That he not busy being born Is busy dying

heres the thing. i read dharma punx in oooh, lets see, like 02ish? sam cassell gave it to me because she thought i needed it, and she was not wrong. over the years, i have tried to have conversations with ppl about this book and NO ONE has ever heard of it, much less read it....its a memoir of Noah Levine, a so cal punk kid who found himself into drugs, violence blah blah blah...just gutter punk...then he found buddhism and a more positive path.......sound familiar? it should....well for those of you who know anything about me anyway....i still have ragin moments, and i still have those inner punk ethos running through my blood but i have found better ways of dealing with them...recent years and recent events have shown me over and over that i have to look at things in the ram daas way....be here now....so zen, right? like the fact taht all of my friends call me the punkrock hippie....a better way to put it is- im a dharma punk.hahahaha...anyway, im bringing this up again because the other night i ran into a kid who is a dharma punk....we've had some really great conversations and he has made my list of morning thank yous a few times now...not sure where if anywhere its going to go, but its nice to have at the very least a friend on the same path...i dont know if he believed it when i told him of my buddha that looks over my kitchen...next i'll tell him about my collection of bobblehead jesi (thats plural for jesus, right?) anyway, a huge part of the buddha philosophy is things happen for a reason...meaning, i think i was really in need of someone to talk to honestly and openly, and bam! i meet robert...cool dude....not saying i dont have the greatest friends in the world, but its hard to explain to professor joe my thoughts on violence and mosh pits, ziede doesnt even blink when i call him sobbing because i miss ray...he just says 'oh.' the closest person in the world to me, g, gets it---well most of it. but still, its good to have a kindred addict in arms, eh? anyway, do yourself a favor and read DHARMA PUNX. its really good, i promise...though you will finish it wishing mike ness had a stronger handshake........

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proves to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.

Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.

So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.

As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.

Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.

An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.

Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.

You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.

A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not fergit
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.

Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.

While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him.

While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.

But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.

Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.

While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me?

And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.