist philosophy—specifically impermanence, non-self, and emptiness—with Martin Heidegger’s phenomenological critique of human finitude. Rather than offering religious consolation or nihilistic despair, Lucky constructs a secular theology of mortality: death is not an enemy to be conquered, but the defining horizon that gives life its beauty and authenticity.

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                        PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORK                         │
├──────────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────────────┤
│        BUDDHIST ONTOLOGY         │      HEIDEGGERIAN PHENOMENOLOGY     │
├──────────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ • Anicca (Impermanence)          │ • Dasein (Human Being)              │
│ • Anatta (Non-Self / No Soul)    │ • Sein-zum-Tode (Being-towards-Death)│
│ • Śūnyatā (Luminous Emptiness)   │ • Jemeinigkeit (Mineness)           │
│ • Karuṇā (Active Compassion)     │ • Eigentlichkeit (Authenticity)     │
└──────────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────────────┘

Impermanence (Anicca) and the Dissolution of Daily Routine

Routine as a Defense Against Flux

Lucky structures his life around rigid, repetitive rituals:

• Performing five daily yoga stretches ("sun salutations") upon waking.

• Drinking warm milk and smoking cigarettes (a pack-a-day habit since youth).

• Walking into town to do crossword puzzles at Joe's diner.

• Watching television game shows (The Price is Right) in his living room.

• Visiting Elaine’s bar every evening for bloody marys and chatter with local regulars.

In Buddhist philosophy, human beings frequently build rigid habitual structures to create an illusion of permanence (nicca) in a world governed by total flux (anicca). In terms of Alfred Schütz’s phenomenology of the everyday life-world, Lucky's daily circuit provides a predictable framework of typified routines that shields him from contemplating his impending dissolution.

The Collapse as Ontological Shock

Lucky’s illusion of stability shatters when he collapses unexpectedly while waiting for his coffee maker to brew. Medical examination by Dr. Kaman (Ed Begley Jr.) reveals no organic pathology, stroke, or heart attack; the doctor simply diagnoses him as "old".

This sudden bodily betrayal exposes the reality of anicca. The body is not a fixed sanctuary but a composite, decaying entity. The collapse forces Lucky out of passive, habitual existence and directly into an acute awareness of his physical decline.

President Roosevelt: The Allegory of Detachment

The theme of impermanence is echoed in the subplot of Howard (played by David Lynch), a town resident grieving the loss of his 100-year-old desert tortoise, President Roosevelt.

Howard’s distress stems from the tortoise's unexpected escape: Roosevelt simply walked away through an opening in the garden fence. The tortoise—a symbol of longevity, heavy armor, and endurance—serves as an allegory for human attachment and the suffering inherent in possessive clinging. Even creatures built to outlast human lifetimes eventually slip away, demonstrating that no physical form or earthly bond can escape impermanence.

Non-Self (Anatta) and Emptiness (Śūnyatā): Transcending Nihilism

The Rejection of the Eternal Soul

During an evening at the bar, Paulie (James Darren) asserts that "friendship is essential to the soul". Lucky interrupts angrily, shouting: "It doesn't exist... the soul!"

Paulie:  "Friendship is essential to the soul."
Lucky:   "It doesn't exist!"
Paulie:  "Friendship?"
Lucky:   "The soul!"

Lucky's vehement rejection mirrors the core Buddhist doctrine of Anatta (Non-Self). Contrary to Western metaphysical traditions that postulate an immortal, immutable soul, Buddhism asserts that the "self" is a fluid bundle of five physical and mental aggregates (skandhas) with no permanent core (a deconstruction explored in Constructs of the Mind-Unmasking Consciousness in East and West). Lucky’s insistence on the non-existence of the soul is not mere crankiness; it is a refusal to accept comforting metaphysical fictions.

The Bar Monologue: From Void to Śūnyatā

In the film's climax, Lucky addresses the gathered patrons at Elaine's bar, articulating his realization regarding the nature of reality:

While this speech initially sounds like bleak nihilism, the film transforms it into the Buddhist concept of Śūnyatā (emptiness), systematically formulated by Nāgārjuna. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, emptiness does not mean non-existence or a dark void; rather, it denotes that all things are empty of intrinsic, independent existence (svabhāva). Because nothing exists independently, everything is interconnected and mutually dependent.

When Elaine asks in distress, "What do you do with that?", Lucky looks at her, softens his posture, and replies: "You smile."

