August 15, 2005

• MONDAY BOOK
  
  

  Dharma Punx
  by Noah Levine
  
  

  There is no way in the world that I would have found this autobiography by my own inclinations. It came to me from one xangan to another to my reading list. There are quite a few Buddhist-leaning xangans I’ve noticed actually. At any rate, this is probably the only story you’ll read any time anywhere by a combination Buddhist and punk rocker, who is also the son of a well-known spiritual author (Stephen Levine). The origins of punk were happening back in the same time frame as my flower childhood but were somehow far away in dark rooms on the East Coast while I basked in the Haight-Ashbury light. By the mid-to-late ‘70’s when it really began to define itself as a musical movement, I had become the single parent I was to remain for years and was beginning an arduous transition back to responsible productive law-abiding life. The violence of punk would have repelled me up close and fortunately that proximity never happened. Noah Levine is another story. Born in 1971 to a father who would pursue an intense spiritual path and a mother who was addicted, he found himself scrambling back and forth between their households at a young age when the marriage broke up. In short order he discovered the streets – drugs, rebelliion, graffiti-making, and punk. Listen to this paragraph from his Preface:
  
  

  I sought a different path than that of my parents. I totally rejected meditation and all the spiritual shit they built their lives on. Looking at the once idealistic hippie generation who had long since cut their hair, left the commune, and bought into the system, we saw that peace and love had failed to make any real changes in the world. In response, we felt despair and hopelessness, out of which came the punk rock movement. Seeking to rebel against our parents’ pacifism and society’s fascist system of oppression and capitalist-driven propaganda, we responded in our own way, different from those before us, creating a new revolution for a new generation.
  
  

  
  Shades of the generation I came from! We thought we were rebelling too. Hey, we had Alan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and Malcolm X and on and on. We had a different style – peace-joy-love – and probably different drugs. But we dropped out and closed ranks just the same. And like the punk generation, many of us were from middle class/upper middle class families who were not at starvation survival level economically. If we went hungry and dressed ragged it was really by choice. We had the opportunity for education and many of us had some behind us when we “grouped out.” I see this in Noah Levine’s story – it wasn’t lack of opportunity for education or employment or a roof over his head that propelled him – it was emotional neglect with a little abuse thrown in. At any rate, when he discovered punk rock and the mosh pit, he found his calling. In and out of jail, he found release in the violence of the punk lyrics and philosophy until one day in a cell once again, he was counseled by his father on the phone to listen to his breathing (“The best way to keep the mind in the present moment, in the beginning, is through awareness of breathing.”) and for the first time, he listened. It turned out to be a practice that would become one of the main focuses of his life. He also went to his first 12-step recovery meeting. Instead of going down for 7 years for auto burglary on this occasion, by a kind of miracle he was sent to a group home for juveniles. It was a turning point. Skipping any more details, the jist of his story is that slowly but surely he began to seek a more spiritual path himself. Incorporating the music he loved into his journey, he began to seek out teachers, primarily Buddhist, for wisdom and assistance. He traveled extensively to monasteries and retreats in other countries, as well as in this one. At the time of the publication of his book, Noah was a Buddhist teacher in training with Jack Kornfield and the teaching collective at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, CA. He teaches meditation retreats nationally as well as leading groups in juvenile halls and prisons around the San Francisco Bay Area. He is also the director and co-founder of the Mind Body Awareness Project, a non-profit organization that serves incarcerated youths. He has studied with such well-known and respected teachers as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Ram Dass, Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Norman Fischer, and Sylvia Boorstein.  He currently lives in New York City and leads weekly meditation groups at the Lila Yoga and Dharma (Punx) Center.
  
  

  As I read this book, I was constantly reminded that this is the story of a young person. The last thing I mean to do is sound patronizing, because I totally respect his journey. But I have to say I find some statements so charming in their honesty that I’m reminded of the best of what it is to be young. Here is just one example – having just spent time at teachings of the Dalai Lama himself in Bodhgaya, India he tried to find lodgings for the night with a friend who happened to have dreadlocks. The owners of the lodging wouldn’t rent to them because they said the someone with dreadlocks was a “bad Sadhu.”
  
  

  We were all totally freaking out and yelling at that poor ignorant Indian fellow….We finally left, but not before Vinny defaced their sign with something like “Fascist Bastards.” Standing outside with all our bags, with the sun rising over the city, I had to laugh at myself. The day before I had taken a vow to be compassionate and there I was threatening some crazy Indian man with a stick. The absurdity of it made me laugh. I was very far from being a bodhisattva but at least I was trying.
  
  

  And that for me is the crux of the whole spiritual search deal – it’s not the end of the journey that counts, it’s the journey itself. Well done, Noah Levine.
  
  

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  Guess the Movie: “Prison life consists of routine, and then more routine.” Answer: The Shawshank Redemption, 1994. Winner: eneventure.
  Mother’s Iraq-war Protest near Bush Ranch Picks Up Steam
  Hundreds Converge on Peace House, Riling at least One of the President’s Neighbors.
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  CRAWFORD, Texas — Barbara Cummings was home in San Diego last Monday, listening to an Air America radio broadcast, when she heard the tale of a woman who was going to join Cindy Sheehan in her growing protest against the war in Iraq. (Rest of article here.)

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