Loss comes in many different forms, and eventually, touches everything in our lives, including our own. We lose people we love, we lose animals and companions that enrich our lives, and we eventually will lose ourselves and the identify of ourselves. However, I want to point out that the actual suffering doesn’t come from the loss in and of itself, it comes from our inability or unwillingness to leg go from the attachment. The harder we try to hold onto people or things we love, the longer we endure the pain and suffering of that attachment during loss.
Today, I am going to discuss the film Pig (2021), starring Nicolas Cage, because I just watched this movie for the first time the other night, and it really resonated with me and instantly made a connection to our ideas here at Zennado.
At first glance, the movie seems like a pretty straightforward revenge story. Honestly, when the movie got started, I thought Nicolas Cage was going to do a John Wick on these people that stole his pig, but clearly the movie subverted that expectation. After the initial scenes, I was consistently wondering what was going to happen next, which highlights the movie’s quality writing, pacing, and acting.
But under this premise of his stolen pig, there was a deeper story hidden: a meditation on grief, impermanence, ego, and the weight of attachment.
Every Character Carries Loss
The main character, Rob, played by Cage, is essentially a recluse. At the beginning of the story we find him already deep in loss: he’s lost his wife, career, and now his beloved pig was just stolen.
Amir, who is basically Rob’s only friend but also business partner, lives with equally heavy grief. His mother remains alive, technically, but only because of life support. As Amir refuses to let her go, he clings to this idea of his mother being alive and being with him, but this only prolongs his suffering. As we see in the movie, Amir “visits” his mother but doesn’t want to go into the room. This shows that he is clinging to the idea of his mother being alive, but doesn’t want to see her condition.
Even in the restaurant world, everyone is bound by illusions. Chefs, critics, and diners cling to status, reputation and appearances. In one of my favorite scenes, Rob confronts a chef who has abandoned his true dream in order to chase approval. I am going to post the quote word for word below, because I think it is very powerful. I’m also going to link to the video of the scene, however, if you’re thinking of watching the full movie then I would suggest you avoid watching this scene now, as it’s much more powerful when viewed within the context of the entire movie.
“They’re not real. You get that, right? None of it is real. The critics aren’t real. The customers aren’t real. Because… this isn’t real. Derek, why do you care about these people? They don’t care about you. None of them. They don’t even know you because you haven’t shown them. Every day, you’ll wake up, and there’ll be less of you. You live your life for them, and they don’t even see you. You don’t even see yourself. We don’t get a lot of things to really care about.”
This is a reminder that the attachments people chase, the validation, the reputation, all of it’s an illusion that makes us hollow, and as we chase these things the more hollow we become, until there’s nothing “real” anymore. We find ourselves only doing things to appease others, for the sake of reputation or wealth.
Abandoning the Ego
What makes Rob’s story compelling to me is that he chose to leave his prestigious life behind. He was once a renowned chef, and had a great reputation. His restaurant was hailed as one of the best places to dine in the Pacific Northwest, but these successes are simply fragile masks. Rob abandons them all and withdraws into the Oregon wilderness.
In his solitude, he doesn’t chase distraction or illusion. He simply lives in the moment, with his pig and the forest, in rhythm with the natural world around him. There is no ego to defend, no reputation to uphold, and no mask to maintain. This solitude is Rob’s way of practicing Zen, he stripped down his life to the bare minimum, free of the noise of ambition and performance. This, is an act of clarity. By abandoning his ego, he decisions what is real: love, nature, and presence.
How we can emulate some of this solitude in our western view of Zen? Clearly, abandoning everything and living in a hut in the middle of the forest would be deemed extreme, and I would tend to agree with that (in terms of our approach to Zen, remember, we are seeking a balance between the eastern and western philosophies), but it is certainly not a wrong way of practicing Zen. There is no wrong way of obtaining enlightenment, it’s only a question of how much you want to step into the light vs. staying in both worlds.
I would suggest we find moments in time that we can disconnect and experience what Rob experiences at the beginning of the movie.
Suggestions:
- Disconnect from work, school and social settings. Remove yourself and seek nature, find a safe place and set up a small campsite and enjoy your surroundings
- Go on a nature trail/walking path and listen to the birds and the wind, leave your phone behind
- Spend some time with your pets, play with them and only focus on your current interaction with them
- Plan to cook a new meal, get the ingredients, and then disconnect. Cook your meal with focus, and pay attention to what’s happening, enjoy the sounds and the smells as you prepare a great new meal, and then enjoy that food with your family (or with yourself)
Attachment Extends Suffering
I want to go back to Amir, as we touched on briefly before, and the issue of his mother’s state of being. This part of the movie embodies the cost of attachment. His mother is only “alive” in the biological sense, as in she is hooked up to life support and on ventilation. Her brain and personality are long gone, but yet her son cannot let go. His refusal transforms love into suffering. Zen teaches us that attachment is not life, it is fear disguised as devotion. When we cling to the attachment, we cling to pain, we bind ourselves with suffering.
Rob, by contrast, shows there’s an other way. When Rob learns that his pig was accidently killed during the initial theft, he does not erase his grief. In fact, he takes it head-on and responds with empathy. He has an initial burst of sadness, and grieves in that moment, but accepts that this is his present now. His strength does not come from regaining what was taken, as in he does not immediately seek to get a new pig or anything like that, he just accepts the impermanence and finding truth in what remains.
Letting Go
Moving on or letting go doesn’t mean forgetting or dismissing love. It means that we see clearly that nothing is permanent, and choosing to love anyway, without expectation that life and love are going to continue on indefinitely. Loss becomes a teacher, showing us that presence and compassion are only possible when we release our grip on what we cannot keep.
Life without loss would not be the same. We can appreciate love in many ways, because of the impending loss of that love. If we were eternal, and never experienced loss, then we also would never experience deep connection in our present time. There must be two sides to every coin. If we are to experience to great-highs of love and pleasure, then there must be the opposite to compare it to, otherwise we wouldn’t realize how good love can be.
We all have our versions of Amir’s mother, we all have something that we refuse to let go, even when we know holding onto it prolongs our suffering. I want you to consider these attachments and meditate on them, ask yourself, “what peace might come if I release the attachment?”
Pig is a great movie because it reminds me that freedom is not obtained by reclaiming what is lost or holding onto something, but rather that freedom is found when you have the courage to let go. I will seek to live authentically, and to meet loss with compassion.