Top 10 Famous Buddhists No 6 Goldie Hawn

The countdown continues with the Buddha’s Face Buddhism 101 Project top 10 world’s most famous Buddhists with yet another Hollywood celebrity. (Such is the global power of Hollywood to span the world with its stars and stories!)

This time it is the comedy actress Goldie Hawn, born in 1945 and these days spending as much time behind the camera as director and producer as she does in front. It was the hit US TV show Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In the 1960s that brought her to fame followed by a number of movies culminating in her role as a suicidal fiancée to Walther Matthau in Cactus Flower (1969) that brought her an Oscar.Throughout the 70s and 80s she was a regular on the screen in movies such as Shampoo (1975), The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox,(1976), Private Benjamin(1980) and Seems Like Old Times (1980).

Goldie was raised in the Jewish religion but has remarked she became involved with Buddhism in 1972 – she has said she is neither Jewish or Buddhist but is in fact a “Jewish-Buddhist” and she is passionate about teaching the Buddhist meditative practice of mindfulness to children as she believes this increases their concentration and optimism. She has set up a charity MindUp to continue to spread this practice.

“I like Buddhist thought because ….. it teaches you how to view your thoughts rather than be your thoughts.”