Hardcore Zen: punk rock, monster movies, and the truth about reality. (Brad Warner)

I actually finished Hardcore Zen about three weeks ago... and still have little more to say about it than before.

It was encouraging. Some of the ideas, descriptions, ways of seeing, recounted experiences, matched mine. Many did. That was encouraging. Some of it made no sense whatsoever. That really didn't bother me. For a long time now I've found that if things clicked, great. If not, they would float in my mind until they fell into place or faded into obscurity.

QUESTION. QUESTION AUTHORITY. QUESTION SOCIETY. QUESTION REALITY. QUESTION YOURSELF. Question your conclusions, your judgments, your answers. Question this. If you question everything thoroughly enough, the truth will eventually hit you upside the head and you will know. But here's a warning: It won't be what you imagined. It won't even be close.

Unfortunately, that warning came months too late for me. Not that I'd have heeded it anyway. I started reading the book while I was very much not-okay with things, so the back cover's text seemed really ridiculously poorly timed. Sometime in January, I concluded that the truth couldn't be destroyed, and thus I could safely question everything, be willing to be wrong about everything I'd ever believed. Well, I discovered a lot of beliefs to be willing to let go. My conclusions at this point are essentially, I don't know... but I know what I've experienced and observed, and from that, I can say how things appear to be. But that's about it. Like I said - a bit late on that warning. The world I'd known was long destroyed by then, so I chuckled, somewhat bitterly, and flipped the book open.

The prologue is fun, because Warner lays out his credentials (or lack thereof), decoding some weird terms like "dharma transmission" (which isn't as sci-fi as it sounds) into plain English.

Chapter one, "Gimme Some Truth," is the best part of the book. Maybe you should start there, just read that... don't even buy the book, leave it at the bookstore. Unless you can read the specifics of somebody else's experience without forming expectations for your own.

The next few chapters set the story for how Warner got into this whole Zen thing... and became addicted to the boring practice of zazen. I like his note that he, for once, had to make it meaningful for himself, rather than having value assigned by anybody else. And so it goes on; stories, insights. It really is worth reading.

Something that makes Warner interesting to read is the lack of apologia. The chapter on the Great Heart of Wisdom Sutra was also pretty cool... it halted my progress through the book for a couple of weeks... but it was good. Just had to read it when I was okay with processing information rather than just reading.

Another observation I liked was that things start surfacing when you start doing zazen... or meditation, or contemplation, or whatever you like to call your practice. Yep, that warning is actually about five years too late.

Warner's single piece of advice (well, perhaps there are more, but this is the big one) is to do a lot of zazen... and the rest will come. That's probably similar to the path of most enlightened people. I think it's really only necessary to be still for that one moment - the one where every perception shifts. But, just from an "I have to survive yet another moment" standpoint, it's a good practice to have, and I really do mean that it's good for me to just. practice. being. quiet.

Okay, here's the thing - if you've had experiences of the same class as Warner and probably a lot of other people, you'll be able to relate to the book. If you haven't, think of it as a sneak preview, if you're interested in that path.

If you're not interested in that path - then don't worry about it.

The whole thing, Zen, I mean, is supposed to be about enlightenment, so Warner goes there. Enlightenment isn't the end of everything; if anything, it's the label that gets attached to "solving the philosophical problems" - which, really, is just reaching the starting blocks, not winning the race. If you have an idea of what enlightenment is, or what it is like - forget it. Or remember it. Point being, you're wrong. Or, in a friend's words: "God coming down from heaven, forget it, not gonna happen. God, here and now - already is." But even that is just words until you see for yourself. And that, in many ways, is what the book's about...

So, what's enlightenment? Warner's teacher might say, if nothing else, knowing that this moment is perfect, just as it is. What do I think? Not sure I know, not sure I care, and not sure that it really matters, anyhow.