                    ┌───────────────────────────────┐
                    │  Confronting Finitude & Void  │
                    └───────────────┬───────────────┘
                                    │
                    ┌───────────────┴───────────────┐
                    │      Elaine's Question:       │
                    │   \"What do you do with that?\" │
                    └───────────────┬───────────────┘
                                    │
                    ┌───────────────┴───────────────┐
                    │        Lucky's Answer:        │
                    │         \"YOU SMILE.\"          │
                    └───────────────┬───────────────┘
                                    │
            ┌───────────────────────┴───────────────────────┐
            ▼                                               ▼
┌───────────────────────────────┐               ┌───────────────────────────────┐
│     BUDDHIST EQUANIMITY       │               │   HEIDEGGERIAN AUTHENTICITY   │
│ Emptiness (Śūnyatā) accepted  │               │ Finitude claimed without fear │
│ with warmth & joy (Tathātā)   │               │ and owned as one's own life   │
└───────────────────────────────┘               └───────────────────────────────┘

This smile marks the shift from fear to Tathātā (suchness)—a radical, joyful affirmation of reality as it is, echoing the absurd affirmation championed by Albert Camus. Once the burden of protecting a permanent self is abandoned, death loses its terror.

Heideggerian Phenomenology: Death as the Individualizing Horizon

Dasein and Everyday Inauthenticity

In Being and Time (1927), Martin Heidegger examines the nature of human existence, which he terms Dasein ("being-there"). Heidegger observes that in everyday life (Alltäglichkeit), people live inactively absorbed in the crowd—what he calls "the They" (Das Man). In this state, death is treated as an abstract, distant event that happens to "other people," allowing the individual to avoid confronting their own finitude.

At the start of the film, Lucky lives in a private variation of this everydayness. His routine keeps death at bay. However, his sudden fall breaks his everyday immersion, triggering Heideggerian Angst (existential anxiety)—an ontological tremor analyzed also by Søren Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre. Unlike fear, which targets a specific threat, Angst reveals the ultimate vulnerability and groundlessness of human existence.

Sein-zum-Tode and Jemeinigkeit

Heidegger argues that death possesses unique phenomenological characteristics:

1. Insuperability (Unüberholbar): Death is a possibility that cannot be bypassed.

2. Non-relationality (Unbezüglich): Death strips away all social roles, relationships, and worldly possessions.

3. Mineness (Jemeinigkeit): No one can undergo another person's death. Death belongs exclusively to the individual.

Confronting death forces Lucky out of passive routine. Because no one else can die his death for him, he is forced to take full ownership of his remaining days. This realization transforms his personality: his previously abrasive defense mechanisms give way to authentic vulnerability and connection.

                 ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
                 │    EVERYDAY INAUTHENTICITY          │
                 │    • Distraction through routine    │
                 │    • Death seen as distant/abstract │
                 └──────────────────┬──────────────────┘
                                    │
                        [ RUPTURE: Physical Fall ]
                                    │
                                    ▼
                 ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
                 │     EXISTENTIAL ANXIETY (ANGST)     │
                 │    • Confrontation with Finitude    │
                 │    • Loss of grounding in things    │
                 └──────────────────┬──────────────────┘
                                    │
                        [ HEIDEGGERIAN AWAKENING ]
                                    │
                                    ▼
                 ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
                 │  BEING-TOWARDS-DEATH (Sein-zum-Tode)│
                 │    • Death recognized as personal   │
                 │    • Individualization (Jemeinigkeit)│
                 └──────────────────┬──────────────────┘
                                    │
                        [ ZEN SYNTHESIS: \"You Smile\" ]
                                    │
                                    ▼
                 ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
                 │         AUTHENTIC PRESENCE          │
                 │    • Active connection & warmth     │
                 │    • Serene acceptance of the void  │
                 └─────────────────────────────────────┘

The Philosophical Synthesis: Where Zen Meets Heidegger

The Desert Climax and the Fourth Wall

In the final sequence of the film, Lucky walks back into the Arizona desert. He passes towering saguaro cacti—living monuments that endure for centuries amidst harsh desert conditions.

Lucky stops, turns toward the camera, and looks directly into the lens. He offers a subtle, knowing smile to the viewer before turning around and continuing his journey into the vast horizon.

                     ┌─────────────────────────────┐
                     │    THE SILENT TRANSCENDENCE  │
                     ├─────────────────────────────┤
                     │  1. Saguaro Cacti           │
                     │     (Nature's Endurance)    │
                     │  2. Looking at Camera       │
                     │     (Direct Transmission)   │
                     │  3. The Final Smile         │
                     │     (Enlightened Acceptance)│
                     └─────────────────────────────┘

This closing shot unifies Heideggerian authenticity with Zen liberation:

• Heideggerian Authenticity: Lucky does not run away from his mortality. He owns his finitude completely, standing alone in his singular existence.

• Zen Liberation: His smile signifies the realization that because there is no separate self to lose, death is not a defeat. In embracing nothingness, he becomes one with everything around him.

