Vintage

One of my favourite authors-of-the-moment was featured in the National Post today. Brad Warner is the former bassist for punk band ODFx (or Zero Defex) who is now a Zen monk--but no ordinary monk. He still loves punk music; he used to work for a B-Movie production company because he loves Godzilla movies; he writes articles for Suicide Girls (and even has Suicide Girls' model LizaRose demonstrate zazen in photos on his website).

It's nice to see he's getting some recognition, though he prefers not to. He says on his website, "I pray to God I never become a spiritual celebrity." And in the National Post article he says, "I certainly don't want to attract followers because followers are mostly a nuisance." But if he keeps writing these poignant and funny books about music, zen, Godzilla, and his curious life, he just might...

"Zen Buddhism's best hope for a comeback in North America may well be a sometime hardcore punk bassist and Japanese B-grade monster movie actor who writes a column for a soft porn website and admits to cheating on his wife, experimenting with pot well into his forties and to getting bored during meditation.

"That he doesn't enjoy leading traditional ceremonies ("I'm certain," he writes, "I'll f--- everything up") or wearing itchy Zen robes in summer are far from the bitterest observations in Brad Warner's third and most recent book, Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate. The book chronicles Warner's hellish 2007, during which he lost his mother, his grandmother and his job, cheated on and then split up with his estranged wife (who, in fairness, cheated on him, too), smoked a joint, feuded with other Zen priests, had sex with one of his students and continued to grow in popularity despite it all."

You can read the entire National Post article here.

Brad Warner also has a blog, Hardcore Zen.