NOAH LEVINE-TO HELL AND BACK
By Tim Coleman

Covered in tattoos and with a shaven head, Noah Levine does not look the part of a spiritual teacher. But Levine knows a thing or two about spirituality, because he's been to hell and back. Plunging into the depths of drug addiction, crime and violence, he has managed to channel his former passion for self-destruction into an equally energetic embrace of Buddhism and meditation. This remarkable transformation from drug-addicted street punk to meditation teacher is vividly expressed in his book Dharma Punx, a title inspired by Jack Kerouac's famous novel Dharma Bums. Levine's book, a piercingly honest memoir of his struggle and eventual redemption, has become a cult classic. And Levine is not shy about advertising his Buddhist beliefs. He has the words COMPASSION and WISDOM tattooed on his hands. On the inside of one arm he has a tattoo of the Hindu god Krishna, while on the other an image of the Buddha.

WAITING FOR THE MAN
Sitting on a sofa at Blackheart Studio in San Francisco, Levine waits patiently for his old friend and tattooist Scott Sylvia to add some more work to his already overcrowded flesh.

"Don't listen to any of his spiritual crap," jokes Sylvia, as he pokes his head through the door and tells us it will be several hours before he can work on Levine. With perfect Buddhist detachment, Levine looks to the heavens and ignores Sylvia. Smiling, he lights another cigarette, one of the only addictions he hasn't yet managed to conquer. However, given Levine's previously insatiable appetite for drugs, tobacco seems mild by comparison.

"I started smoking pot at five," declares Levine, describing his spectacularly dysfunctional childhood in Santa Cruz, California. "I was drinking at six," he continues. "And I took my first tab of acid at ten." By the time he was 17, Levine had graduated to smoking crack and shooting heroin.

Having studied Buddhist philosophies, Levine is open to the possibility of reincarnation. So did he, in some way, deliberately choose his difficult life? "Who knows where all that anger and self-destruction came from," he replies. "Perhaps much of it came from my psychological circumstances. My parents got divorced when I was two. My stepfather was abusive and my mother struggled with substance abuse. I may have come into this world with a lot of karmic momentum charged with anger and dissatisfaction. It's probably a bit of both."

Levine's sense of alienation was greatly heightened when, in the late 1970s, he was shipped off to his father's house in New Mexico. At the age of seven, he found himself virtually the only white kid in a predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhood. Being on the sharp end of racist abuse, Levine soon realized his immediate environment was far from safe. And growing up at the height of the Cold War, he also realized how the world in general had gone insane. "At an early age, I saw how the planet is run by oppression, greed, hatred and delusion. I thought, What's left to do but rebel? Tear it all down. Smash the system. In the beginning, it was this dream of trying to change the system. But once that was frustrated, it soon become self-destruction."

A PUNK ROCK EDUCATION
Youthful rebellion nearly always involves rejecting parental values. Levine was no exception. His father, Steven Levine, is a renowned spiritual teacher and author of bestsellers such as A Gradual Awakening and A Year to Live. However, the younger Levine wanted none of his father's "hypocritical hippie values," and plunged headlong into the punk scene. "I found a great sense of belonging in punk rock," explains Levine. "A belonging I couldn't find at home or at school." He believes his real education came from punk. "School may have taught me to read and write but at a fundamental level it didn't tell me anything really important about life. Instead, you are being filled with distorted histories about the past and propaganda about the value of the American dream. It's all such a twisted perspective," he declares. It was in the lyrics of punk that Levine saw the myths of the American dream stripped bare. "It was a great political education," he states. "It pointed out the suffering, the oppression and the corruption of our society."

