He doesn’t seem authentic.
Where is his tattoo?
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Too funny. I am a former punk rocker too (90s mostly). I put on concerts, made fanzines, was in bands, all sorts of stuff. I was involved in Against the Stream/Dharma Punx in San Francisco maybe 10 years ago. Vinny Ferraro was my 2nd teacher.
I’ve noticed the high numbers of punks or former punks in Buddhism (particularly theravada/vipassana circles) and I guess all I can figure is the common denominator is we saw that “conventional” society is wrong headed and leads nowhere. Now, my own conclusion was that the “punk” life such as it was also led nowhere and had major drawbacks (anger, substance abuse, political myopia, intra-counter-cultural conformity etc).
As I began to let go of some of those drawbacks, got sober, etc, and started meditating, I think the dhamma naturally made sense as something to focus my life on. Maybe that’s what your left with when you see conventional society and counter-cultural society both lead nowhere-- where else is left but the spiritual path?
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Our ‘previous lives’ are fascinating.
And now? I don’t know about any of the others of you here who have also gone forth, but the older I get the more subversive I feel. We go against the societal stream completely.
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Well as it is the New Year.
The Clash New Year’s Day '77
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Absolutely. There is conformity and unconformity, then there is Buddhism.
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That was my experience growing up, for sure. When I stumbled into the group of punks and hippies that became my dear friends, I felt that I had found my people. For all the anger at societal injustices, and injustices visited upon the group because of being so different (it was a college town in central Appalachia) there was a lot of love.
Dharma Punx was never appealing to me because, paradoxically, I saw them as too much like me. How’s that for letting identity drag a person around? 
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Me too! Late 70’s UK punk though.
Yeah. Even us hardcore punks couldn’t listen to punk rock all day, that’s why we spent much (probably the majority) of time listening to Jamaican music - roots, reggae, ska. Much more chilled. It’s what pushed forward the Two-Tone ska revival in my home town - Coventry. Good memories.
I can’t imagine that I would’ve got to Buddhism without punk. Such hopeful, humorous, positivity. I saw great acceptance, compassion and kindness for the first time when punk arrived in my world.
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Rebel shmebel!!!
I grew up on a council estate (social housing), just imagine the cultural upset I caused when I started dabbling in classical music, at one point I even had the audacity stick it to the system by taking a fancy in Latin American baroque!
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This is such a great post ( thanks, Ayya) and I agree it is cool to learn about the punk pasts of some of our monastic and lay members here. Looking back, punk was so honest, so raw, and so willing to express the dysfunction in western society in such loud and raw terms. There’s a real courage and honesty there that was missing from the people and the pop music of those times. I know the argument has been made before that the historial Buddha was the same kind of “against the stream” counter-culture warrior; perhaps that is one of the ties that attracts and binds punks to EBT/Theravada Buddhism. That warrior spirit in Buddhism is so important, so necessary, and shoudl always be supported in the many forms it takes, including the exemplar of a Burmese Bhikkhuni / Abbot I had the honor to meet recently; she’s wise, courageous, open, and brilliantly magnetic and represents so much of what is good in western Buddhism.
I didn’t have the courage or awareness to dive into the punk scene. I wasn’t musical, so I turned from high school days to get a FCC license to engineer radio boards, and then worked for my university’s campus radio station. I was given the morning time slot, and amidst the conservatism, hypocrisy, and phoniness of the US midwest Catholic football school that I attended ( where the priests (some of whom were monsters) lived in the dorms as rectors and expected Sunday Mass attendance by students…I never went…), the most courageous act I could do was to start every daily morning show with the Sex Pistols’ God save the Queen. I blasted this on full volume at 7 am in the dining halls and every building that had the station on, as my small and insignificant expression and call to “wake up.”
Don’t be told what you want
Don’t be told what you need
There’s no future
No future
No future for you
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I think this, along with some of the details in how the teachers approached the dharma (a syncretic style which had me somewhat confused), is what made me eventually stop pursuing the dharma punx thing. I agree, the Buddha was a revolutionary, although maybe not intentionally (just speaking the truth really), and had a warrior spirit-- important and I think missed in modern western Buddhism. But I also think dharma punx don’t always see the drawback of “being” “punx”, if that makes sense.
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Lovely! At age 14, I was a Roman Catholic altar boy. At age 16 I converted to atheism, and it was all downhill from there.
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I grew up in Sri Lanka, in a pretty Buddhist culture - my rebelliousness was about rejecting the charms (‘pirit nool’, ‘sura’), astrology and Hindu deity worship which has crept into the dhamma. Later it was about Buddhist monks inciting hatred against human beings. Also didn’t like my upbringing lacking of any apparent need for moral guidance. I would have had less of a tough time practicing the dhamma now if it were the case. But I think my parents didn’t know any better and thought they had it figured out, as I do now. 