🎴 Interactive Web Practice (Comprehension Check)

Resonant Notes

The following notes in the vault share direct thematic, ontological, and existential connections with Lucky and its philosophical synthesis of Buddhist ontology and existential phenomenology:

🔴 Buddhist Ontology, Emptiness & Non-Self

• Nāgārjuna — Formulated the foundational Madhyamaka philosophy of Śūnyatā (emptiness), demonstrating that emptiness is not nihilistic nothingness, but the absence of independent, separate self-existence (svabhāva). This directly underpins Lucky's realization that vanishing into the void is a reason not for despair, but for smiling equanimity.
• Stephen Batchelor — Batchelor's framework of secular Buddhism—articulated in Buddhism Without Beliefs—mirrors Lucky's refusal of supernatural dogmas, reincarnation, or an eternal soul, championing instead an agnostic, grounded embrace of mortal finitude and immediate presence.
• The Dhammapada — The classic Theravāda verses on impermanence (anicca), the non-substantiality of the self (anatta), and vigilance toward death parallel Lucky's awakening from the passive slumber of mechanical routine into authentic, mindful awareness.
• Tibetan Wheel of Life — The traditional depiction of the Lord of Death (Yama) holding the entire cycle of saṃsāra visually encapsulates the film's core thesis: all worldly routines, attachments, and organic forms exist within the enclosing horizon of impermanence and mortality.
• Constructs of the Mind-Unmasking Consciousness in East and West — Deconstructs the Western Cartesian ego into fluid, impermanent psychological aggregates, echoing Lucky’s passionate repudiation of the soul during his argument with Paulie at Elaine's bar.
• Epistemology of Preference-Avijjā, Māna, and the Emptiness of Aesthetic Taste in Buddhist Philosophy — Analyzes how ego-attachment (māna) and ignorance (avijjā) construct personal defenses against groundlessness, matching Lucky's initial reliance on rigid rituals before his collapse.

🟡 Heideggerian Phenomenology & Existential Finitude

• Martin Heidegger — Lucky's physical collapse and subsequent existential awakening directly track the analytic of Dasein in Being and Time. The fall shatters the complacency of everyday inauthenticity (das Man), plunging Lucky into Angst and forcing him into an authentic orientation of Sein-zum-Tode (Being-towards-Death).
• Søren Kierkegaard — Kierkegaard's exploration of existential anxiety (Angst) as the dizziness of freedom when confronting the abyss parallels Lucky’s initial ontological disorientation after his bodily collapse, before his dread matures into resolute acceptance.
• Jean-Paul Sartre — Lucky's refusal to seek refuge in comforting theological illusions or bad faith (mauvaise foi) reflects Sartre's existential principle that human consciousness must bravely confront its own nothingness (le néant) and live without metaphysical guarantees.
• Schopenhauerian Pessimism — Arthur Schopenhauer's synthesis of Eastern metaphysics and Western philosophy—specifically the recognition of existence as suffering (dukkha) driven by craving—parallels Howard's grief over his escaped tortoise, President Roosevelt, as an allegory of attachment and loss.
• Time as Change — Explores the metaphysical reality of temporal flux, affirming that time is not an abstract linear container but the irreversible, physical transformation of matter and organic bodies, experienced somatically by Lucky in his ninetieth year.

🟢 The Absurd, Everyday Routine & The Life-World

• Albert Camus — Lucky serves as an elderly, desert-dwelling incarnation of Camus's Absurd Hero. In responding to the ultimate vanishing of all things with a serene smile, Lucky enacts the conclusion of The Myth of Sisyphus—revolting against nihilism not through despair or religious hope, but through joyful, lucid defiance of the void.
• Alfred Schütz (1899–1959) — Schütz's phenomenological sociology of the everyday life-world (Lebenswelt) illuminates how Lucky's rigid daily routines (diner crosswords, television game shows, bar chatter) function as typified habits shielding consciousness from the fundamental anxiety of mortality.
• Henri Bergson — Bergson's distinction between homogeneous, spatialized clock time and authentic lived duration (la durée) mirrors Lucky's temporal evolution—transitioning from the mechanical scheduling of daily tasks to the rich, qualitative stillness of the desert sunset.
• The Existential Paradox of Annie Hall's Opening Monologue — Woody Allen's neurotic defense rituals and jokes against mortality offer an urban tragicomic foil to Lucky's austere, desert-tempered acceptance; both anatomize how mundane habits serve as fragile screens against somatic dissolution.

References

Lucky - Official Trailer

This trailer provides a visual preview of Harry Dean Stanton's final lead performance and highlights the film's desert setting, eccentric characters, and quiet existential tone.