Cracked Pot Meditation – Mixing Harmony with Chaos

Meditation for March 14th, 2016

Mixing Harmony with Chaos

Rock & Roll bands have embraced the mixture of harmony & chaos for years with band names like Led Zeppelin, Smashing Pumpkins, Screaming Trees, Billy Joel, Screeching Weasel (actually weasels do screech when tossed into bathtubs and toilets), Iron Butterfly and others. Now days people of the punk and metal scenes have been flocking to the mindfulness and spiritual practices and bringing their own brands with them. People are hosting metal yoga, punk rock meditations, anarchist Buddhism and other chaos mixing with harmony fads.

The issue is that you can’t. Punk & metal doesn’t belong on the path of enlightenment. It is impossible. Chaos is what tries to tear apart your harmony causing depression, anger and anxiety. They use metal and punk as enhanced interrogation in our fight against terrorism. Mastodon may have given away the next terrorist plot against America. So why then should it help us on the road to Shambhala?

When Buddha attained enlightenment, it was after almost thirty years of being rich and privileged. He lived a life of luxury and shielded by his father from seeing the poor and suffering. This means that a person growing up in the streets and being all punk cannot attain enlightenment because you must have to know what it is to have not. You must know privilege to know what it is like to not have privilege. You sure can’t be blasting MDC and trying to know your own true aim. Buddhism is like Judaism, but instead of it being passed by the mother, one can only start their path to Buddhism by being rich first.

The point of metal and punk has always been mixing fashion and art with the music. Bullet belts and leather (which is an armor used before metal and Kevlar) covered in spikes are so militant. The art is cacophonic with words violently decrying authority for no reason other than being bored. The music is fast, hard and full of dissonance. Punk and metal embrace the materialistic world. These are a long way from a peaceful and harmonious spiritual practice.

The live fast die young mentality of alternative rock just doesn’t match the living cycle belief of Buddhism, Hindu or other more peaceful religions that are being marketed to disenfranchised youths and soccer moms. Moshing in a pit, all wearing the same outfits punching people wearing similar outfits, blasting your eardrums out with high piercing whining distortion or cookie monster crunch crunch bass doesn’t invoke inner peace at all.

Put on a Ray Lynch or Yanni album instead.

Prayer

Sarawati,

Fill me up with knowledge and peace,

So that I may learn to find inner balance.

I am trying to be a peaceful Buddhist,

But I just want to keep the street like toughness.

I want to be a true teacher of the Ways,

Without losing my coolness.

I want to wear a shirt of a fat laughing Buddha,

But has stretched ear lobes and covered in tats.

I want to do yoga to Red Fang and Black Sabbath.

I love meditating to Skinny Puppy and Megaton Leviathan.

Buddha would be cool with me punching people in the neck over their disrespect for my beliefs and cultural identity.

I have Krishna tattoo covering my back,

And Ganesha on my chest,

Along with a Misfit skull, the Black Flag flag and a car bomb with the Dropkick Murphys logo on the clock.

After my yoga practice,

I’m going to go to the Bi-Marks show and smash a can of Oly on a girls face ‘cause metal, then I’m gonna go to the after party and smoke blunts and drink vodka and take advantage of some wide-eyed youngster who is mesmerized by my Buddhist meditation and yoga empire. Namaste, sucker!

I just want to be cool and spiritual at the same time, dude.

Amen.

Craft

Here is a quick way to come up with a band name mixing something heavy or chaotic with something light or harmonious. Use the first letter of your first name and the first letter of your ex you hate the most.

First letter of your first name:

A – Alcoholic

B – Beef

C – Coral

D – Deep

E – Epidote

F – Fire truck

G – Granite

H – Harvard Square

(the Rs are silent)

I – Indigenous Person

J – Jeep

K – Ketchup

L – Lair

M – Mylonite

N – Neanderthal

O – Ophiolite

P – Piss

Q – Quartz Monzonite

R – Rash

S – Southern

T – Touchy Uncle

U – United States of America

V – Veiny

W – Walla Walla Resort

X – Xilignolite

Y – Yawn Punch

Z – Zincite

First letter of you ex you hate the most

A – Aurora Borealis

B – Bluebell

C – Cuddle Muffin

D – Dahlia

E – Embrace

F – Future

G – Golden Buttons

H – Huggy Wuggy

I – Isle of Man Cabbage

J – Jingle

K – Kunzite

L – Laughter

M – Menstrual

N – Nephrite Jade

O – Open Relationship

P – Passion Flower

Q – Quantum Quattro Silica

R – Rock Rose

S – Sex

T – Trumpet Vine

U – Ulexite

V – Velvet

W – Wulfenite

X – Xanthoparmelia Scabrosa

Y – Yellow Cake Uranium

Z – Zenobia

Have fun remembering the hated ex!

Goal

When you decide to take a spiritual path more seriously, ignore the ones that promise alternative lifestyles such as punk and metal with their practices. This will only destroy what little harmony you may have walking into the black painted halls of grunge woo-woo. Stick with the tried and true; where the soccer moms and the much older college students go. Dave Mustaine and Lars Frederickson have no place in our meditation practices; they belong in a museum.