Miguel Chen on Punk Rock and Buddhism

hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Miguel Chen. He is a meditation practitioner, a yoga instructor, and the owner of Blossom Yoga Studio in Lara May

and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Miguel is also the bass player for punk band Teenage Bottle Rocket, who I may have done sound for at Bernie's in Columbus, Ohio in the early two thousand's. His book is I Want to Be Well, How a Punk Found Peace and You Can Too. Hi Miguel, Welcome to the show. Hi Eric, thanks for having me. I am excited to have you on and we'll talk about your book I Want to Be Well, How a Punk Found Peace and You Can too. And we'll cover that in just a moment. But let's start like we

always do, with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and thinks about it for a second and looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,

which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. You know, I think your life ends up being the sum of of minutes and moments and hours, and it all adds up to days and years, and eventually that's the life you lived, right, And really what we spend our moments thinking about or

or doing, it adds up. It's a nice little parable, I think to sort of sum that up, like if you spend a lot of moments angry or frustrated instead of appreciative or happy or joyful, you know, it adds up and and that ends up being your life, right. So so the Wolves, I think, are a nice little summary of that. Excellent. So, in addition to writing this book, you also own a yoga studio as well as you play bass in a punk rock band named Teenage Bottle Rocket.

So talk to me about how you get from being a bass player in a punk rock band to a yoga studio and writing a book about finding inner peace. I'll do my best to kind of loop this back around to this idea of the Wolves. But for a long time, all I would think about is like, like punk rock music, and I just kind of want to party and and travel and be with my friends, and and this whole scene and this whole idea sort of represents like that kind of freedom. And so that's where

my attention was, and and sure enough. That's what my life manifested. And yeah, I was in this band, and I still am in this band, I should say, But we started to do really well, and we got to go a lot of places and do records and tour with a lot of bands that we really looked up to. And in the one sense I was I was kind of, you know, living living out all of my teenage punk

rock dreams. But in the other sense, my attention kind of got lost at some point and it kind of shifted away from like, this is a really fun, cool thing I want to do with my life to a little bit more like I'm tired because I've party too hard, or you know, we're stuck in this van, and and I found myself a little bit, I guess, feeding the bad wolf, and I got kind of miserable. And it really took a moment of clarity to be like, why

why am I miserable right now? Like I'm doing all this stuff that I always wanted to do, So what's the problem here. It's kind of startling when that happens, when everything you thought you wanted to have happen happens, and you're like, but wait, I'm still not happy, You're like what now? Absolutely, you know, it's it's a little it's startling, and it certainly can be a turning point

most definitely. And if you read the book, you know, you'll learn about like some deaths I had in my life that I kind of wasn't really dealing with that stuff, but but it was, it was down there, and it was underneath and sort of suppressing that the opposite of just like feeding into like oh and you know I've got these dead relatives. It was really like, oh, I'm not going to deal with that at all, so like

just suppress and suppress and suppress it. And that kind of started to manifest two, I think, and by not dealing with these things, I always kind of had this like negative frequency going on, and and it did sort of manifest itself in like these like deep depressions and you know, like substance abuse. And that's kind of where I like dove in and like started to focus my energy like I'm just gonna be kind of this like not realistic like punk rock star, I'm just gonna like

party myself to death. And that wasn't really working and and so I had to uh, kind of kind of this place where you know, what's not working and and why am I not happy? And I think, like most things in life, it was kind of in the middle. It was like some of it was outside of me, like these external things I was I was bringing into my life. But the the underlying problem was it was really like an internal almost an attitude, and you found I guess it was a book by Noah Levine, who

we've had on the show before. But was it his writing that sort of first got you interested in, you know, for lack of a better word, the spiritual path or or was there some was there something before that that started you down that path. When I was young, my my mother was really like deeply spiritual person, and um, I think, like a lot of teenagers, you know, my mom thought that this stuff was cool. So I thought it was totally lame and wanted wanted nothing to do

with right. And my mother passed away from cancer and it was like a several year thing. I did shortly after that in in a car accident. But um, I think the first kind of inkling that I had that like maybe my mom is like kind of onto something. It was like watching like watching her die in a weird way, like it was such like a painful, awful thing, but she was like with it, and and she was still like a joyful person, which I couldn't quite wrap my head around, like how how can you be joyful

like you're you're dying. So that seed was planted, and then I just kind of buried it, like really deep, like I'm not going to deal with any of that.

And then a few years after that, we were on tour with this band called the Epoxies, and and their singer was the one who ended up giving me that No Levine book, which I think it was It was a lot of stuff all just like the right place at the right time, and and these talks I would have with her, I was just open, you know, I would listen to her, and so she thought that this book might help me, maybe it was worth checking out, and that kind of like open these floodgates that like

all of a sudden, all this like stuff with my mom that I'd like buried really deep, it's all kind of came pouring out. And and that was the first time I kind of realized, like the reason I'm miserable, even though I'm living out like my dreams, is has nothing to do with like this anything outside of myself. It's all it's all inside of me, and I have like a power and an ability to change this. So so that started along dedicated journey down trying to discover more.

I always think it's interesting when punk rockers become spiritual. I mean, I grew up in the eighties and was in the very early punk scene and had bands and and all that kind of stuff, and I think it. I always think about like it seems like such a far transition, but I actually don't think it is. I actually think that at least my experience was punk rock. For me and for a lot of the people I know,

it was about finding some meaning. You know, life looked kind of meaningless, the culture as we saw it looked meaningless, and so here was this thing that had meaning. And that's not a very far step from spirituality, which is really at its most basic is a question about what matters. Punk rockers are looking for something really real and and anything that's kind of shitty or not like quite the real thing. Should I watch my language, by the way,

if you can. If not, we'll just market as explicit on iTunes um and it'll be that's the way it'll be, so don't don't sweat it cool. I think a lot of punk rockers like are sick of like just fake stuff, and so we quest out to look for something a

little more real. And it's the next door neighbor I think of, like yoga or Buddhism, you know, because here's other people who, you know, maybe they don't like dress like punk rockers are listening to the same music as us, but they they too are on this quest where like the fake stuff isn't working for them anymore, and so they need something real. Right. Yeah, there's a line in the book I really liked you say we all get to choose our reactions because we all get to choose

our attitude. To me, that's very punk rock way more than having green hair, putting safety pins through your face, or obsessively listening to the ramans, all the things I do or have done, by the way, And I love that because I do think you nailed to me a lot of what the punk ethos was or is for me. Most definitely, you're Columbus, Is that right, I am? Yeah. We we used to play a place out there called Bernie's.

Ye Oh, I remember Bernie. I used to play there, and interestingly, my my partner who does the show does the editing, used to run sound at Bernie's for years. That's awesome. Yeah. I definitely remember like a show and some kids have let off some fireworks and started like a dumpster fire or something. I was like, this is a pretty this is a pretty punk rocktown. But not to get to sidetracks. Sorry, no, no, it's a good little Yeah. Definitely Columbus and Bernie's. It's gone, but it

was an institution for a long time. Definitely. So let's dive into some of the pieces in the book in a little bit more detail. And one of the things you talk about is coming to an understanding of who we actually are. You know, we talked about the punk piece about what's really real and um and you say I've come to a semblance of understanding. It goes something like this, we are all everyone and everything part of one thing. We're interconnected. Can you elaborate on that a

little bit? Yeah, So I'm super in the like Alan Watts, I think was one of like the greatest my and like one of the best people explain this. But he would always talk a lot about like this whole thing is kind of a game, and that's stuck with me like a lot, Like um, of course it's not like original to him, like if you go back into like Hinduism, like it's really kind of there where. Here's this one thing and we can call it God if we have

no other word for it. But like if if you're this thing that can do anything, like at some point, it's boring, right like at some point over like millions of years or however long, like you have to find a way to like exist without just being bored out of your mind. So you set up a game and you're like, I'm just gonna manifest as as billions of different things, and I'm just going to kind of play these games just just to pass the time or just to have experiences. And the game only works if I

don't know that it's me playing. If you take this like God thing and it's like a, well, I want to experience what it's like to be Eric and In in two thousand eighteen and to have the one You Feed podcast, So I'm hoping God can do better than that. But yeah, well I mean yeah, yeah, so so there you are. And then it's like, well, I want to know what it's like to be Miguel and so on and so forth, and here we are just kind of existing, but you know, we don't know that that's what we

really are. And I think at the moment of death, like that's when we really are like, oh, this is Eric that I thought wasn't me. It was me. It was just me playing a different role. It's one way of looking at it that that gives me like a lot of comfort because it it kind of solves a lot of problems in the human realm if you kind of accept that, like at least as a possibility that guy like cut me off in traffic and I'm so mad it, then you kind of take a step back

and you're like, that's me. It's just me in a different incarnation, and it's forgotten that it's it's me or um like let's just say, like the most evil, awful person in the world and and I'll just leave that up to imagination. But it helps you build compassion for that person when you're like, that person is not actually evil and awful, they're just really deep in the game and they've really forgotten, truly like who they are. Because the moment they come back to the truth of like

we are this like one connected thing. All of a sudden, they're like, oh man, I shouldn't continue to hurt people. You talk a lot in the book about interconnection. We're all interconnected, we're all part of one thing, And you talk a lot about disconnect. You say, disconnect is a real problem. It's the single biggest obstacle between us and the truth. So we need to see it in all

its forms, past, present, and future. So talk about disconnection, And for you, what do you do when disconnection rears its head, Because you know, at least happens to me, you know pretty regularly that happens to all of us, like thousands of times a day. I think let's go back to like this idea, like if this is all a game and it's spent to be like joyful and and and fun, the more time we like spend not connected to that, the more we're just robbing ourselves of whatever.

Like beauty is in front of us, and even if it looks like something awful, there's there's something really beautiful and powerful, like in anything. Theoretically, so if we're just kind of like mindlessly like brushing our teeth and like getting dressed for work, like checking Facebook and like doing eight things at time. We're missing like this innate beauty where if we had done just say one of those

things mindfully. I had a teacher in India who would would tell me, like, we get hungry our immediate impulses like just shoved food in your face, and and you've missed not only like the joy of enjoying this food and like being present with him, being mindful with it, and like grateful for the nurturing that it gives you to keep existing, but you also missed the joy of of feeling hungry, which was a weird thing for me

to think about it. He's like the actual feeling of being hungry, Like if you take the connotation away from it is an interesting experience, you know, among like another thousand things. That guy told me, Like it kind of blew my mind, and I was like he's right, Like, no matter what's going on around us, like there's something we can connect to about it, it's going to kind of like raise us up a little and like help

us feel something right. And the problem is like when something is seemingly unpleasant, like of course we're trying to disconnect to it. Like I think about it, like if I'm getting a tattoo and it feels awful and I hate it, you know, like my mind's immediately like let's play some music or let's talk to the artist, and let's like do whatever we can to not feel this

knee little stabbing into my skin a thousand times. But whatever, I've like taken a moment to kind of try and be present with it, like there's there's something there, and that's just what we do with like unpleasant stuff like we don't even realize, like stuff that we like, we're not present with it, stuff that is seemingly like what we want in our lives, Like we don't even pay attention, like our friends are around, we're just on our phones, or like we're traveling around and like we all just

have like our nose is buried in a video gamers, you know, like the things we like we disconnect from. Made me think of a couple of things. One with hunger. I've been playing this little game lately where when my brain says something like I'm hungry or I'm tired or I'm whatever, I try and ask myself, like how do I know that there's a series of steps that gets to the thought in my brain I'm hungry, and so if I can stop and go, how do I know that?

What is it that's telling me that? Let me get you know, the sensation itself or the the thing itself. I found it to be an interesting way to be a little bit more mindful and try and understand a little bit more like, well, what does hungary really feel like? You know, what is it? What is it like? And so I think, uh, you know, it's a very very similar idea and the other ideas you were talking about

eating mindfully. I'm always amazed by how I'm perfectly capable of doing this, and so are a lot of people. Like I'm gonna go eat something that should be a treat for me. I generally gonna eat good and now I'm gonna go get, you know, a blizzard from dairy Queen, And how mindlessly I will eat that often. You know,

I'm not even really enjoying it. I'm always a little bit like, well, well that was a real waste, Like not only did I eat something that you know isn't good for me, and all the various pieces of that, like I didn't even really enjoy it. To boot you know, I might as well have had nutritious cardboard for as

much as I paid attention to it. It adds up again like these these moments, and if you're used to tuning out to things you don't like, it starts to creep into things that you do like, and before you know it, these series of moments, like you've lived a life where you are just disconnected, like a decade goes back and like maybe a handful of times you were actually really present for what was going on. Where we're bored with this ability to to connect, like like in

a perfect world, to everything every single moment. And but you know, like realistically definitely a a lot more than we actually do. And I think those moments of like pure connection are precious. We can cultivate so much more of it, Like you were saying, just slow down, right stop and take a moment and be like, well, where is this coming from? And investigate a little bit, and like retrain the mind to activate and to work that way and less to just like shut up and mindlessly

do what you do. Right. And in the book, you talk a fair amount about being in the present moment, and I'm kind of curious, how do you do that. That's not a theoretical question, that's more of a question about like how do you do it? Because it's one of those things that my experience has often been like, Okay, I need to be in the present moment, and I come to the present moment for about a fraction of

a second and then I'm gone again. Different people have different ways that sort of helped them to reconnect or to remain present. Any any that worked well for you. The first step in any problem is realizing that it's there, right, So it's kind of an over and over thing, Like the moment you realize you're really lost, like you're on the moon and not present. That helps, and you have

to like train yourself to notice more. There's definitely things for me in my life that that help a lot, and some of them are like get up early in the morning and and do do my practice, do do yoga, do meditation, and like that sort sets the pace for the rest of my day. Like all right, I'm I'm starting the day connected to my body and I'm starting the day connected to my breathing, so it gives me a leg up. But it certainly isn't this like, oh I did yoga today, Like today, I'm just present. It

helps start the day on the right foot. But inevitably, like anybody else, all of a sudden, I'm just lost and I'm gone, and it is just inch by inch and step by step. If you notice, deep breath in, deep breath out, and come back, and then it will happen again and again, and it will keep happening for the rest of your life, every every time you notice, like if I enjoy in hah, I noticed cool. Yeah.

The one that I have been having a lot of success with when I remember to do it, which you're right, that is the key piece is the remembering is just this idea of I think I've heard it referred to as like grounding yourself in your senses. I think of like, all right, what are five things I can see right now? And then what are five things that I can hear? And then what are five things that I can feel physically?

You know, like I feel the backpack strap on me, or a breeze or a boy I could feel my my knee hurts a little bit, or it's just for me. That's a really useful way to do it, because anything like that that gives my brain a little something to do while it's being present really helps me from that like I'm present, I'm gone, gone, gone, gone, I'm present for half a second, I'm gone. It gives me something. It's just the word I always uses. It makes the

moment a little stickier for me in some way. And that's one that like I've really really been trying to do a lot over the last several months and really find it to be when I remember, I find it to be really really helpful for me. That's awesomes Like you say, your your mind has to kind of be trained, right and and you see it like Buddhism a lot you see like like monkey mind call it and it's just it's been running wild forever. So now to kind of like reel it back in is a big task.

And you know a lot of people think yoga like definition is like union or connection, and I think about they go for that, but like if if you go to the yoga suitras, like the practice of yoga is defined as they say, yoga cheeta, ruti, neurota, and that just means yoga calms the fluctuations of mind and and so all this stuff we're doing like with our bodies where we're like training ourselves to like, okay, notice your right foot, notice your spine, notice your posture, Like it

is all just a process to trade our mind to be still. And do you find that you have both a sitting meditation practice and a yoga practice for you? Are those both equally important? Absolutely? If you go from a yoga system, there's like lots of steps, and one of the later steps his meditation. But it's like first like body and breathing, and then like senses, and it's all just from like really external stuff two internal and so once you're connected with your body, you can go

deeper and connect with your breathing. Then you can like notice the subtle aspects of your senses, and from there you can go to like a seated meditation practice. And I didn't even like consider yoga like real thing I would ever think about doing like it was just a seated meditation practice. All of a sudden, when I when I started doing like a physical yoga practice, I was like, this makes my meditation so much easier. Do you do yoga and then sit down and meditate? Are they part

of at the same time? You do the physical first, and then you find that helps your seated practice. My morning routine, depending on how much time I have, is usually an hour hour and a half of yoga followed by like minutes of seated meditation. So if I'm lucky, I have two hours a day. But yeah, what I'm not lucky. You know, condense and do what I can as I As we say on the show all the time, a little bit of something is better than a lot

of nothing. And you say that in the book. If you get nothing else from this book, sit down for five minutes a day and start a practice. A question for you around your life in the punk rock world. How open have bandmates been, other bands, people that you've met to kind of what you're doing. And has this been something that you've feel sort of isolated in when you're out on the road or is it something you feel really supported in when you're out on the road.

It's the full spectrum. I have friends who I'm like really close to, and people I look up to a lot that like do not even pretend to try and understand. They just kind of, you know, rip on me and think it's it's a complete waste of time, which is fine.

And and then I have friends and people I look up to and like strangers who talk to me about like this, I think you're onto something, you know, And the thing I have to keep coming back to is not attaching to either of them too much, like connect whichever one is in front of me, and then let it go when it's done, because it's easy to like if someone comes up and it's like, oh, your book, like it got me started out meditation and did this, this and this, Like it's easy to be like I'm awesome,

you know, like impat yourself on the back and and all that. But then but then you're also like really kind of disconnecting from something by being that way. And it is also easy when it's like someone you really look up to is kind of like, dude, this is stupid. This is like the least punk thing you could possibly do. Like, you know, it's hard to not like take that personally and like feel really sad. But like that's also part of the practice. That's not necessarily true. And this isn't

necessarily true. Like what's true is it is in the middle, and it's it's like I'm just I'm just doing my best and you're doing your thing, which is pretty punk rock as we talked about before doing your thing. Yeah, man, you find it easier to practice when you're home, stationed at home or on the road or is there not much of a difference for you in that Again, it's kind of twofold. Like at home, it's it's so easy. I'm at one of my two studios every day of

the week. It's easier for me to have a normal schedule and a normal routine. But there is also the aspect of like I'm home and I'm comfortable. I'm like, it's harder to stay motivated to practice all the time when you're comfortable. Right on tour, like there's no schedule, it's it's always just chaos, and a lot of times it's hard to find like a place or time to

like get this in, so that can be difficult. But there is also a lot of times like I'm struggling out there, and that motivates me to find time and make time and make a place. So it's both. Yeah, I was thinking about what you said there at the end earlier this week about that at sense of like you said, so when I'm struggling, I go to my yoga practice, or I go to my meditation practice, and I was thinking about, like, it seems like there's this

point where for a lot of us, something changes. We realize like suffering means that there's some actions we can take to feel better, and so we suffer that that is a motivator towards practice for me that I'm so glad that that happened with me. I try to be motivated when there's not only by pain. But I know some people who suffering and pain and all that does not motivate them forward really in any significant way. And I was just thinking about how grateful I am that

that happened for me. Again, I'm not quite sure how, but that somehow the idea of I'm uncomfortable, I'm in pain, here are some things that I know that are good for me to do, and that pushes me towards them. I'm just grateful for that that somehow that connection happened in my brain. And the people I think who you see them, and it seems like all the suffering and this pain doesn't motivate them to to find something else. I think it's more of a question of time, like

it just doesn't motivate them yet. And and people have a tremendous, ungodly capacity to endure suffering and pain, and like everyone's got the like different tipping points, and some people's is like wait wait, wait, wait up here, And but I do like to think that like at some point everyone wakes up a little bit and it's like, oh, I have to suffer and and this idea you have of of feeling gratitude and feeling grateful for for like the pain and the suffering that kind of lead you

to do something about it, like absolutely, but a thousand percent I think about that, like, Okay, if if my mom and my sister are dead, Okay, everyone who has a mom and a sister you know they're going to lose them eventually, and and it's just part of it. And like given a choice, like of course, my mom would be about to become a grandma, my sister would be about to become an aunt. They'd be in my life. Then I am, we're having a kid next month. Congratulations,

that's that's wonderful. Your first thing. It is. We're super excited. But you know, like it's there, like absolutely I would have them here for these moments in my life. And but that's not the truth of it. So so if I have to look at it and and find something to be grateful about, you know, outside of like I still feel their presence and I know that they're here

with me in one sense. But the more tangible thing is that had I not had that happened when it happened at such a young age, I I wouldn't have woken up the way I did and when I did, so hopefully I get to spend most of my life like a little bit more awake and a little bit more connected than I would have otherwise. You know, like if they were just around and I took them for granted the whole time, and and it wasn't until like I was almost dead that I had to wake up.

You know, it feels like like a waste to what if you don't wake up till you're like eighty yep, and then you die, and you think I just wasted like eighty years relatively young, like I was sixteen seventeen when when they passed away, and maybe five or six years later when I started to really deal with it. And thanks to that, I've had many years of a really connected life where I get to do really a

lot of a lot of cool stuff. My version or variation of that was becoming a Heroin addict at like that. I'm so grateful that it got that bad that fast. You know, I'm pretty certain I could have kept drinking or smoking weed, I mean for a long time. You know. I'm just really glad that, like I just got my ass handed to me so early and so hard. I mean, it was just, you know, it's such a At the time,

it seemed terrible, but in retrospect was a total benefit. Absolutely, And I I kind of see now with like that information what you were saying about, like, what is it about you that that led you to want to wake up and and change something? Where like others are because obviously like Heroin like, there are a lot of people who like no matter how much they suffer because of that stuff, it isn't the motivator they need to get

out of it. I would say that's one of the great mysteries of my life, is why are some people able to do it and others that not. I've been around so many people that have and so many people that haven't. You could look and say, well, the people that get sober, the people that do the following actions that help them miss days over which I get, but it's like, where did the motivation for that come from? Like,

it's just it's a mystery. If somebody could crack that nut, they have quite something on their hands there, if someone could solve that problem. Well, thank you so much for for taking the time to come on. We're going to wrap up here because we're out of time. Thanks so much. We're gonna do a little post show conversation like we always do, so listeners, if you're interested, you can go to one you feed dot net slash support and learn

more about that. It's a it's a gift we give to people who support the show and one of the things we're going to talk about our favorite punk rock bands and our post show conversation. So thanks so much for taking the time to come on. It's been a real pleasure. Eric, it's been wonderful to be here. Man. All right, bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making good. Don't nation to the One you Feed podcast. Head over to one you feed

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