It has been suggested that Kosinski named the character of Chance after a teacher of transcendental meditation he had met at the local TM Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, named Jerry Jarvis, who resembled the calm and simple manner of Chance Gardiner. The TM Center was located at the corner of Chauncy and Garden Streets. Given the phenomenological flavor of the film in which Chauncey invariably responds to people and phenomena as they present themselves, it is perhaps significant to note that the title 'Being There' is a direct translation of the term Dasein used by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger to describe the essential nature of human beings.

¶ 9:47 AM