A modern meditation on death: identifying buddhist teachings in George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead

A confluence of increasing interest in popular culture as a source for religious inspiration and the growing interest, both popular and scholarly, in zombie-fiction bring together several possibilities for scholarship in the context of religious studies. This paper will present one aspect of the zombie-craze in the light of Buddhist philosophy. The Buddha taught that the illusion of self-ish-ness, and resulting attachments, are the greatest hurdles to achieving nibbana. Through meditating on the decomposing corpse, Buddhists may come to realize the Ten Impurities of the Body, and so come to grips with the impermanence of the self. I will illustrate how George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, recognized as the watershed film of the modern zombie sub-genre, unintentionally conveys the Buddhist teachings of dukkha (suffering by attachments), anatta (no-self), and anicca (impermanence).