Buddhism in The White Lotus, explained

In which I attempt to deconstruct the Buddhist themes and also provide practical takeaways

By my reckoning, there has never been a pop culture phenomenon that addresses Buddhism in as rich and robust a way as season three of The White Lotus. Sure, The Matrix and Groundhog Day had Buddhist subtexts. Yeah, there was a hilarious Dalai Lama reference in Caddyshack. But none of those projects come close to The White Lotus.

This season had its fans and detractors (I am in the former camp), but no one can deny that the show centered Buddhism in a genuine way—provoking widespread conversation in a manner that, by my lights, created a ton of good karma for writer/director Mike White. (Apparently, he stumbled upon Buddhism many years ago, in the midst of a personal and professional rut.)

Below, I identify three Buddhist themes that stuck out to me while devouring the show. I unpack them and then give you practices to get the wisdom into your molecules.

1. Identity as a prison

Mike White himself has described this season of The White Lotus as a “dramatic exploration” of this idea, likening it to a “Buddhist parable.”

White establishes the leitmotif in the very first episode, when Piper Ratliff, the earnest teenage spiritual seeker in a family of wealthy Southern narcissists, listens to a dharma talk in which a Buddhist monk says:

“Identity is a prison. No one is spared this prison. Rich man, poor man, success or failure. We build the prison, lock ourselves inside, then throw away the key.”

There are at least two ways to understand this argument. On a simple level, if you cling to a story about who and what you are (I’m the jealous one; I’m the shy one, etc.), it’s self-limiting. It traps you in your own head in a way that cuts you off from personal growth—and from other people. (Further, on a macro level, when we cling to polarized political identities, it can warp our democracy.)