Despite the political insights Levine may have gained from punk rock, his relentless rebellion continued to fuel his decent into anger, crime and drugs. His criminal life began at the tender age of five when he got busted for setting fire to a field. Between the ages of 12 and 17, he was arrested and thrown into jail a total of 15 times. Finally, he hit rock bottom. After a botched attempt at suicide, he got caught trying to steal a car stereo, so he could buy drugs. When he got arrested, he fell apart and was thrown into a padded cell. "I was tortured by the memories of a life only half lived yet almost over," he states in his book. "Seventeen years old and dying. Institutionalized, locked in a rubber room crying and screaming."

FINDING A WAY OUT BY GOING IN
While in jail, Levine received a call from his father who comforted him and suggested he try a simple meditation technique to calm his mind. Levine was so desperate he was even willing to try his father's "hippie shit," and began to meditate. He found the technique of focusing on inhalation and exhalations an excellent way to keep the mind focused on the present. "At that time," he says, "I discovered that meditation could be a very practical way of dealing with the chaos of the mind. The future looked bleak as I was facing seven years in jail. I was filled with remorse about the past and what I had done with my life. So, staying focused on the present was the best place to be!"

Having hit his nadir, Levine was finally able to take responsibility for his life and stop blaming everyone else for his problems. "It was clear to me that, even though the system sucks, I was the one taking the drugs, committing crimes and getting myself screwed up over and over." With the help of 12-step programs and an increasing devotion to meditation, Levine was able to claw his way out of active addiction and steer a bumpy course to recovery.

EARLY TATTOOS
Part of Levine's recovery involved joining the Straight Edge punk movement, a drug-free offshoot of the punk scene that developed in the late '80s. It was at this point that Levine's addictive personality found a new vehicle, tattooing.

"My first four tattoos were all Straight Edge tattoos," recalls Levine, pointing to the design of crossed hammers and a fist with an X on it. "The X is the symbol for Straight Edge," he explains. "The crossed hammers signify my belief in the working-class ethic." On his right shoulder is another Straight Edge design, hands bound to a red cross. "The hands are breaking free from the ropes," Levine points out. "This symbolizes the escape from the bondage to drugs and alcohol."

Levine has had some of his early tattoos covered up. Under the unusual solid black design tattooed by Gary Kosmala on his left leg was once a tattoo of the Statue of Liberty pouring out a bottle of booze instead of a holding the torch. On the other side of his leg was a design of the American flag with an eagle holding one of the 12-step symbols of recovery. "After traveling internationally, I started to see how much oppression the American flag stands for," he remembers. "I don't want to offend anyone but, after that, I decided the U.S. flag wasn't an image I wanted on my skin. So, I had it covered up."

As Levine's interest in tattooing grew, he began to spend more and more time hanging out in studios. It was during this period that he met his good friend-to-be Scott Sylvia, who was apprenticing in Miller Cotton's, a studio in Monterey, California. The same shop where Levine was having his Straight Edge tattoos done. Sylvia was also newly in recovery, after struggling with alcoholism. The two found they had much in common.

Despite staying clean and sober, Levine was not totally cured of his rebellious behavior and, for a while, got heavily into graffiti. Inevitably, the police caught up with him. He was charged with vandalism and, given his prior record, faced a maximum of 17 years in jail. Fortunately, the judge realized that Levine was trying to turn his life around and ordered him to pay $10,000 restitution and 500 hours of community service. After this, a grateful Levine began seriously to embrace Buddhism. "Being an addictive type," he confesses, "when I find something that makes me feel good I want to do it all the time, so I did, I turned my life towards recovery and spiritual practice. I knew that this was the last hope for me."

LIFE IS SUFFERING
"The first noble truth of the Buddha is that life is suffering," states Levine. "That moved me and continues to move me. I feel like I understand what the real causes of suffering are and what the solutions are to get free. That's where the Buddhist path has taught and inspired me."

