Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, & the Truth about Reality

Wow!

"People long for big thrills, peak experiences, deep insights. Some people take up zazen pratcice[meditation] expecting that enlightenment will be the ulitmate peak experience, the peak experience to beat all peak experiences. But real enlightenment is the most ordinary of the ordinary."

I myself have had a kind of "out-of-body" experience while meditating. I thought of those moments as more profound and supreme than all others. But Brad Warner taught me that this, once again, is just the ego trying to make you chase something artificial—making you believe that feeling ordinary is something to avoid. But true enlightenment can only occur in this very moment.

I loved the book and the laid-back writing of Brad Warner. I'm looking show more forward to reading more books by him. show less

Brad Warner has had an interesting life: playing guitar in the early-1980s punk scene in Ohio, making cheesy monster movies in Japan at Tsuburaya Productions (makers of Ultraman), and officially receiving Dharma Transmission, which makes him technically a “Zen master”— though his punk sensibilities horrified him at the thought of becoming an authority figure of any sort. He provides a fascinating perspective on Buddhism, flavored by his own life experiences, that he calls “Hardcore Zen”, which cuts through much of the accretion of ideas around Buddhism, starting with some of its own practitioners and continuing with Western perceptions.

Hardcore Zen is about seeing reality as it is. Warner provides his own take on some of the show more standard Buddhist ideas (including his own commentary on the Heart Sutra). His view of the classic Buddhist “life is suffering” view is that it’s about idealism: suffering is what happens when you allow your idea of how the universe should be clash with the reality of how it is, and this is different from mere pain. Desire is not something you ever escape— but you can just let the desires be and get on with your life. No enlightenment, no bliss, no life-transforming mystical visions, no pharmacological shortcuts, and quite a lot of sitting around staring at the wall (zazen)— but all that zazen does give you a chance to deal with reality as it is, without the additional burden of expectations. show less

Picture it: a book written by a punk bassist from the 1980s that moved to Japan and worked on monster movies before becoming a zen master. It's different from any other book on Buddhism that I've read and it's also one of the best. It shatters all preconceptions about zen (and the marketing mess it's become), showing that Buddhism isn't a religion in the traditional sense and that zen doesn't mean "attaining enlightenment" by shaving your head and sitting on a pillow, removed from society. To give you a sense of the tone of his book, take a look at the entry on his blog titled "If it's lay practice, howcum I never get laid?" (http://hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2006/04/if-its-lay-practice-howcum-i-never-get.html)

I'd been wondering about Zen, mostly due to my practice of aikido. Not sure why. Actually I just don't feel like writing a book here. Anyway, I enjoyed this book. I know the author practices one version of Zen, and there are other opinions. The connection to punk rock is what got my attention. I was happy to see that he doesn't take that connection any further than appropriate, and quickly notes that punk usually creates the same kind of Authority that he believes Zen is against. Which I've been thinking about for many years now. He mostly lays off the mystical mumbo jumbo, and when he talks about "God" you know he is not talking about what Joel Osteen is talking about, at least I don't think so. This book got me thinking about a number show more of things, articulated some ideas that have been floating in my head for a while better than I've managed to say or write them, and overall was a really fun read. show less

I'd been wondering about Zen, mostly due to my practice of aikido. Not sure why. Actually I just don't feel like writing a book here. Anyway, I enjoyed this book. I know the author practices one version of Zen, and there are other opinions. The connection to punk rock is what got my attention. I was happy to see that he doesn't take that connection any further than appropriate, and quickly notes that punk usually creates the same kind of Authority that he believes Zen is against. Which I've been thinking about for many years now. He mostly lays off the mystical mumbo jumbo, and when he talks about "God" you know he is not talking about what Joel Osteen is talking about, at least I don't think so. This book got me thinking about a number show more of things, articulated some ideas that have been floating in my head for a while better than I've managed to say or write them, and overall was a really fun read. show less

This book is unlike any Buddhism book I've read, and I've read dozens. No mystical states, no koans, only the most basic concepts. Instead it stresses the orinaryness, even mundaneness, of Zen, while staying very inspiring.
Recommended!

This book contains a lot of interesting stuff: personal stories (sometimes it reads a bit like a memoir), illustrations of some complicated buddhist philosophy and snapshots from the post-punk era. Some parts, like the rants on drug-(ab)use and the place of enlightenment in buddhist practice were a bit too much for me. The description of the "moment of satori" kind of ruined the book for me in the end. The no-nonsense tone I like so much was thrown out of the window.
From all the books that I have read on buddhism and buddhist practice and philosophy, this one was the most down-to-earth in the explanation of the 'goal' (as far as we can speak of a goal when meditating).