Punk group Husker Du - Does "Zen Arcarde" have Zen?
Behind the technique, know that there
is the spirit (ri):
It is dawning now;
Open the screen,
And lo, the moonlight is shining in!
Every moment is sacred. It is only the individuals orientation to reality that differs. For Husker Du to make a Zen work, it requires them to be "completely in the moment" at all levels of production. To demonstrate the Zen qualities of Husker Du's Zen Arcade, it is first necessary to discuss what Zen is, followed the "Zen content" of Zen Arcade's lyrics and finally how the format of Zen Arcade is Zen influenced.
There have been numerous books and article written about the Zen of something. There is Zen Management, Zen and Computer Programming, Zen and the Art of Archery, and the list goes on forever. To write a paper on Zen punk may seem both absurd and impossible. After all, doesn't the word Zen imply some sort of spiritual or aesthetic qualities? How can one think of punk as spiritual? The answer is simple, and it makes every book or article ever written on Zen and anything else, obsolete and inane.
The purpose of Zen Buddhism is to grasp reality, as it is, in the moment. Whether one is attacking an enemy with a sword, managing employees, going to the bathroom, or playing in a punk rock band, the mind (and body) is in that moment one hundred percent. To distinguish Zen from some sort of activity means that the individual is only in the moment when that activity is practiced. Living in the moment becomes a special thing that one does every so often, completely apart from daily life. This dualistic nature is the antithesis of Zen. "As long as you are concerned about what you do, that is dualistic. If you are not concerned about what you do, you will not say so. When you sit, you will sit. When you eat, you will eat. That is all."
Lyrically, Zen Arcade (and punk in general) takes a simple, direct experience of reality and transforms it directly into a song without any extra language or flowery speech. The song "Broken Home, Broken Heart" demonstrates this:
I LOOK AT YOUR HOUSE, I WONDER WHAT GOES ON INSIDE, WHEN YOU HAVE TO CRY YOURSELF TO SLEEP AT NIGHT. YOUR PARENTS FIGHT, YOU DON'T KNOW WHO'S WRONG OR RIGHT, HAVE TO CRY YOURSELF TO SLEEP AT NIGHT.
A BROKEN HOME, A BROKEN HEART, WHEN THE TWO OF THEM WILL HAVE TO PART.
BROKEN HOME BROKEN HEART -- NOW YOU KNOW JUST HOW IT FEELS TO HAVE TO CRY YOURSELF TO SLEEP AT NIGHT.
This direct experience followed by direct action is what is desired in Zen and the Japanese arts based in Zen. According to Yagyu Tajima no Kami Munenori, an ancient master samurai, the first principle of his Zen approach to swordsmanship is:
The mind unmoved is emptiness; when moved it works the mysterious. Emptiness is one-mind-ness, one-mind-ness is no-mind-ness, and it is no-mind-ness that achieves wonders.
It is this no-mind-ness that characterizes Zen Arcade's lyrics. Most artists would try to load an album with a Zen theme with lofty philosophical concepts and imagery, but Husker Du is above that. They have created an album closer to true Zen experience than would have been possible with a philosophical concept album.
The perspective of the lyrics is also very Buddhist. Zen Arcade, like most punk albums, is very pessimistic. Life is identified with pain and suffering, as well as alienation. This is equivalent to the first of the Buddhist Four Noble Truths. The Buddha taught: "...here are the Four Noble Truths. What are these four? They are suffering, the source of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the way that leads to the cessation of suffering." Although Husker Du does not provide the answers to suffering, they still honestly present reality as they see it.
The way Zen Arcade was recorded is extremely Zen. The title alone suggests a setting in which chance, excitement, and fun are experienced in a pure, raw, "in-the-moment" manner. According to D.T. Suzuki, "Zen upholds intuition against intellection, for intuition is the more direct way of reaching the Truth." That is exactly how Husker Du explain the recording of Zen Arcade. "Everything on the record is first-take, except for `Something I Learned Today' and `Newest Industry', which started too fast....The whole thing took about 85 hours, the last 40 hours straight for mixing."
This direct way of experience is a purity that the samurai, influenced by Zen, wished to achieve. "The fighter is to be always single-minded with one object in view; to fight, looking neither backward nor sidewise. To get straight forward in order to crush the enemy is all that is necessary for him." This is the kind of spirit demonstrated in such songs as "Pride" and "I'll Never Forget You". These songs are not just sung, they are lived. The anger and pain are acute, and knowing that these songs were "first-takes" makes them even more intense. It is the kind of emotion that can't be reproduced time after time. It is beyond pain and emotion, singing and playing instruments, it is a pure level of awareness that transcends action. The Chinese Zen Master, Fu Daishi (497-569) wrote of this pure level:
I hold a spade in my hands, and yet I hold it not;
I walk and yet I ride on the water buffalo.
Subject and object merge together as one. Eugen Herrigal writes of what his Japanese archery master told him when he had finally mastered the art:
He who can shoot with the horn of the hare and the hair of the tortoise, and can hit the center without bow (horn) and arrow (hair), he alone is Master in the highest sense of the word -- Master of the artless art. Indeed, he is the artless art itself and thus Master and No-Master in one.
Whether or not Husker Du was really "in the moment" when they recorded these songs is known only by them. The same holds true about the intent of their lyrics. Whether they intended Zen Arcade project to be produced with a Zen influence is unimportant. There is only one reality, and only one way to truly experience it. Zen has no monopoly on pure experience. Husker Du demonstrates this pure reality on Zen Arcade, sometimes in spite of themselves, and maybe even intentionally.
WORKS CITED
- Gwendolyn Bays, trans. The Lalitavistara Sutra. The Voice of the Buddha: The Beauty of Compassion. Volume II. Berkeley, CA: Dharma Publishing, 1983.
- Harris, Victor, trans. Miyamoto Musashi. A Book of Five Rings. Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1974.
- Herrigal, Eugen. Zen in the Art of Archery. New York: Vintage Books, 1971.
- Husker Du. Zen Arcade, With Bob Mould, Greg Norton and Grant Hart. SST Records, 1984.
- Husker Du. Jacket notes. Zen Arcade. SST Records, 1984.
- Suzuki, D.T. Zen and Japanese Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973.
- Suzuki, Shunryu. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. New York: JohnWeatherhill, Inc., 1988.
