[books] book of the month - Dharma Punx
Jun. 4th, 2005 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snugglekittyOnce again, I read a nonfiction book in one day - Dharma Punx by Noah Levine.
This book rocked my world. (How can you not love a book that has a chapter called "Meditate and Destroy"?)
Essentially, this book is a memoir. It follows Levine's dysfunctional childhood, his early relationship with substances, his introduction to the punk scene - the first place he ever felt he belonged, his descent to the depths of addiction and crime, his beginning to meditate while in juvenile detention, his getting sober, and eventually, eventually, rising out of the pit. (I'm not giving anything away - this is all described on the book cover and in the prologue.)
I loved this book because it was very down-to-earth and funny. One of my favorite quotes came from a chapter where he talks about starting to go on retreats. "My friends thought I was crazy. 'Why would you want to camp alone?' I was asked. I just said I was going to do some soulsearching or something and they were like, 'Whatever, dude, you're turning into a real fucking hippy.' They were right, I was. But I was a lot fucking happier than them, so fuck it." Another favorite: "I knew that this spiritual practice shit was the last hope for me."
Some things about the book I had a little difficulty relating to. Levine identifies the punk scene very much with crime and drugs. That may have been true for him, but I think it's all what you bring to it. I spent a number of years heavily involved in the goth scene without any substance use, let alone abuse, and my greatest crime was sneaking into a lake site to go skinny dipping. I was already on a spiritual path, and I would spend a whole night at a club dancing in a trance, meditation in motion, watching the energy currents swirl around the room.
Also, I'm not at all a Buddhist. While I agree with their doctrine of mindfulness, I don't agree with the doctrine of renunciation. I don't think the world is a trick, an illusion. To quote something I once heard in a pagan ritual: "The Buddhists say that this world is Maya, illusion. They say it's Samsara, suffering. I say, this world is ecstasy! It's great food, pounding rhythms, hot sex! Enjoy it while you're here, because you only get one ride." Well, I don't believe we only get one ride, but I do believe that we have bodies for a reason, we have senses and feelings for more reason than simply to transcend them. I don't think that the material world is just suffering. It has suffering in it, yes, but that's not all it is.
Some things I really liked about the book. Levine doesn't feel that anything is a magickal cure. He talks about how meditation helped him - but admits that he was still expecting something in his spiritual path to make all of his problems go away. He talks about how glad he was to be sober - but that in itself didn't turn his life around, either. He talks honestly about how hard it is to change your life, and how many of his friends tried to get out of their old patterns and couldn't. (He tells you how a lot of his friends died, without making it trite or judgemental.) He's also very willing to face his own need to find "the answer" and how that need got him into trouble over and over again.
The book definitely made me think about my time in the goth scene, and my journey away from it. A sentence in particular that I really liked: "It became less and less important to be cool and tough, and more and more important to be kind and honest." I can really relate to that. My journey away from the goth scene over the past few years has had that message inside it - after a while, the posing started to look silly. I started getting more interested in what someone would be like as a friend then how cool or cute they were, or how good they were in bed. The lying and headgames got old.
You should read this book if you're in recovery or have had a problem with substance abuse, you've been connected to the punk scene, or you have an interest in Buddhism. (Or, if you're like me, and simply curious about how the punk scene and Buddhism fit together.) And it will definitely make you think about your motivations, whoever you are. Read it! Read it today!
This book rocked my world. (How can you not love a book that has a chapter called "Meditate and Destroy"?)
Essentially, this book is a memoir. It follows Levine's dysfunctional childhood, his early relationship with substances, his introduction to the punk scene - the first place he ever felt he belonged, his descent to the depths of addiction and crime, his beginning to meditate while in juvenile detention, his getting sober, and eventually, eventually, rising out of the pit. (I'm not giving anything away - this is all described on the book cover and in the prologue.)
I loved this book because it was very down-to-earth and funny. One of my favorite quotes came from a chapter where he talks about starting to go on retreats. "My friends thought I was crazy. 'Why would you want to camp alone?' I was asked. I just said I was going to do some soulsearching or something and they were like, 'Whatever, dude, you're turning into a real fucking hippy.' They were right, I was. But I was a lot fucking happier than them, so fuck it." Another favorite: "I knew that this spiritual practice shit was the last hope for me."
Some things about the book I had a little difficulty relating to. Levine identifies the punk scene very much with crime and drugs. That may have been true for him, but I think it's all what you bring to it. I spent a number of years heavily involved in the goth scene without any substance use, let alone abuse, and my greatest crime was sneaking into a lake site to go skinny dipping. I was already on a spiritual path, and I would spend a whole night at a club dancing in a trance, meditation in motion, watching the energy currents swirl around the room.
Also, I'm not at all a Buddhist. While I agree with their doctrine of mindfulness, I don't agree with the doctrine of renunciation. I don't think the world is a trick, an illusion. To quote something I once heard in a pagan ritual: "The Buddhists say that this world is Maya, illusion. They say it's Samsara, suffering. I say, this world is ecstasy! It's great food, pounding rhythms, hot sex! Enjoy it while you're here, because you only get one ride." Well, I don't believe we only get one ride, but I do believe that we have bodies for a reason, we have senses and feelings for more reason than simply to transcend them. I don't think that the material world is just suffering. It has suffering in it, yes, but that's not all it is.
Some things I really liked about the book. Levine doesn't feel that anything is a magickal cure. He talks about how meditation helped him - but admits that he was still expecting something in his spiritual path to make all of his problems go away. He talks about how glad he was to be sober - but that in itself didn't turn his life around, either. He talks honestly about how hard it is to change your life, and how many of his friends tried to get out of their old patterns and couldn't. (He tells you how a lot of his friends died, without making it trite or judgemental.) He's also very willing to face his own need to find "the answer" and how that need got him into trouble over and over again.
The book definitely made me think about my time in the goth scene, and my journey away from it. A sentence in particular that I really liked: "It became less and less important to be cool and tough, and more and more important to be kind and honest." I can really relate to that. My journey away from the goth scene over the past few years has had that message inside it - after a while, the posing started to look silly. I started getting more interested in what someone would be like as a friend then how cool or cute they were, or how good they were in bed. The lying and headgames got old.
You should read this book if you're in recovery or have had a problem with substance abuse, you've been connected to the punk scene, or you have an interest in Buddhism. (Or, if you're like me, and simply curious about how the punk scene and Buddhism fit together.) And it will definitely make you think about your motivations, whoever you are. Read it! Read it today!
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-04 03:19 pm (UTC)Re: Buddhist doctrine - I don't consider myself a Buddhist either, though I also value many of the principles that can be found there. But one thing I do know is that there is no single doctrine, just as with other 'religions'. The doctrine of renunciation is not universal in the Buddhist world - even the Buddha rejected asceticism before he found enlightenment. What is wisely proscribed is overindulgence in anything to the point of imbalance.
I am also dismayed by the attention often given to suffering, but I think that message is meant to speak to the unenlightened mind: there's all this suffering in the world, but so much of it is senseless and unnecessary - try a different path.
Our bodies are like sense organs of the universe, and I think they're meant to be used to experience life - its ups and its downs and the countless ways it intersects with everything else's experience.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-04 08:02 pm (UTC)Yes. And that, I agree with. I actually felt that was one place in the book where things were a little inconsistent. The author was writing about an excercise to do with mindfulness around eating, and saying that when he was chewing each bite slowly and savoring things, it was much more enjoyable. And I do think that is the kind of experience of pleasure we should be striving for. There are good things and bad things in the world - I don't think we should turn our backs on the good, fighting pleasure just because pain exists.