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MN: Now during your drug addiction years, you were introduced to Buddhism, through Soka Gakkai?

Mo N: Yeah.

MN: How did you come about being introduced to this?

Mo N: Well, that was about the time when a lot of the artists were starting to move into the district just east of J-town, the artists district. And I met this lady who was open to me, a white lady, and so I started making it with her, and she would do this chanting morning and evening. I thought, "Wow, what is he doing?" I was tripping out on her. She wouldn't pressure me or nothing, she'd just leave shit around for me to look at and read, so then I started reading some of that stuff and it started making sense. So I became a member. And if you ever have a jones, one of the hardest thing in the world is to get that son of a bitch that's sitting on your shoulder to be quiet. It's always talking at you, telling you what's good, what's bad, all that kind of stuff. You know those two little devils that they make fun of? Those are real. [Laughs] I used to have a radio on all the time in my room so I'd have company. But the only time I could shut that sucker down was when I chanted, so I can get a little peace of mind even for a little while like that. So it made a believer out of me.

What was good about, I think, Nichiren Buddhism is that Nichiren, when he formed the Daimoku, he laid out all the stuff for me and brought clarity to what I thought was the law. Namu is to come into unity with, become enlightened, too, mystic law, myoho and rengei, the lotus flower and the sutra, lotus teaching. So the teachings of the mystic law and the lotus sutra, the lotus is the symbol of Buddhism, it's the law of cause and effect. We don't believe in no god, we believe in this law of cause and effect. It just made a whole lot of sense to me, so It felt like the place. Much later, I began to realize the more I thought about it that it also, dialectical materialism, the law that Marx become enlightened to in his study of capitalism, it's exactly like that dialectics, the law of cause and effect. So for me, the merging of Buddhism and mystic law and dialectical materialism, fundamental teachings of Marx and how he lays out the approach to socialism and communism is the natural order of things. It was really good for me. I mean, there's other branches of Buddhism, but the fundamental teaching is still the same, it's the law. We wasn't talking about no God, we're talking about the law. And the law is cause and effect. I was thinking the teachings of the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, and that's in there. Yes, so it was a great boon to be able to be introduced to that and give me the peace of mind that I needed to begin to really develop my recovery.

At the same time I was introduced to the Red Road. I was introduced to the Red Road at Wounded Knee, but I didn't know at that time, I let it go. Later, when I'm hassling with this... smoking dope, I've been smoking weed since about fourteen, thirteen, fourteen years old, I liked the stuff. But I know that I was abusing it. If you've got control over it, you don't wake up in the morning first thing and roll a joint, right? And get loaded before breakfast, even before a cup of coffee. So I went to see this medicine man about, "I want to get rid of smoking this dope." I'd already quit alcohol, I had quit the heavy drugs, had quit tobacco, or alcohol and tobacco, right? Cut out everything else. Only thing I was still doing was smoking weed. "Let me go talk to this dude." So he says, "You try the Sweat Lodge Way?"

[Interruption]

Mo N: He says he can't personally guarantee me anything, but he says if I stay on the Sweat Lodge Way, he said, "You'll be all right." So I took his word for it, so I start sweating. And it took a couple years, but one morning I got up, didn't need no grass, just threw that shit away. And I've been pretty much clean since. I don't have any of those old hang-ups anymore. But yeah, doesn't mean I ain't got no problems with... I'm healthier, and I knew I'd have to quit smoking. My dad had emphysema, and I knew about his emphysema attack, and I didn't want to go through that. You're ventilating like hell and nothing's going on. [Laughs] Ain't no energy coming in, don't need that shit. I quit smoking, so that's been pretty good. I still got weak lungs.

MN: Now as someone who's struggled with drug addiction, and you've stayed clean, what message do you have to other people who might be going through the same thing?

Mo N: Well, I think the main thing is to come out of oneself, right? Usually when we're into drugs and shit like that, we're feeling so sorry for ourselves that we can't see people outside of ourselves. So we're stuck in our own little things, so we take dope so that we can construct a better world. [Laughs] So we can construct a better world at least mentally and live in that better world, at least for the time being. The only hangup is when we come back down again, all that shit is still there. In fact, might have even got worse 'cause we lollygag and procrastinated and not dealt with it. The important thing is to reach out beyond yourself. And one of the important things I think that comes from both the Black Panther Party experience, Asian Hardcore experience, Narcotics Anonymous Fellowship, is that got to help others. You can't get stuck on yourself, help others and be of service to the community, to humanity. And one of the things that we know from the Panther Party experience is that when you have low self-image like most of us do growing up in this country, is that if you go to work and help other people, most people are going to be appreciative and look kindly toward you, so that builds up your own self-image and makes you feel better about yourself and the need for drugs and those other kinds of things is diminished.

But that's kind of what Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous program is, too, a service to others. To help others is the best way. I don't know where you get to that tipping point, because this thing about what you want and what you need to do sometimes don't cross, like two parallel lines. Yeah. But the main thing, of course, is to be able to reach out and talk to somebody, look for somebody to talk to. And if you're in a situation where the sisters and brothers that you're with are into the stuff, then you might have to cut 'em loose, at least a little while 'til you get strong enough to go back and deal with 'em. But yeah... what we used to tell people in Hardcore was that when you were born, you wasn't born with a needle in your arm, joint hanging out of your mouth. When you were born, you were born clean. You can get a natural high off of that, and that's what we have to try to do is go back to that state where you have a natural high. Don't need no alcohol, don't need none of that bullshit. Unless we do it ceremony. We do it for the purpose, you had to put you in communion with whatever higher power you have, probably not too bad. But if you're doing it just for recreation then you're in trouble.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright &copy; 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.