by Noah Levine

I read a lot of books.  I barely put one down before I pick up another.  I often don’t remember authors, titles and other such trivialities of the written word, but for the last two days I have been taken to another place - the land of Noah Levine in his book “Dharma Punx.”  When I got the book I wasn’t crazy about the title or the synopsis - a punk rocker who find the middle way?  Yeah, right - that’s right up my alley.  I, a middle class, middle age woman can readily identify with the punk rock scene of the 80’s (at which time I was in my 30’s) and will be able to completely relate to a guy covered in tattoos who finds his way into a deep meditation practice and in the end, lives a happy and fulfilling life.  But you know what?  That’s exactly what happened as I became one with Noah’s story - I actually felt like I was right there with him at times - it’s hard to explain but the way this man writes made it very easy for me to slip under his dermis and be in his skin.

“Dharma Punx” is the story of Noah Levine, son of Stephen Levine, one of the biggies in the world of Buddhist practice.  His parents divorced when he was young. His mother battled with her own demons and self-destructive relationships, and his father remarried a wonderful woman, but, being who he was, was often not available for a kid who chose to  “live fast, (do) lots of drugs” and whose goal was to “fuck the system by dying young.”  His role models were the likes of Sid Vicious and Darby Crash.  He lived the punk dream - rebelling against everything and everyone, finding bliss  in mosh pits, deafening hate-filled music, and ingesting everything from LSD to mushrooms while accosting everything that  appeared to limit his freedom to self-destruct.  The description of his teen-age years, going from Juvenile Hall to Group Homes, back to Juvie, are a surreal hedonistic carousel that keep him going round and round, slowly getting closer to the blackness of death.  He recounts this time with his friends (Toby, Bubbles and Mark, to name a few) with detail and clarity and brought me  into the holding cells, bathrooms and streets right along with them.  He is shuffled between parents so often that I lost count.  What I felt was the raw, wild terror of a kid whose identity was locked into  total self annihilation the name of rebelling against society.  One of his methods of releasing himself from the world was through Punk Music (as it still is today) and as a teen he found solace in the crashing vibrations from a veritable smorgasbord of  bands that I’ve never heard of.

After one particular stint in Juvie Hall, he calls his dad, scared to death and is given the direction to focus his attention on the sensation of breathing.  He takes his father’s advice and finds that focusing on the present moment is an anchor, albeit a small one, to help him hold on. In his late teens he embraces recovery as a way to try and make sense of his life and he soon combines his 12 step practice with mindfulness practice.  He dives into this  new journey with the same passion that he embraced the world of punk. His father’s friends, (Jack Kornfield and Mary Orr, to name only two) provide his initial experiences with meditation retreats (not a bad start, eh?) and he soon embraces this new journey with the same fierceness that pivoted him into the world of punk.  He travels to Asia (more than once) and visits different monasteries, learns different practices and, eventually find a path the works for him.  He describes this phase of his journey with such intensity, yet it is written with a naivete that I can’t explain.  He continues to listen to his beloved punk music, but his tattoos are now of Buddhist themes and he embraces the stillness of the “practice” and finds that it provides the same kind of solace, if you will, that punk offered him.  Llama Surya Das speaks of “schlepping toward enlightenment” and reading Noah’s descriptions of trying to find his own path brought that phrase into my heart as I read his repeated attempts to find his own way on the journey.

He eventually does find his path and it is, indeed, just as wild, energetic, full and free as only he can live his life.  He writes, “My own life’s experience with both Dharma practice and punk rock inspired me to try to bridge the gap between the two.”  And this he accomplishes in his own way.  He ends up getting a master’s degree in counseling psychology and directs much of his attention to the young and the incarcerated.

The thing I really love about this book is that it’s written like you or I would write something.  I never got the sense that Levine was trying to convince the reader of anything.  He just wrote it like it was and is.  His style is direct and honest, plunging the reader into the marrow of his existence…not trying to change anyone - just a guy (an amazing guy) telling his story (and what a story it is).  But if you read this book, beware.  You might not be the same person on page 252 as you were on page 1.

Till Next Time -

Your Humble Road Warrior