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Oh, and in line with the music theme in the thread I was into Djying; because I enjoyed it, not as a form of rebellion. I enjoyed hip-hop, euphoric dance music, pop music, jungle. I was playing on cassettes, in two decks with a mixer I bought. An unexpected bonus was having a reason not to get drunk!
with metta,
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Punk in the 90s was never really my thing. The melodic stuff was too contrived and the dirty stuff lacked appeal. So I was into the local alt/indie/country scene with a side serve of classical. I volunteered in community radio from the age of 14 hosting a weekly show for about 10 years. It was a unique crowd of people I used to go out with in that about half of them almost never drank. We’d have such fun staying up to 4am sober.
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Now that’s what I call being subversive! Hoorah!
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Good ol’ Noah also founded Refuge Recovery, which is a Buddhism-based addiction recovery organization.
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I wasn’t into DJ’ing, but knew many, and partook of the smoke at many a DJ booth (wearing my stylish-at-the-time Kik Wear-brand “phat pants”). I went to a large number (but not an embarrassingly large number) of such underground parties (this was 1997 to 1999, so, a short but very fun time of horizon-broadening in my life). This horizon-broadening was during my early days of Uni, like pretty much every other young-20-something was doing (in some way, shape or form).
I was into these sorts of artists (or record labels, as the case may be):
- Mark Farina (Mushroom Jazz Vol. 1 especially)
- Kruder and Dorfmeister (K & D Sessions especially)
- Thievery Corporation (DJ Kicks especially)
- Nightmares on Wax (Smoker’s Delight especially)
- Hooj Choons
- Ninja Tune
I have pictures, but they are highly-classified material. Why do I have them? To remind me not to go back there.
The Beastie Boys also deserve mention, who have some punk material. The Red Hot Chilli Peppers were also way outside the box, albeit in an intensely funky manner.
Truth be told, I’m glad that’s all over, as the life of a monk is much, much better.
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Hello. My name is Hector and I am a full fledged Dharma Punk. Yes it’s true. If you were to see me I fit the mold pretty much to the tee. I’m in my late 50’s, with a big old beard and excessively tattooed. I identify myself as a, “secular American meat-eating Buddhist”. I grew up in Los Angeles in the late 70’s and early 80’s as a punk-rocker. I have seen everyone from the Dickies, X, the Germs, the Minute Men, etc. Now I am a Buddhist. This started with my first Goenka retreat about 7 years ago, I then began to meditate and really enjoyed the fruits of this practice. Unfortunately I descended into the depts of addiction to prescription medication and realized that addiction is suffering. Refuge Recovery saved my life and helped me on my journey to follow the path. Upon returning home I found a monastery down the road from my house. I went there and found out it was a monastery of bikkhunis, (now that is punk rock!). I asked if I could come meditate there, and the answer was, “you want to meditate?” “Yes” I said. “Come tomorrow “. I did. I asked again. “Come tomorrow”. I did. I asked again. The reply was, “stop asking, just come”. I do. Every day I am in town. I am the luckiest person in the world. I get to meditate, ask questions, do work dana, study and learn about how to diminish my suffering. From scholarly monastics and their visitors. I think being a Dharma Punk is the middle way. I am not a monastic yet I do not want to get caught up with the attachments and aversions of modern American society. I appreciate my life now. I take Refuge and the precepts everyday. My suffering has truely diminished. I have a solid meditation practice, teachers which have given me the greatest gift. The gift of the dhamma. There are a lot of us in the world. I believe if American buddhism to really flourish, us as two separate groups, (monastics and lay persons), need to come together and recognize the value each of has to the other.
This happened to me the other day.
I heard a dhamma talk at against the stream. I drove home and went to my “meditation-shack” to do an hour of Vipassana. Then I got ready to go to Pappy & Harriet’s to see my friends and see the Meat-Puppets play. I got home and read some of Bodi’s commentary on the abhidhamma. I layed in bed and meditated for a second and I think I lost my mind for a minute. I experienced the insight on dependent origination on how consciousness is the cause of Nama-rupa, and visa-versa. Is my life perfect? No. Arguably it is perfect and not perfect at the same time. But the gift of the dhamma is the greatest gift of all. I love the sutta central website, even though I get lost in the suttas when I look up a citation. Sometimes this makes reading books a longer process! There is something I don’t see on this website so I will say it now. I love you all! You see that’s the thing about be an ignorant householder. I get to say things like that. 
️:heart_decoration:
️
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Hey Hector! Great to see you here on D&D!
Thank you so much for your story!
And I feel very fortunate to have met you here at Mahapajapati.
For everybody else here: Hector is the guy who lives down the road from the monastery and who introduced me to Dharma Punx!
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That remix of Bug Powder Dust!