Customer Reviews

Against the Stream: A Buddhist Manual for Spiritual Revolutionaries

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Cutting through the White Noise, Levine just does not just explain the basic tenents but applies them to the lives we all lead. Dealing with sexual temptations? "Sexual suffering is caused not by the energy itself, but by our own inability to understand and skillfully deal with that energy." He suggests ways to do just that, all the while adhering to Sid's(short hand for the Buddha) blessing that while his finger may point us to the moon, his finger is not the moon. Forgiveness? Peel away the actor from the action. "An action from a confused and suffering being in the past doesn't represent who that being is forever;it is only an expression of the being's suffering." To lash out at those who hurt us because they have been hurt and are in pain only continues the cycle. A worthwhile contribution.

I was blessed by receiving this book as a gift from my wife. This book helped me change alot of perspectives on life. I enjoyed the stories and the techniques taught in this book. Being young and rebellious were things I held dear, now that I am getting older, I found that I can still shake up the norm just by being buddhist and respecting all life. Great read. Thank you Noah! --Eric H. Pittsburgh PA

I wish I could give this book 5 stars, but I can't. It's a great read, and I recommended it to a lot of my friends, but something is missing.

It's a very well written story of someone who should, by his own account, be dead by now, who pretty much hit rock bottom, and was saved by the Dharma. That may sound strange, but it's not a simple "I found X, and now I'm saved" book. The author found a better way to live, a quieter way to live, and to appreciate life. He could still do the (legal) things he enjoyed, and probably even enjoyed them more. Great story, great life lesson.

But I would have preferred if he would have put as much detail into his "awakening" as he did in his juvenile life. A minor knock to be sure, but something that stuck with me after I was done.

I've started several books on Buddhism (and never finished.) This is the first one that I felt was really accessible to someone like me, who hasn't studied with a Buddhist teacher, and who's easily overwhelmed by "The Fourfold This" and "The Twelve-Fold That."

There's a grit and realness to Mr. Levine's writing that's totally refreshing, compared to other books on Buddhism. My copy is full of dog-eared pages, and it's the only book I give to people who are just starting their journeys of trying to understand Buddhism. I strongly recommend it if you're just beginning to explore Buddhism, if you need a refresher, or if you've been studying Buddhism for awhile, and it just hasn't quite clicked.

Understaning our primitive instincts get out of ocntrol is the essence of both recovery and the Buddhist "way" of approaching one's life as the real work of life. And this book is a great introduction/guide an dsupport for the journey.
If you're tired of looking for answers and getting magical thinking and cheap mysticism dressed up as "the truth," this book is for you. It presents a realistic way to bring spirituality into every aspect of your everyday life and helps you find some serneity and contentment along the way.
It enhanced my 27 year old recovery and I gave it to my 19 year old son.
It's hard to be human and this helps.
Challenging a culture that seek to stoke one's desires and that also pormotes agression is the ultimate rebellion. And this book is the field manual.

A fairly simple and straightforward explanation of the tenents of Theravadian and Mahayana Buddhism from a "punk rock" perspective. Although perhaps too simple for most non newbies, I really appreciated the moral clarity and seeming earnestness of author Noah Levine's vision and got a lot out of it.

A former punk rock junkie/ thug turned spiritual/ meditation teacher, Levine found Buddhism conducive to his anti authoritarian mentality (as we can see from such section headings as "Defy the Lies," "Serve the Truth," "Beware all Teachers," and "Question Everything."

Levine takes his title from a quote of the Buddha where he claimed that spiritual path was a revolutionary one, which went "against the stream" of society which is founded on and valorizes hate, bigotry, greed, violence, oppression, and lies.

Levine appreciates the counter cultural bend of Buddhism, especially where the Buddha said as he lay dying to, "Be a light unto yourself." Similarly Levine implores us to not "Believe anything based on tradition or charasmatic presentation. Don't even believe the Buddha, and certainly don't believe me," and "Nothing must be accepted on blind faith. If any aspect of these teachings doesn't make sense when thoroughly investigated, reject it."

In the end, this text implores us to be revolutionaries in this world by practicing generosity, self compassion, have a willingness to protect others and alleviate oppression, to break our addictions, to attempt to see the world with open eyes and clarity, to face our personal demons and fears, and to explore our minds and emotions so they don't tyrannize us.

