Today I finished reading Noah Levine’s Dharma Punx. This autobiography is a truly inspiring tale. Finishing this book marked nearly a year of growing interest in spiritual matters. I have been pondering concepts that I’ve never thought about before and also remembering some ideas that I had forgotten. More and more I’ve began to contemplate the compassion, mindfulness, theories of life-after-death, and toying with the concept of spiritual practice. I see these explorations as a good thing and thank this book (among others) for assisting me in my introduction, or return, to these ideas.
Anyway, this book was extremely enjoyable to me. Up until recently, I’ve never really been into spiritual practice or even spiritual thinking. Now I find myself intrigued by it more and more. It actually occupies quite a lot of my everyday thought.
Following an adolescence of Christianity, I questioned and pondered my way into my high-school mode of thinking, which was “fuck all religion ’cause it’s all bullshit exploitation”. However, I feel I have now reached a point where I am reopening, though not yet embracing, spiritual ideas. I find so many aspects of spirituality intriguing but, for better or worse, I am an extreme skeptic and find it difficult to put faith in unseen or un-evidenced spiritual entities or realms. I’ve always been interested in meditation and “soul searching”, but have yet to delve deeper into spiritual matters. After finishing Dharma Punx this step seems a bit more comfortable. Out of all of the books I’ve been reading with cases for spirituality, Levine’s work resonates with me the most.
Perhaps it’s just because I can relate to Levine so well. His life story follows his evolution from a troubled youth to an accomplished spiritual teacher. Early on in life Levine contemplated suicide, then turned to punk rock, then to alcohol, pot, and hard drugs, and finally, serious suicide attempts. At the lowest point in his life, he turned to spirituality. He believes that all of this was in an effort to escape from the Buddha’s first noble truth: the truth of suffering and the dissatisfactory nature of the material world. In my life, I tried many things before I found that the punk rock ethic could enable me to deal with this kind of thing.
Another reason I feel like I can relate to his story is simply because we share an association with hardcore. References to bands like Good Riddance, Rancid, Fury 66, and 108 got me pretty amped.
In all honesty, I could talk about the different aspects of this book for ages, so let’s just say that I thought it was awesome. It’s an amazing story that inspires growth and self evaluation. Good job Noah Levine.
One of my favorite quotes goes like this, “Drowning our teenage angst with drugs, sex, and violence had, in the end, made me lose my punk rock ideals in what became nothing more than the pursuit of oblivion.” pg 59. I’ve always thought the same thing. I never got how punks could claim they wanted to bring about change and ‘fuck the system’ when they were just messed up all the time. It always seemed contradictory. ESPECIALLY, the punks who were extremely anti-corporation who had loyally and mindlessly spent all of their money on their favorite brands of cigarettes or beer. Just like Dharma Punx, I could write on this topic for hours.
A passage that had me laughing like I was sharing an inside joke was “For a while I thought that I was the only Straight Edge punk around and felt pretty isolated until I met Russ.” pg 72. Of course, he was talking of Russ Rankin of Good Riddance fame. That band has been a constant inspiration to me and it was great to see stuff like that come up in the course of the book.
I strongly suggest that anyone who has had a problem with drugs, has been into hardcore music, or wants to get into spirituality or buddhism read this book. You’ll be stoked on it. I actually sent a copy of it to my (hopefully) future brother-in-law for his birthday. Even though he’s not into hardcore or (to my knowledge) spirituality, I think he’ll be into it.
Noah Levine. Dharma Punx: A Memoir. New York: Harper Collins, 2004xiv + 253 pp.
For more information about the author, Noah Levine, and his teaching schedule, visit dharmapunx.com.
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