What's punk got to do with Buddhism?

(Jacob DeSio Reviews) Ideology over aesthetics: To be without rulers: SLC Punk: Punks v Posers

It's my look, but maybe it'll be my ideology.

Maybe it's just by chance that an American growing up in Amerikkka would gravitate towards punk rock's aggressive musick, rebellion, DIY, and freedom-oriented aesthetic and also toward the Teachings of the Awakened One (the Buddha). After all, if we were to translate Buddhism into English, "Awakenism" would be a good start.

The Dharmic traditions all lean towards liberation (moksha, vimutti = freedom) and, as such, they did not really begin as "religions." The British colonizers imposed that way of thinking on the various dharmas or "doctrines," the paths to freedom taught by famous awakening teachers. It's good to say "awakening" here instead of "awakened" here because Buddhism does not recognize that everyone we think of enlightened actually is. What the term means in Buddhism is very specific.

But before actual stream entry (entering the stream that inevitably leads to complete freedom), there are practices and beliefs the Dharmic traditions have in common, like samadhi (stillness, mental coherence resulting in superconscious states and realizations). In fact, many traditions consider samadhi the ultimate goal, knowing nothing higher.

Minor Threat: "I was early to finish. I was late to start. I might be an adult.

But I'm a minor at heart." Fugazi: I wait, I wait, I wait in the Waiting Room

The Eight Limbs of Yoga (Patanjali)

Why does Integral (Ashtanga) Yoga teach an eightfold system, as popularized by Patanjali? It is exactly because of the Buddha's super popularity throughout the subcontinent at that time that Patanjali thought he should formulate the Vedic, Brahminical, Hindu (a term that would not be invented for centuries) path to samadhi in the same form as the Buddha's Ennobling (lit. Enlightening) Eightfold Path. "Noble" (Arya) means "enlightened."

Noble Eightfold Path (Dharma Wheel) | Zazzle

One has to slosh around through a lot of Western misinterpretations, explanations, practices, Eastern teachers, and etymologies to rectify one's understanding and remove the confusion that has settled on Eastern philosophy and Dharmic traditions to see it clearly. There have been many well-intentioned translators and teachers over the decades that have inadvertently muddied the water and introduced some wrong notions. It's inevitable. If one practices and practices, those misunderstanding get straightened out.

SLC Punk: The movie that ended the "poser" who poses w/o being punk

PUNK has always been about individualism, questioning, rebellion, a willingness to set off on one's own path of investigation, practice, and self-realization. No one can do it for us, and "faith" (particularly of the blind sort) is just not in the cards.

PUNK is fun and, at least in the past, was very funny. It was not profit-driven. The goal from the beginning was freedom, personal and social, to liberate oneself and others. Maybe no one agreed on what a revolution would look like, but the enemy was pretty clear: sexist/racist cops working for the economic elite to maintain the status quo, gatekeepers, authority figures, bosses, dictators, know-it-alls, the forces of oppression bearing down on our pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.

Henry Rollins' version of Black Flag had Ian Mackaye as a roadie

The founding ideals of our country never promised happiness, but those ideals did very clearly say we had a right to PURSUE happiness as we saw fit. In practice, it was nothing like that, just an Animal Farm/1984-style set of tricks, being told what to believe, how to behave, what to like, what to follow, and so on. Enough of that. The hippies were right, but they were no longer getting anywhere, so the pendulum had to swing the other way. Workers had to arise. Conservatives had to knock it off. Liberals had to wake up. Somebody had to flip off the patriarchy and its father figures.

The CIA, FBI, and PTB (powers that be) were not going to let this movement succeed any more than they had any of the previous ones. They can't stop these things, but they can guide them to implode. Movements are like that. What about individuals? What about intellectuals, poets, artists, and independent thinkers? The government has a game called whack-a-mole for that. They stop this rebellion or that, but another one will take its place. It's like Jello once said in "I Am the Owl." Black Flag had something to say beyond self-defeating aggression when they sang, "Rise Above." But the hippies had something to say, too. "What the world needs now is peace, love, and understanding" and, if not, then how about anarchy, hate, and profanities. How does that strike you, Society?

If England/Britain ruined us as a colony-cum-country, it had a little something to do with the rebellion:

(Jay Vee) Annie Nightingale's Punk and New Wave Years (BBC 4)

Germs "No God" (A Complete Anthology)

(egi alams) The Germs: The More Dangerous Sounding Darby Crash

• Seth Auberon, Dhr. Seven, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly