NEWS: Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen: Zen is Not Punk, Punk is Not Zen

CULTURE: Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen: Zen is Not Punk, Punk is Not Zen

Just over seven years ago I started writing about Buddhism on a website I called Sit Down and Shut Up. I’d been writing since high school and studying Zen since shortly after I got out of that Hell. But until then I’d never felt confident writing about Zen. At the time I was rediscovering a lot of the punk rock musical and cultural stuff I’d been into nearly twenty years earlier. It seemed to me that my punk rock days had been much more important in my road to understanding Buddhism than I’d previously suspected.

So the first essay I wrote for that webpage was titled “Punk is Zen, Zen is Punk.” The article isn’t there anymore. But it was re-used as part of the opening of my first book, Hardcore Zen. The title was a reference to a line in the Heart Sutra that goes, “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.” That particular string of six words was my entry into Buddhist philosophy. When I first heard it I knew instantly it was right even though I didn’t have a clue what it meant. Juxtaposing punk and Zen seemed to be a similar way of identifying two completely disparate concepts and finding the common ground between them, which, in this case, was me.

Somehow I seem to have built a career of sorts on identifying punk and Zen. But in the Zen philosophy also says, “Form is form and emptiness is emptiness.” So it seems like it's time I finally come out and say that Zen is not punk and punk is not Zen, thereby possibly trashing my nascent writing career.

I’m up in Akron, Ohio now where I’ve just finished playing three gigs with 0DFx (aka Zero Defex), the hardcore band I played bass for in ’82-’83 and then again in 2005. We’re also recording tracks for a CD we hope to put out in a few months. The experience of doing three punk rock shows and a bunch of punk rock recordings over the course of less than a week has brought home in no uncertain terms that in many very important ways punk rock is definitely not the same thing as Zen.

I felt this most strongly when we returned home from our show at Cleveland’s Beachland Tavern with the amazing and mighty C.D. Truth (my new favorite band in the world) and the incredible Cheap Tragedies (best hardcore show I’ve ever seen in my life, go check ‘em out if you get a chance). By the time we got done unloading all our gear it was four in the morning. When you’re doing a Zen retreat you wake up at 4:30 AM and the contrast between the two lifestyles hit me like the big ol’ cinder block our drummer Mickey X-Nelson uses to keep his kit from sliding around the stage. (We also did shows with Concordia Discors and Kill The Hippies who both ruled.)

I tend to downplay the issue of discipline in my writing about Buddhist practice mainly because when I look at other Buddhist writing it seems like some people write about nothing but discipline. But it’s a very important aspect of Buddhist practice to live in a regulated, disciplined way. You can’t expect to maintain a balanced body and mind if you’re continuously pulling yourself in eighteen directions at once by staying out late, sleeping in till a million o’clock, getting drunk and stoned, chasing tail and generally carousing. It just doesn’t work.

This is a completely different attitude from the religious point of view that says stuff like that is sinful and evil. Sin and evil doesn’t enter into it. It’s just a simple fact that if you want your brain and body to work the way they’re meant to, you need to take good care of the machinery God gave you. No two ways about it.

At the same time, Buddhist practice isn’t about being all austere and pure. Arbitrary designations of purity are useless. You know when your body and mind have been stretched and smashed and squeezed and pummeled just by paying attention to how you feel. And when I woke up way too fucking late this morning after a late night recording session with the mighty Defex at which beer and pot flowed freely — I didn’t partake in either, but I’m extremely susceptible to contact highs and second-hand smoke — with my head throbbing and half the hearing gone out of my right ear I knew I’d been pushing things too far. Plus I realized when I was in the shower that this article was due today, not next week! Yikes. Pleaze excuse teh speeling mistekes.

While I was here in Ohio, though, I got to spend a time with my first Zen teacher, Tim McCarthy of the Kent Zendo. Watching him give his talk on Sunday morning reminded me what I really need to be doing. In answer to a question from a guy at the talk he said something like, “You couldn’t exist without the whole of the Universe being just as it is and the whole of the Universe couldn’t exist without you.” The guy had been asking about whether Buddhists worship Buddha. Tim said, “So it’s not really what you think of as worship. Instead you have a sense of awe and reverence for all things in the Universe. But at the same time you know that the Universe depends upon you. So it’s a mutually reciprocal feeling.” This is something all of us can tune into any time we wish. But most of us miss it entirely.

If I can help awaken that feeling in a few people, that’s worth all the hardcore gigs in Ohio.

Tonight, November 12th, I'll give a Zen talk at Lambert's Tattooing and Body Piercing (I kid you not) in manly, he-man Mansfield, Ohio at 7PM (Sponsored by the Mansfield Zen Center).

Brad Warner is the author of Hardcore Zen and Sit Down and Shut Up!. He maintains a blog about Buddhist stuff. If you're in Southern California and you want to try some Zazen for yourself, he has a group that meets every Saturday in Santa Monica.

I know many, many Buddhist who totally seem to miss out on the 'moderation' part of Buddhism. I suppose that it's inevitable that as Buddhist beliefs gain traction in America, especially amongst subcultures that tend to embrace new ideas, that you'll have lots of 'cool' people who are into Buddhism running around doing the things (sex, drugs, rock, roll, etc.) cool people do while taking breaks to talk about their meditation practice. It often seems hard for Americans to realize that something might be a less than optimal choice for them if it's not strictly proscribed as 'Sinful' or 'Evil' and perhaps that is why I tend to see lots of Buddhists eating mushrooms, smoking lots of pot and opium, drinking tequila and having group sex. Fortunately, since I am neither cool nor a Buddhist I do not have those sort of problems.

yes, yes indeed.

My deepest and most rewarding meditative experiences occurred during periods of my life where I was either conscientiously or not abstaining from toxic substances (namely alcohol and pot).

I think you've hit on my favorite thing about Zen. It can contradict itself and make more sense rather than less.

I was present at both your speaking gigs at the Akron Library, and your show at the Beachland Tavern. Good stuff on both nights.

You had said something to the effect in Sit Down and Shut Up, that playing music with the band back in 2005 was almost like Zazen, where when you were playing everything else gets tuned out and all there is is the music. Both Punk Rock and Buddhism takes discipline, the Buddhist is definately the more stringent and focused. But I can imagine that playing in a punk band night after night requires the same discipline in just the opposite side of yin yang circle. Maybe even a little more discipline (and/or restraint), as many have fallen inn their path to musical enlightenment, sans; Sid Viscious, Brad Nowell, Kurt Cobain, etc...

Disco is Catholicism, Catholicism is Disco

Being from Cleveland, I just wanted to let you know that the transcendental moments of reason are free.
Enlightenment costs extra.

Buddhism and Punk rock both had influential early practitioners named Sid, and that can't be mere coincidence.