One of the most important lessons Levine learned was that service to others is a liberating antidote to the self-obsessions of the addictive personality. "The more I practiced kindness and humility, the more the world seemed to appear friendly and manageable," he explains. Levine's determination to be of service led him to start working in hospitals and as a counselor to AIDS patients. He subsequently went on to earn a Master's Degree in counseling psychology. He also began to study with many well-known Buddhist teachers. During the '80s, he was trained to teach meditation by Jack Kornfield at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodcare, California. Kornfield is an internationally famous spiritual teacher and author of many bestsellers including A Path With a Heart and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.

MEETING THE DALAI LAMA
It was while studying at Spirit Rock that Levine was fortunate enough to meet the Dalai Lama, a meeting that both parties are unlikely to forget. "There was a group of us standing in a row as His Holiness was about to leave," recalls Levine. "He came directly up to me and grabbed my hands and pulled them towards him, looking at the tattoos. He looked up at me and exclaimed quite simply, 'Very colorful.' He started laughing, and then the whole room erupted in laughter. It was a very special moment."

Levine also traveled extensively throughout Asia and India. Prior to visiting India, Levine had confined his tattoos to areas that could be covered by clothing. This stemmed from a concern that having visible tattoos might prevent him from getting certain jobs. But after he got back, he had changed his thinking. "I realized I was no longer willing to live my life for anyone else out fear of how I would be judged or oppressed for being tattooed." Having done a great deal of spiritual and psychological work on himself, Levine was extremely confident and didn't need anyone else's approval. "I no longer needed to appear the way society wanted me to appear. I love tattoos and I wanted to be covered in them. If that meant I didn't get certain jobs, well, too bad."

For a long time, Levine had been a big fan of tattooist Eddie Deutsche. He had seen some of Deutsche's tattoos on friends and wanted to get his own. Levine started hanging out at Deutsche's old studio in San Francisco, 222. Deutsche tattooed both the image of the Hindu god Krishna on his left arm and the Standing Buddha on his right. Levine even did a stretch as receptionist for 222 but left after three months. "It was fun but it wasn't for me. I wanted jobs where I could be of more meaningful service to people."

MEDITATE AND DESTROY
During the entire time I interviewed and photographed Levine, Sarah Fisher discretely recorded everything on video for a documentary called Meditate and Destroy (www.meditateanddestroy.com). The documentary aimed for release in 2006, explores Levine's life and how he has managed to meld his rebellious punk rock tendencies with community service and Buddhism.

Part of that service also includes the mind body awareness project. Set up by Levine, it is a project close to his heart and his former experience as a street punk and addict. Levine and others, like his friend and fellow dharma punx, Vinny Ferraro, teach meditation to hundreds of young kids in the San Francisco Bay Area, many who are incarcerated in jails or institutions. This is one job where being heavily tattooed is a distinct asset. "It certainly helps break down the barriers," explains Levine.

Outside of jails, Levine's tattoos help him communicate his spiritual philosophy to the public. "It definitely sparks up conversations," he says. "People who don't know about Buddhism will go, 'Oh, that's great; what is it?' I look at it as a chance to strike up a conversation about the teachings and spiritual practice."

THE REAL REBELLION
On the surface, it doesn't seem that Buddhism, punk rock or tattooing have very much in common. But closer inspection proves otherwise. The common thread is rebellion. And when Levine discovered this, much of his early life seemed to make sense. He had read a line where the Buddha described his teachings as "going against the stream," and how the spiritual path is against man's selfish and deluded ways. "The real rebellion," the Buddha counseled, "was actually an inner rebellion: A rebellion against delusion and one that leads to liberation."

"From an early age, I knew that greed, hatred and delusion were not the way," states Levine. "I was rebelling in the wrong way. I was adding hate to hate and was actually feeding it rather than renouncing it. Unfortunately, it is human nature be greedy and hateful. That's so easy. But to learn to be kind, generous, loving and compassionate, well, that has to be the most difficult, most rebellious, most radical act of a lifetime."

Levine's difficult and painful life had eventually brought him to a place of profound self-discovery. He had finally learned that the real rebellion is one of spiritual awakening.