thepants

Attention: The following is my review of Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies & the Truth About Reality, which I stumbed upon a few weeks ago. If you want to hear what I did this week, go read boundcreature's journal.

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Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies & the Truth About Reality is not your average Zen book. It is however, your average punk rock book. Which is to say that it's poorly designed, uses both a stencil font and a 'distressed' monospaced font in no less than 4 typefaces each all told, and mentions Lou Reed and The Dead Kennedys before the end of the first chapter.

This is not to say that it's a bad book, though I have to admit I was worried for a bit during the prologue, which contains more ego-stroking and cred building than is strictly necessary in a book that is at least as autobiographical as it is philosophical. It's the autobiographical frame that eventually won me over. Academic discussion of a philosophy, especially a philosophy so focused on actually living life, like Zen, says nothing, in the end, about the philosophy. When I read books about philosophy or religion, I almost always skim quickly, or skip entirely, chapters describing their histories and formal practices; I just don't care. I want to read myths and legends, poems, essays, and personal accounts. I want to read rambling missives that lose their point two paragraphs in. I want to read the apocryphal accounts of what ancient figures almost certainly never did. These say more about a philosophy than any distilled and enumerated presentation of observations, timelines, and case studies.

This is why I like Alan Watts and Lin Yutang so much: they write about themselves and in doing so, say everything they need to say about the philosophy. Brad Warner does the same thing in Hardcore Zen. He tells his story of growing up in Nairobi, coming of age in a hardcore band in rural Ohio, making a living working for Ultraman creators Tsuburaya Productions in Tokyo, and understanding living through Zen Buddhism.

When it comes to discussing the experience of Zen and the understanding of reality as it is, Brad necessarily writes as vaguely and circularly as any Zen writer. Any words which start by describing the experience to be described as an inexpressible intuitive understanding, are doomed from the start to be circular and vague. When presenting the living philosophy of Zen, however, Brad writes bluntly and directly in his rephrasing and explaining of popular metaphors for rational understanding of the universe as One. Though many of these rephrasings are clearly very carefully formulated to be as Punk Rock as possible, there are a few gems that slip through unpretentiously and illustrate Zen thought without drawing unnecessary attention to the names they're dropping. Consider:

"Nor does [the universe] hold any beliefs or opinions, for or against anything at all.

You prefer The Pogues to The Backstreet Boys, but the universe does not. It should, of course, but it includes and embraces both of them equally. Yet you and the universe are one and the same."

And his particular selection of the trivial, yet vitally important, things which make each life unique and important, illustrates, I think, the true meaning of a philosophy of living more clearly than anyone writing in an earlier generation could have gotten away with publishing:

"No one else has ever lived this moment, and no one else will ever live it. No one in the whole universe. Oh, there may have been people who stood on subway platforms looking at a book before. But they weren't you. It wasn't this book. They weren't as hungry for a nice slice of pizza as you are right now. They hadn't schtupped the people you have. They hadn't made the same stupid mistakes with their lives as you have. Nor have the felt the same joys. They haven't made happy the people you've made happy. The snot in their noses hasn't hardened into the same shapes that the snot in your nose has.

Your life is yours alone, and to miss your life is the most tragic thing that could happen.

So sit down, shut up, and take a look at it."

In the end, Brad doesn't say anything new about Zen, though if that's what you were expecting from a book with a photo of a toilet on the cover, you maybe need to reexamine the methods by which you develop your expectations. It is, however, an enjoyable, if slightly self-important (despite numerous claims to the contrary), look at Zen through and throughout one man's life.

In short: Don't run out and buy this book, but if you find a copy laying in the street, you might as well read it.