Article on Noah Levine

Here's a pretty good article by Peggy Townsend from the Santa Cruz Sentinel about Noah Levine and the whole Dharma Punx thing (click on title for link).

I attended a men's retreat at Spirit Rock last fall with Noah as one of the teachers, and he helped me a lot with my meditation practice. Now I actually work at Spirit Rock in the Communications Department, so this is my world, too. Noah used to work here as the Family Program Coordinator (I think that was his title).


I'll include an excerpt from the news story:

The man (Noah Levine) who once lived his life in the pursuit of dying young began to center his existence on living mindfully.

He began to meditate and look for ways to help others. He practiced kindness, stilled his mind and shifted his anger into compassion.

He became, as he calls it, a dharma punk.

Now he sits on the back porch of a local coffeehouse, his dharma punk crew sprawled in broken-down chairs pocked with little eruptions of foam, chain-smoking Camel cigarettes and sipping coffee.

"I see spiritual practice as a form of rebellion," says Levine. A rebellion that’s not much different than the punk rock movement, because both Buddhism and punk are rooted in the understanding that life is hard and full of pain, he says.

"It’s the same energy, the same willingness to do whatever you need to do to survive, but it’s turning it inward," Levine says.

The young men around him nod their heads and tell their own stories — of broken homes, of addicted parents and punk shows, and of taming anger through meditation.

"It’s turning the anger into an inner rebellion, and freeing oneself from ignorance and a fear-based existence," says Levine, who’s written a book about his spiritual journey called "Dharma Punx."

"It is," he says, "a positive transformation."

Link