Fraggle Rock is an award-winning, beloved, family-friendly franchise full of laughs, puns, gags and…Buddhist wisdom? Jim Henson created the show with the lofty goal of “Ending all wars” by teaching children about the interconnectedness of all things as well as the “unassailable fact that their own actions would have consequences” according to producer Michael Frith. Though Henson didn’t know it, his lovable two-foot tall puppets were spreading the Buddhist philosophy of Dependent Origination, Anatman, and Karma to youngsters all across the globe during their five seasons on the airwaves.
What is a Fraggle Anyway?
Fraggle Rock is a fantasy land that consists of a series of caverns. It’s home to an unknown number of make-believe creatures that exist symbiotically. Each organism providing a benefit to it’s co-inhabitants, like the bioluminescent “Ditzies” that provide light in the cave system. The show consists of four main character types living in these underground caverns. Each with their own specific roles in the ecosystem. Two of these species are important for understanding how Buddhist beliefs are incorporated into the show.
Fraggles
Fraggles are small anthropomorphic creatures, with colors as vibrant and varied as a string of Tibetan prayer flags and tufted tails called “Baloobius“. They’re generally carefree. Spending their time playing and exploring their underground world.
Doozers
The noble work horses of the Fraggle Rock world. Doozers are identified by their avocado-colored green skin, nub tails and hardhats. Unlike the Fraggles, Doozers find joy and peace in working. Entering a state of Samu while they build their complex structures all over Fraggle Rock. In spite of having different values from the carefree Fraggles, Doozers and Fraggles, generally, live in harmony with each other.
The (re)Birth of Fraggle Rock
Despite being a children’s show, Fraggle Rock was created to tackle adult issues like prejudice, spirituality, personal identity, the environment, and social conflict. Henson and his crew set out to create a fantasy world that served as an allegory for the real world. Where the Fraggles and Doozers learn to deal with their differences in the cavernous ecosystem they call home. Henson wanted to create a world where the focus was on coming together to turn our differences into positive relationships.
“By seeing how the various groups in the world of Fraggle Rock learn to deal with their differences, perhaps we can learn a little bit about how to deal with ours.”
–Jim Henson
Jim Henson was raised as a Christian Scientist, not a Buddhist. Although he didn’t know it, and had no formal education on Buddhism and its teaching, Henson would leverage three Buddhist concepts to get his point across: Dependent Origination, Anatman and Karma.
Unearthing Buddhist Beliefs in The Caves of Fraggle Rock
“Everything is important. Either that or nothing is”
–A Fraggle named Gobo
The main conflict in the show comes from the Fraggles food of choice: Doozer Sticks. Doozer Sticks are the literal building blocks of the Doozer’s culture. This material forms all of the structures the Doozers lovingly build. Doozers spend countless hours crafting exquisite buildings out of them. Fraggles spend and equal amount of time feasting on the newly constructed buildings.
Nothing brings the Doozers more joy than building. Viewers see them engaging in other pastimes, such as knitting, but the show makes it very clear that building is their calling and preferred way of spending their days. It’s what gives the Doozer’s lives meaning. As such, you’d think the constant destruction of their work would anger the Doozer’s. But it doesn’t. The Fraggles knack for snacking on their work doesn’t cause them anger. The Doozers practice Right View when looking at their relationship and instead of finding anger, find joy and equanimity.
The Doozers view the destruction of their past work as a great opportunity. Without the Fraggles consuming their work, the Doozers would quickly run out of room to build and have to leave Fraggle Rock for more open pastures. This is Dependent Origination in action. Buddhism teaches that everything that exists depends on something else or, in other words, is conditioned. This applies to thoughts, objects, living creatures, individuals as well as the entire universe itself. Nothing exists independently.
Dependent Origination goes hand-in-hand with another Buddhist concept: anatman. Anatman is the belief that everything lacks inherent substance, definition or “thingness”. To put it in other words, a sandwich is not made up of “sandwich atoms”, a car isn’t built up of “car particles” and so on. They are all made of the same building blocks or, to borrow the term from Fraggle Rock “Doozer Sticks”. These things only take on substance or definition when certain causes and conditions are met.
Doozer sticks don’t just exist. They’re created by the Doozers. The space for the Doozers doesn’t just exist. It exists because Fraggles create the space by eating the Doozer sticks. This is Dependent Origination. The Fraggles and Doozers cannot exist independently from their own sides. They need each other to exist. The Fraggles need Doozers for food and the Doozers need the Fraggles to accomplish their lives’ work. Without each other both the Doozers and Fraggles lack inherent, essential, intrinsic, self-established existence.
Henson looked at this through a modern lens and found the term “symbiosis”. When viewing the situation from a Buddhist lens you find Dependent Origination and Anatman. Ironically, we are participating in Dependent Origination by analyzing the situation from a Buddhist view and assigning it substance and definition. Without the Fraggles Doozers cannot exist because they wouldn’t be able to build. The show states that Doozers would literally die if they cannot build. Without the Doozers to process the Doozer Sticks Fraggles would starve. The two groups that seem at odds give each other meaning and the conditions to survive. To fully round out the understanding of how Dependent Origination and Anatman are part of Fraggle Rock we to layer in one more Buddhist concept: Karma.
In short, Karma is nothing more than cause and effect. Karma is the “Doozer stick”, or building block, of both Dependent Origination and Anatman. It’s the action and intentions that create causes and conditions leading to future consequences. It’s the force that turns the wheel of samsara. In this example, it’s the act of building for the Doozers and the act of eating for the Fraggles. The Fraggles eat the Doozer sticks, which creates space for the Doozers to work. The Doozers build in the open spaces created by the Fraggles, creating more food for the Fraggles. These actions, in turn, create the karma, or cause and effect, that allow both species to exist and exist with meaning.
Henson viewed the ecosystem of Fraggle Rock from a western viewpoint. From his perspective their world existed in a harmonious version of symbiosis. However, by looking at the same environment from a Buddhist view we find Dependent Origination, Anatman and Karma. Although it may have been unintentional and unknown, Henson engaged in a Karmic act of spreading Buddhist ideas by aiming to “End all wars” through a children’s show.