Some idea of perfection, or some perfect way which is set up by someone else is not the true way for us. Each one of us must make his or her own true way, and when we do, that way will express the universal way. This is the mystery. When you understand one thing through and through, you understand everything. When you try and understand everything, you will not understand anything. The best way is to understand yourself, and then you will understand everything. So when you try hard to make your own way, you will help others, and you will be helped by others. Before you make your own way you cannot help anyone, and no one can help you. To be independent in this true sense, we have to forget everything which we have in our mind and discover something quite new and different moment after moment. This is how we live in this world.

-- Shunryu Suzuki, from Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

That statement is one of the most truly punk rock things I’ve ever come across. The first time I read it 0DFx, the hardcore band I played bass in, had just broken up. The hardcore punk scene I’d been part of for the last couple years was turning to shit. We’d started off rejecting society and almost immediately set about creating our own miniature version of the very society we rejected -- only ours had cooler clothes and better music. I thought punk rock was about independence, but very few people within the movement were interested in real independence. They were just interested in the appearance of independence.

I thought Buddhism was the way of true independence. But I’m starting to wonder how many of the folks out there who label themselves as Buddhists are any more interested in true independence than the hardcore punks who only cared about looking scary.

My Wikipedia page was vandalized a couple weeks ago. I never actually saw the vandalized version myself. It was repaired before I got there. Them Wikipedia nerds are pretty quick. But it was vandalized by some so-called Buddhist who wanted to let the world know I was actually a big phony because I didn’t adhere to his standards of what Buddhist teachers ought to be like. It boggles the mind what people will waste their time doing…

Apparently much of the controversy about me in the Buddhist community relates to this video I posted of a precepts ceremony I performed for my friend Ren Kuroda last month. A precepts ceremony is where someone takes a public vow to uphold the ten Buddhist precepts, which are:

1) Don’t kill 2) Don’t steal 3) Don’t desire too much 4) Don’t lie 5) Don’t live by selling liquor* 6) Don’t discuss the failures of Buddhist monks and laypeople 7) Don’t praise yourself and berate others 8) Don’t be covetous 9) Don’t become angry and 10) Don’t abuse the Three Supreme Values; Buddha, Dharma (Buddhist teachings) and Sangha (the Buddhist community)

Apparently some Buddhists were aghast that I performed the ceremony while reading the instructions out of a book. Look. I don’t even like these ceremonies. You think I’m gonna waste my days and nights memorizing that shit? As if! I didn’t start practicing Buddhism because I wanted to be able to perform note-perfect renditions of ancient rituals. That’s not what it’s about. The ceremonies have some value. But you do them and get back to the real work.

The folks who don’t like the way I do ceremonies also do not like my “potty mouth,” and the fact that I’ve sometimes criticized stuff like Big Mind™ and the Holosync™ which are promoted as Buddhist practice but really are not. This, they say, breaks precepts number six and seven. I should therefore be quiet about the scams and let people get cheated. And, of course, they don’t like the fact that I write about Buddhism for you nice people here at Suicide Girls.

Whatever.

I’m not saying this stuff just to gripe about my own situation. Well maybe I am a little. I seem to do that a lot. But it’s actually bigger than that, I think. It’s not just me. All of us encounter pressure to conform to other people’s standards of how we should behave, how we should look, and even how we should think. We are social creatures. So it’s important to behave in ways that are acceptable in the society we live in.

But we’re very lucky to be living in a society that’s pretty advanced and liberal in its ability to tolerate diversity. We’re not quite where we need to be just yet. But we’ve made some significant strides very quickly. When I was at Wadsworth High School in Wadsworth, Ohio in the beginning of the Eighties I got threatened by the jocks because I had a mullet. A mullet for Christ’s sake! Things have gotten much better.

Even in this very progressive society we still get pressure to be like everybody else. The problem is that this very notion that there even is a “like everybody else” to be is a lie. No one is like everybody else. Even the most conformist among us can’t ever truly conform except in a very superficial way. It’s our nature to be independent. The attempt to conform to some illusory notion of normality is just the denial of what we actually are.

But it’s not that easy to come to truly know what you really are and to accept that. Maybe you think you already do. But I’d bet dollars to donuts you don’t. It takes a lot more than just getting a really rad tattoo or dying your hair chartreuse. There are scads of things about yourself that you don’t want to face. In my own case much of what I didn’t want to face had to do with how many ways I was exactly like everyone else, especially the ways in which I was exactly like all the “normal” douche bags** I spent most of my life seething with hatred at.

Because there’s so much about you that you aren’t ready to accept right now it’s good to move slowly into this stuff. If you go too fast the shock can be too much to take. When you do a practice like zazen you’ll discover aspects about yourself that are truly disturbing -- no matter how cool and unsettling a person you might think you are. You can only recognize that which you think is the worst in human nature because it’s part of you.

Still it’s a worthwhile pursuit. Because when you’ve learned to accept what you are then you can manifest what you are in a way that truly benefits you and truly benefits everyone you come in contact with. And that’s good for all of us. That’s the way you can save the world.

And stop it with trashing peoples’ Wikipedia entries, OK? That’s just stupid***.

* Liquor? Didn’t even know her!

** Apologies for breaking precept #7 just then.

*** And again there.

I’ll be speaking at the Akron Public Library on November 7th (Wednesday) at 7 PM. Be there or be (Highland) Square!

Then come watch my movie Cleveland’s Screaming! on November 9th at the Beachland Tavern in Cleveland along with a live performance by 0DFx as well as CD Truth, Cheap Tragedies and This Moment in Black History.

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.