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is the SOUND OF ONE HAND THRASHING!”

David Giffels & Jade Dillinger, authors of

Are We Not Men? We Are DEVO!

and still MORE buzz

“I’ve always had an interest in Eastern thought but

was put off by the placid lake-and-lotus-

blossom tone of everything I’d read. It’s nice to

know that PUNK ROCK AND ZEN AREN’T IRRECONCILABLE AFTER ALL.”

Jeff Hagedorn, Owned & Operated Recordings

“A conversational tone and endless streams of pop

references to EVERYTHING FROM MINOR THREAT TO THE MATRIX

make this a READABLE and FUN book. Warner’s

idea of questioning is particularly striking.

Not just questioning authority, but friends,

oneself, and, yes, him.”

School Library Journal

“It’s nice to read something that actually makes

you think and laugh—there were times I LAUGHED SO HARD I

COULDN’T BREATHE. This book KICKS ASS. Damn good job.”

Jennifer Martin, The Book Merchant

(Natchitoches, Louisiana)

“This is, BY FAR, THE BEST BOOK I have read on Buddhism

in the last decade. If you only read one book this

spring, let it be Hardcore Zen.”

Still Point Newsletter

“I never thought that any book could fit in

Klaus Nomi, Ultraman and a description of a

practical theology but Brad Warner has done it.

It’s A GREAT F***ING BOOK, read it and then do

as the BAD BRAINS commanded us and DESTROY BABYLON.”

Reverend Hank Peirce, Parish Minister,

Unitarian Universalist Church of Medford (Mass.)

I have no time for lies or fantasy

and neither should you. die.

Enjoy or

JOHN LYDON, aka JOHNNY ROTTEN

FROM ROTTEN

PROLOGUE

For me it was this: Turning away from an overflowing toilet in a crummy basement bar in the middle of an Ohio winter with a bunch of apes in leather jackets outside shouting in unison as some other ape in a pair of stretch-pants thrashes away at an imitation Les Paul guitar running through a busted Marshall amp. The lights, the noise, the girl by the bar in the sweaty white T-shirt that I can just about see through… All of a sudden I’m struck with the senselessness, the absurdity, the sheer overwhelming weirdness of it all.

What is this place? This existence—the very fact of my being—what is this? Who am I? What is this thing, this body, its ears ringing from the noise, its eyes burning from the smoke, its stomach churning from the pissy-tasting swill that passes for beer?

IT ALL CAME TO A HEAD that night but those have always been the kinds of burning questions that bit into the core of my being since I was old enough to think. Not questions like, “What is the purpose of existence? What is the meaning of life? Where did we come from?”—those were always too indirect for me. Meaning is removed from real existence. Purpose deals with goals, direction, and stuff that’s going to happen in the future. Wherever we came from is over and done. That doesn’t get at it for me. It doesn’t get right at the root of things. I want to know what this is—this place right here, this state of mind right now. What is this?

*I’d like to mention, for the benefit of the good folks at that record label that I’m still waiting for my royalties.

Or to put it another way: What is truth itself? What is this thing called reality?

NOW, AFTER YEARS AND YEARS of intense questioning I feel like I have something to say—and more than that, I feel I almost have a duty to say it.

Why should you listen to me? Who the hell am I? Who is this guy who’s claiming he’s gonna give you the skinny on “the truth about reality” as if he’s an authority? No one. No one at all.

The fact is, although I can tell you who I am and what I’ve done, I can’t give you any real reasons why you ought to listen to me. There aren’t any reasons. It’s not about reasons.

For the record, I’ll tell you I’m an ordained Buddhist priest who received Shiho, “Dharma Transmission,” in an ancient line of Buddhist teachers. This is supposedly the symbolic recognition that I have “attained” the same enlightenment as the Buddha did some 2,500 years ago—but if I were you I wouldn’t put too much stock in