I found his explanations of the Four Noble Truths and the Eight Fold Path useful. I also found his interpretation of Buddhism intriguing colored as it was by his being a younger American with a punk rock background. His text is no nonsense and concise, as well as intelligently thought out.

And best of all, I feel like Levine made a sincere effort to be honest. He tells us he is not "enlightened" but has been helped by meditation and the teachings; he talks about his struggles battling addiction; he talks about his suffering in regards to his relationships; his struggle with his ego and his problem of blaiming others for his own mistakes; he talks about his fear and anger; and how the road was long and hard but worth it.

As a spiritual text providing suggestions for making the world a better place and encouraging the endeavor of relinquishing unhappiness, this book is a breath of sanity in an insane world.

Recommended. Not a scholarly affair, but a sincere moral statement of a spiritual journey from hell to recovery.

This one is definitely staying in my collection for good. Although this is nothing like Levine's "Dharma Punx", he still has quite a way with words that makes the basics of Buddhism quite simple. Most of this book is made up of drawn out explanations, and then in the final chapter he sums them each up as far as down to a sentence each.

If you don't understand the basics after reading this, it's worth a second read. I am going to read it again myself, since it's a great refresher whether you're new to Buddhism or not. Even though I enjoy Brad Warner's books because they make my head spin, they simply do not touch Buddhism in the way that Levine does; and in much fewer pages to say the least. The short length of this book compared to other basic ones does not hinder it at all.

So if you have read "Dharma Punx" or are a fan of similar authors, or are even interested in what the very basics of Buddhism are about, you definitely have to give this one a shot. You won't be disappointed.

This "Buddhist manual for spiritual revolutionaries" may appeal to the tattooed and shaved crowd that the author and cover beckon. Levine sums up how not to be a Buddhist but a Buddha. He emphasizes actual experience, not book learning, so this is short on the usual history and cultural contexts other introductions provide, but this is not a shortcoming. He suggests a few sources, but Levine conveys dharma directly.

Good books by Buddhists tend to tell their message clearly and concisely. His 2003 memoir (summed up as a preface) "Dharma Punx" (see my review) narrated on his own rebellious quest and travels in Asia rather than give substantial content about the dharma. This 2007 follow-up covers little about his own struggles. Instead, Levine puts the knowledge he shares into action.

He distills the Buddha's message: "Pain is unavoidable. Suffering is self-created." (19) Levine demonstrates how we can overcome attachment to the cravings that inevitably arise that keep us tethered to things, people, and concepts that prevent us from growth and tempt us away from insight. He teaches, but free of jargon, Theravadin Southeast Asian-Sri Lankan "insight meditation/vipissana" traditions that he's studied for twenty years. He conveys them in calm, but forceful tones.

"Against the Stream" is counterinstinctual; this phrase from the Buddha means to go "against our very human instincts to accept pain and not chase pleasure." (100) As one in recovery, Levine conveys the difficulty of breaking patterns of how we react to pleasure and avoid pain. "Our conditioned tendency is to push or pull or grasp or run." (103) As a solution, he gives us three stages-- corresponding sort of to the "three jewels": the Buddha, the dharma teaching, the sangha of community-- that comprise the heart of his emphatic presentation.

He starts with the Buddha's life and his guidance. Levine offers helpful perspectives on "basic training" and his treatment of the Eightfold Path is free of jargon. Change being constant, dissatisfaction's inherent in us. Mindfulness (even if nearing pop-culture cliche now) regains its power when Levine provides this analogy: we need to let each moment die naturally. Attachment to or aversion from the passing moment means we try to "resuscitate or kill an experience. Mindfulness allows us to receive the experience directly and to respond more like a compassionate hospice worker than an aggressive ER doctor." (28)

Levine illustrates the complex idea of "dependent origination" and how karma's responded to with the example of craving ice cream, buying a triple-scoop hot fudge sundae, getting full after three bites, but scarfing it down anyway, before feeling queasy. He explains another tough concept, how the mind "experiences itself" so we realize we are not the mind or even its contents. (31) He advises that the reader learn to regard the mind as impersonal, so as to detach one's identification from its passing fancies. Letting go, as renunciation, helps to let the self separate from the causes of desire and suffering. It also helps us put into action "the intention to stop hurting ourselves and others." (32)

"Cognitive disobedience" makes this a difficult practice, for meditation rebels against the mind's defenses. As "the highest form of the inner revolution," Levine argues that this liberates the practitioner from the "dictates of the mind," for one can choose "for ourselves how to respond to the "thoughts, feelings, and sensations of being alive." (45) Throughout his book, he refers to easily understood instructions, compiled in an thirty-five page appendix, of "meditative trainings" keyed to these various stages on the path.

