Book Description

Fueled by the music of revolution, anger, fear, and despair, we dyed our hair or shaved our heads ... Eating acid like it was candy and chasing speed with cheap vodka, smoking truckloads of weed, all in a vain attempt to get numb and stay numb.

This is the story of a young man and a generation of angry youths who rebelled against their parents and the unfulfilled promise of the sixties. As with many self-destructive kids, Noah Levine's search for meaning led him first to punk rock, drugs, drinking, and dissatisfaction. But the search didn't end there. Having clearly seen the uselessness of drugs and violence, Noah looked for positive ways to channel his rebellion against what he saw as the lies of society. Fueled by his anger at so much injustice and suffering, Levine now uses that energy and the practice of Buddhism to awaken his natural wisdom and compassion.

While Levine comes to embrace the same spiritual tradition as his father, bestselling author Stephen Levine, he finds his most authentic expression in connecting the seemingly opposed worlds of punk and Buddhism. As Noah Levine delved deeper into Buddhism, he chose not to reject the punk scene, instead integrating the two worlds as a catalyst for transformation. Ultimately, this is an inspiring story about maturing, and how a hostile and lost generation is finally finding its footing. This provocative report takes us deep inside the punk scene and moves from anger, rebellion, and self-destruction, to health, service to others, and genuine spiritual growth.


About the Author
Noah Levine is a Buddhist teacher in training with Jack Kornfield and the teaching collective at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. He teaches meditation retreats nationally as well as leads groups in juvenile halls and prisons around the San Francisco Bay Area. Noah is the director and co-founder of the Mind Body Awareness Project, a nonprofit organization that serves incarcerated youths. He has studied with such well-known and respected teachers as His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Ram Dass, Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Norman Fischer, and Sylvia Boorstein, to name a few. He lives in San Francisco.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Fueled by the music of revolution, anger, fear, and despair, we dyed our hair or shaved our heads ... Eating acid like it was candy and chasing speed with cheap vodka, smoking truckloads of weed, all in a vain attempt to get numb and stay numb.

This is the story of a young man and a generation of angry youths who rebelled against their parents and the unfulfilled promise of the sixties. As with many self-destructive kids, Noah Levine's search for meaning led him first to punk rock, drugs, drinking, and dissatisfaction. But the search didn't end there. Having clearly seen the uselessness of drugs and violence, Noah looked for positive ways to channel his rebellion against what he saw as the lies of society. Fueled by his anger at so much injustice and suffering, Levine now uses that energy and the practice of Buddhism to awaken his natural wisdom and compassion.

While Levine comes to embrace the same spiritual tradition as his father, bestselling author Stephen Levine, he finds his most authentic expression in connecting the seemingly opposed worlds of punk and Buddhism. As Noah Levine delved deeper into Buddhism, he chose not to reject the punk scene, instead integrating the two worlds as a catalyst for transformation. Ultimately, this is an inspiring story about maturing, and how a hostile and lost generation is finally finding its footing. This provocative report takes us deep inside the punk scene and moves from anger, rebellion, and self-destruction, to health, service to others, and genuine spiritual growth.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Like father, like son: Levine, son of Buddhist teacher and author Stephen Levine, updates his father's path to enlightenment in this engaging memoir. The 32-year-old author spent his youth in what Buddhists would call the hell realm-here found in addictive drugs and alcohol and criminal behavior, beginning at age six with marijuana and culminating at age 17 with detoxification from alcohol in a padded cell in juvenile hall. His father's meditation instructions opened a door out of the son's psychological and spiritual prison. From that turning point the younger Levine began his own spiritual journey, starting with 12-step recovery and on to the meditation cushion, to monasteries in Asia and climactically back to the same juvenile hall where he was imprisoned, only this time to offer meditation instruction. This young-life drama plays out with a punk rock soundtrack, Levine having discovered, also at an early age, the vehicle of punk music to express vital energy. He uses a natural, conversational voice to relate his story, which makes it easier to maintain empathy not only for him but also for other troubled and benighted people-not all of whom live, as Levine has, to tell the tale of transformation. This honest, page-turning confession is also a measure of the adaptability and usefulness of the Asian tradition of Buddhism for the young and the restless of contemporary America. (June) Forecast: Dad's name will help push this edgy title, despite the relatively soft market for spiritual memoirs. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Common wisdom says that the young should not write autobiography: they have no long view, no developed judgment, and no deepened grace of character, and they cannot as yet see much of life's direction. These two memoirs validate the rule. Levine, 32, is the son of well-known Buddhist author/teacher Stephen Levine and himself a teacher of meditation who works especially with adult and juvenile prisoners in the San Francisco Bay Area. Richmond, 28, is the son of Lewis Richmond, author and former tanto (head priest) at Green Gulch Farm, a branch of the San Francisco Zen Center. Both are thus second-generation, white, American-born Buddhists, and they both struggled (and continue to struggle) to reconcile their Buddhist upbringing with the pressures of hurly-burly, materialistic American society. In itself, this is not unusual-not only Buddhists but Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and others struggle in the same way. Levine, a rebel from childhood, fled into the punk rock scene, where he spent his youthful energy in promiscuity, drugs, and "rage against the machine." Richmond, a quieter and more docile youth, found himself stuck between the opposites of silence and noise, patience and impatience, letting go of and clinging to material goods. Interestingly, they both claim to have suffered from parental neglect, receiving no regular guidance or supervision from parents so deeply involved in religious practice that they had no time or energy for mundane family life. Their parents only sporadically seemed to recognize their negligence but were unable to change it. Levine and Richmond have not been able to overcome resentment for what they suffered as children, and it colors their outlook. Unfortunately, we've heard it all before and will again. Further, both books have problems of diction. Levine's is full of punk slang, contains some vulgarity, and is not always grammatical (though the review was done from uncorrected proof). Richmond's is grammatical but repetitive. Finally, no real insights are offered here; neither author convinces the reader that his childhood was unusual or exemplary. Not recommended.-James F. DeRoche, Alexandria, VA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews