Photo: Stacy Lanyon
I first heard about Occupy when a friend of mine sent me some Youtube
videos a little bit before the pepper spray incident happened. I was just
shocked by the cops. I was shocked by the roughness with which we were treating
our own citizens. The fact that it was mostly youth really excited me. It was a legitimate outpouring of energy
from the youth of America wanting to do something to change the world. People
were putting their minds and bodies, everything that they had into this. I’ve
always been about that and looking for people like that. I first went to the
park on September 23rd. It was beautiful. I do a lot of community work in Brooklyn with my Buddhist
organization. The space that we try to create is a really safe space for young
people to really have dialogue and
speak. I still think that is the most beautiful part about the movement, the fact that it brought a bunch of people together who were serious about first and
foremost having dialogue about things that are really impacting our community
and our planet, and trying to come up with solutions from a place of
responsibility.
This is not something I grew up with every day. A lot of the people in my circles were more concerned with, “How do I get paid?” “How do I get out of this situation and into a better one?” I use Buddhism as a reference because that’s something that really provided a value system and base for me to be able to enter Occupy asking, “What can I contribute?” In Buddhism, there’s this concept of Bodhisattva of the earth. It’s really an ordinary individual that awakens to the idea that the best way to live their life is both to become happy themselves but also to support other people - helping them become happy and supporting their local communities. It was this beautiful community that just sprung up because of everyone’s sincere desire to serve other people and their community. People were extremely generous and open.
This is not something I grew up with every day. A lot of the people in my circles were more concerned with, “How do I get paid?” “How do I get out of this situation and into a better one?” I use Buddhism as a reference because that’s something that really provided a value system and base for me to be able to enter Occupy asking, “What can I contribute?” In Buddhism, there’s this concept of Bodhisattva of the earth. It’s really an ordinary individual that awakens to the idea that the best way to live their life is both to become happy themselves but also to support other people - helping them become happy and supporting their local communities. It was this beautiful community that just sprung up because of everyone’s sincere desire to serve other people and their community. People were extremely generous and open.
Another thing that struck me first was the general assembly. If you haven’t seen one of those before, it’s life changing. Especially early on, the people speaking were so warm and clear. Everybody was so fresh, locked in and attentive. It worked beautifully. People would just share their ideas. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever experienced. It was so beautifully organic and run by a lot of young people. It’s something that our generation has really never seen before. We spent the last thirty years mesmerized by MTV and all that kind of shit. I think it was a collective discovery of people who felt these things for a really long time, but they didn’t know there were other people who felt the same way too. Then, when we found each other, it was like love. It was like falling in love in a very collective open space. That for me was so healthy and encouraging. It just gave me so much faith in America.
I’ve been musical my whole life, and I had written a lot of music for the Buddhist community that I practice with. They had asked me to write songs for some youth festivals right before the park, so I had found that experience extremely satisfying creatively because it was about serving and communicating values and ideas and heart through music. I was like, “If that’s what’s going on here, I’m there! And this is what I want to contribute. I want to be a part of that.” When I first went to the park, I was just like, “Where are the musicians at?" After many weeks of coming to the park, we were able to form the Music Working Group and bring together people of like mind who all wanted to contribute through music. Obviously the park had so much music going on anyway with all of these rock and roll hall of famers coming down and doing their thing.
The idea of Guitarmy was presented to us by Winn, and we all decided to do it. It's funny, today is our one year anniversary of our first action of Guitarmy for May Day. I think, ultimately, what we wanted to do was just bring this woman’s idea to life, this army of guitar players dedicated to singing protest songs as part of marches. Up until that point, our marches in Occupy weren’t very musical. They were very spirited. We had some capable drummers here or there and some chants, but we were kind of limited. We just wanted to bring music because there’s no great movement without music. That was the initial hope and goal. What it achieved was so amazing, and something I’m very proud of is that it provided an open source framework that anybody could do anywhere to bring people together for the same cause and same actions but to do it in a joyful way. That had much more of a feeling of love to it. It had the same sort of intensity, same sort of clarity of message, but it wasn’t celebrating anger necessarily. It was really celebrating the fact that it brought people together.
I’ll never forget when we were walking down to City Hall after we did the concert in Union Square last year. People just walking down the sidelines of the street would hear us, and they would just start walking with us and singing with us. “What’s going on? I don’t know what’s going on, but this is great. I’m gonna do it.” I think for what the goal was, we achieved it, to bring a space. That’s the power of music. It transcends. Even the cops would sing along and dance and smile. It de-escalates things. It really just gets people to the core of it, which is that we’ve got to come together. The 99% vs.1% thing, I get it as a vehicle to rally people, but at the end of the day, we need everybody. We need 100%. This affects everybody, and everybody really wants this. The challenge is figuring out how. I think Guitarmy allows people to come together in that way. It’s created some incredible bonds of friendship all over the nation, all over the world since that time. It’s one of the few groups that has lasted. I’m incredibly proud of everybody and honored to be part of the group. It’s one of the great things I’ve been able to embark upon in my life.
It's important for us to be involved, to be engaged. To me
that’s what occupying is. It’s physically engaging yourself. "My body is here
because something is wrong, and we need to change that, so I’m going to be here
until we change that." It’s a protest. My
father was born in North Carolina and raised down there. He sent me a newspaper clipping of this group of African Americas who sat down in Durham, North Carolina. They were called the Royal Seven. They actually preceded the first things that history recognizes as the
break to the Civil Rights Movement where there were African Americans who would
go and sit down in places where they weren’t supposed to be, white only
institutions, and they wouldn’t move until they were served. It was like the
original occupying. I had that in my mind when I first went down to the park. I saw taking physical action as the only way to change things. Ideas alone don’t change things. You can talk all day, but I think it’s
having the courage to put yourself out there. It’s amazing how powerful it is. Six months after they broke up the occupation in Zuccotti, people started
occupying right on Wall Street for a short period of time, and donations
started pouring in again. You’re making a very unignorable statement by being
there physically. It’s a powerful tool.
I think ultimately it’s just about being engaged. There are a number of different ways to be engaged. I don’t think Occupy is the only one, and I think we have to use all of them at this point to evolve. I use the Buddhist term again because this is how I am able to put this in understandable terms for myself. Buddhism is not based on monotheistic views or deities outside of yourself but the idea that every human being has this infinite potential inside of them to become happy and to contribute to society. By changing ourselves from within, that’s how society changes because we are society. It talks about our life as the body and society as the shadow.
The original Buddha who lived thousands of years ago in India, he prophesied there would be three eras after he died. He talks about there being the Former Day of the Law, the Middle Day of the Law and the Latter Day of the Law. To be succinct about it, the Latter Day of the Law is this concept where modern society is developed to the point where we have an explosion of material, an explosion of information and knowledge, but we really lack the wisdom to use it. Ultimately, what it boils down to is that society and civilization as it was created was designed to support the largest number of people to become happy, but at this point, as we can see, and to me this is the core issue, you have large numbers of people who are exploited to benefit the very few.
I think ultimately it’s just about being engaged. There are a number of different ways to be engaged. I don’t think Occupy is the only one, and I think we have to use all of them at this point to evolve. I use the Buddhist term again because this is how I am able to put this in understandable terms for myself. Buddhism is not based on monotheistic views or deities outside of yourself but the idea that every human being has this infinite potential inside of them to become happy and to contribute to society. By changing ourselves from within, that’s how society changes because we are society. It talks about our life as the body and society as the shadow.
The original Buddha who lived thousands of years ago in India, he prophesied there would be three eras after he died. He talks about there being the Former Day of the Law, the Middle Day of the Law and the Latter Day of the Law. To be succinct about it, the Latter Day of the Law is this concept where modern society is developed to the point where we have an explosion of material, an explosion of information and knowledge, but we really lack the wisdom to use it. Ultimately, what it boils down to is that society and civilization as it was created was designed to support the largest number of people to become happy, but at this point, as we can see, and to me this is the core issue, you have large numbers of people who are exploited to benefit the very few.
I want a humanistic world where people are the cause, the
reason and the effect of everything. My mentor
Daisakuikeda has this great quote. He says, “The twentieth century was really a
century of war, where so many people died, but the twenty-first century is
going to be the century of life, and every philosophy, every religion, every group
that supports life will be relevant, and those who don’t support life will
become irrelevant.” That’s our mission. It’s to bring about the twenty-first
century as the century of life.
A lot of kids who came to Occupy were so angry, and they’re just really frustrated, and they feel that nobody gives a shit and nothing that they do counts. Sometimes they would just use Occupy as a place to vent, to come together and act out, and other times they really got connected to something and felt, “Wow, I actually do have a voice. I can actually do something.” It gave many a sense of hope. I’ve seen that in bits and pieces with what we do with Guitarmy.
I think from a broader standpoint what the century of life looks like is when the young people have hope, when they’re excited to be alive, when they no longer feel that shit doesn’t matter, where they no longer just escape or nod out on whatever the latest distraction is for them. I think that’s going to be the best indicator of where we are at. I don’t think it’s as simple as the economy getting better or passing a law. We’ve done most of that before. I think it’s really going to show up in the people, when kids are allowed to be kids and engaged and excited and hopeful for the future.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
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