Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality

by Brad Warner

People long for big thrills, peak experiences, deep insights. Some people take up zazen practice expecting that enlightenment will be the ultimate peak experience, the peak experience to beat all peak experiences. But real enlightenment is the most ordinary of the ordinary. And our ordinary, boring, pointless lives are incredibly, amazingly, astoundingly, relentlessly, mercilessly joyful. You don’t need to do a damned thing to experience such joy either. You don’t need to snort an ounce of coke, get a turkey-baster full of hot grease shoved up your ass, blow up the Washington Monument, win the Indy 500, or walk on the moon. You don’t need to go hang-gliding over the Himalayas, or kayaking down the Amazon. You don’t need to screw that oh-so-willing babe with the dark hair and the pouty lips or the smokin’ seventeen-year-old on your brother’s baseball team, and you don’t need to party all night with the beautiful people. You don’t need to do any of that stuff to know what it means to be alive. You’re alive when you’re sitting in your bedroom cleaning wax out of your ears. You’re alive when you’re looking at your turds floating in the toilet and noticing bits of last night’s dinner in there. You’re alive when you’re at the supermarket wondering whether to go for the Hostess Ho-Hos or the Little Debbies. You’re alive right now. Just be what you are, where you are. That’s the most magical thing there is. The life you’re living right now has joys even God could never know.