The second level enters "boot camp," as the practices emanate from the person outward, to get off the meditation cushion into one's livelihood, encounters, and activities. Compassion, loving-kindness, appreciation, and especially the often-overlooked quality of equanimity represent the goals for a spiritual revolutionary. (For more, see his 2011 "The Heart of the Revolution: the Buddha's Radical Teachings on Forgiveness, Compassion, and Kindness.")

No divine revelation enters, and no entreaties to a higher power need be sought. Instead, the experience of freedom, as the Buddha taught, comes not from books or observation, but from experience. Pain continues, and bliss does not descend for long, but the way people react to suffering, and the growing ability to detach from one's dissatisfaction and to create satisfaction for one and others, begins to tidy up some of the messiness of unpredictable reality as lived by the dharma practitioner.

Part three as "field guide" engages with our common reality. The "outer revolution" that follows the inner one will take time to transform society by positive change. Sexuality earns an extended reflection, and even if Levine's advice for celibacy may be surprising for some readers, and not an option for many whom I assume are in committed relationships, he does caution all of the need to accept the unavoidable presence of "the truth of impermanence" in intimacy, and the suffering that it does bring for all partners, eventually. (93)

As with the Brahma god's conversation attributed in legend with the Buddha after his enlightenment, the appeal of this rigorous approach may not be among the masses but the few, the elite, the renunciators "with but little dust in their eyes." I felt, as with "Dharma Punx," that this portion of Levine's regimen relates to those who can commit to celibate periods, extended residential retreats, financial independence, familial support, and distance from the chores, duties, demands which fill the hours of working folks with partners and children.

More discussion of how the renunciation of intimacy relates to many of us ("married with children") would have enriched this section. It's helpful for its reminders of what people do want to forget, but its lesson's directed more at those able at his most "radical" level to live as sort of on-off monks, not a realistic option for many Westerners after a certain age. Levine notes how temporary celibacy, as with his sexual relationships, remains "the most challenging realm of his practice and the cause of the most suffering in my life." (94) [For another p-o-v, see "hardcore Zen" Brad Warner's books, all reviewed by me, especially "Sex, Sin and Zen."]

Like Brad Warner, Noah Levine speaks as one in his forties to a crowd impatient with "the delusion of knowledge" vs. the nitty-gritty immersion of those raised with punk (or hip-hop) and after the 60s & 70s, the period when Noah's father Steven emerged as a noted American Buddhist teacher. For Noah, he shares his father's countercultural resistance to what culture creates as philosophies with all the right answers neatly packaged. Bliss cannot stay, and pleasure vanishes. Gurus in Levine's version of true Buddhism are not to be found: one cannot gain the magic mantra or dispensed wisdom secondhand. Insecurity and ignorance must be overcome by a constant battle inside one's self, as that self itself begins to be dismantled.

In its place, the "present-time experience" grounds a practitioner not in belief but in action. Freedom comes as one's awareness of passing desires and pains and pleasures diminishes their hold on one's conditioned tendencies to grasp or to flee. He closes with a "manifesto." By serving others with a renewed energy to better them and ourselves, we can "defy the lies" of material comfort and dogmatic oppression as the way to satisfaction; "serve the truth" with honesty and integrity, not violence and greed; "beware of teachers" as "no one can do it for you!"; and to "question everything" until one has experienced it for one's self. I found it sensible and worthwhile as a practical guide, free of technicality, for beginners.

Well-written in succinct yet accurate terms without using the flowery and academic language that seems to pervade so many books and translations. A very good intro to the Buddhist system of "healing one's self" before attempting to "fix" what's not right in the rest of the world.

Value - I will let everyone know that I have a bias when it comes to Noah and I believe the intrinsic value of this book far exceeds the monetary compensation that you afford whichever consumer outlet you buy this from.
Performance - Well constructed book with great hi-gloss cover and solid backbone and spine.
Ease of Use - A great read that is as enticing as his first novel, Dharma Punx, and a quick read. I read this jam in like 5 days.
Features - A great book about punk rock, Buddhism and the seamless balance that is most definitely permeating in our culture.
Criticism - This book is great for the young buddhist or the seasoned vet . . . with that said, I was expecting more story than practice but still a solid effort and cohesion.
Overall - Buy it.