Chen Miguel - I wanna be well: how a punk found peace and you can too

MORE PRAISE FOR

I WANNA BE WELL

Miguel Chens I Wanna Be Well is an honest and thoughtful approach to mindfulness. The book is full of insight and succinct ideas for anyone looking to expand their viewpoint and live well. A comfortable and fun read for intellectual and pinhead punks alike.

TREVER KEITH, SINGER FOR FACE TO FACE

I Wanna Be Well is a calming experience empathy and love and punk and passion and weirdness.

JOHNNY BONNEL, SINGER FOR SWINGIN UTTERS

I Wanna Be Well offers a spirituality grounded in tour buses and punk rock. From everyday scenarios to personal accounts, Miguel demonstrates a tangible practice founded in reality that is available anywhere, anytime. We live in uncertain times, with experiences from cruelty to beauty and all that lies in between within it all, Miguel lets us know that we, too, can be well.

SHARON SALZBERG, AUTHOR OF REAL LOVE

Preface

LETS BE HONEST, being a human can seem pretty awful sometimes.

My hope for this book was that it might help some people find relief from what I kind of like to call the suckage of life. In some ways things sure seem to suck a lot worse than they did at other times in recent memory. Hate and fear are definitely palpable in the air these days. Let me assure you, though, that I dont mean for this book to be political and, really, it wont be. Suffice it to say this: Theres a lot of suffering in the world especially now.

Even so, our lives dont have to be totally miserable. Yeah, it sometimes seems theres an untenable amount of hate in the world. But even amid urgent and real global, social, and societal problems, theres stuff we can do to start to find a little peace in the here and now.

The key is love. Always has been, always will be. We need to open our hearts, standing by our brothers and sisters who are suffering. We need to try to understand those who are stuck in fear and hate and show them that theres a way out. We need to protect our earth, and each other. We need to take action.

There are many kinds of action we might take, but none of it will be possible if we dont work to cultivate kindness and compassion on all levels, beginning with ourselves and moving outward to include all beings.

That, ultimately, is what this book is about: doing that work, and being of benefit, whether the suffering we face is on the personal, private level or of a more societal, big-scale scope. All suffering is worth working to alleviate.

May we all return to our hearts and build a peaceful world for all of our brothers and sisters.

May love conquer hate.

Who Am I?

ITS A QUESTION we all need to ask ourselves. Ill get things started.

My name is Miguel Chen. I was born in Mexico and moved to the United States when I was three. I play bass in a punk-rock band called Teenage Bottlerocket. I own and teach at Blossom Yoga Studio in Laramie, Wyoming. I love dogs, horror movies, cooking/eating tacos, and watching baseball. Ive often described myself as a spiritually inclined punk rocker, walking somewhere along whats called the Middle Path. Geez this is starting to read like a dating site profile.

Thats the problem all these words describe who I am and what I am doing here, but at the end of it theyre all just words. None of these things is really who I am.

So who am I?

Im just a dude, just a person trying to navigate his way through this life like anyone else. I may be spiritually inclined, but Im no spiritual master or enlightened being. (Im not even sure such a thing exists.) I love, I get angry, I have my ups and downs like anyone else like you.

I have fucked up a lot in the past, and Im sure I will continue to do so. But I am also someone who wants to know peace and be happy. I am someone who believes we are all brothers and sisters on this earth and so I want you to be happy too. I even think that you yes, you can have a perfect day, even when everything sucks. That might sound like some hippie shit to you. Maybe it is, but I dont care. My life has taught me that we are all more connected than we think. Were part of something bigger than ourselves.

Those connections are what life is all about.

FOR AS LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER all I ever wanted was to play music, travel, and hang with my friends. After years of being in shitty bands, writing terrible songs, and basically having no idea what the fuck I was doing, things started to line up. After a series of fortunate events and a shit-ton of hard work my dream became reality.

About ten years ago, I was lucky enough to be asked to join my favorite band: Teenage Bottlerocket. Ray, Brandon, Kody, and I all loved the same music and shared the same dreams, and so we worked and worked. We lived in our van, played wherever we could, and strived to perfect our craft.

And it worked! The band gained moderate success. We went on tours all over the world, put out records on a few different labels, and got to befriend and tour with many of our favorite bands. Sure, we never sold a million records or anything, but we were living the dream and doing what wed always wanted to do.

But something seemed to be missing, and I began to suspect that seeking happiness outside of myself was a lost cause. Id traveled the world, but now it was time to journey inward.

My mother had been a spiritual person when I was growing up, but being a rebellious little jerk I decided that if my mom liked something, then it probably wasnt for me. I couldnt appreciate her wisdom and her practice. It wouldnt be until many years after her passing that spirituality made its way back into my life.

So there I was, on top of my punk-rock dreams, yet suffering deeply. I couldnt understand it. So I began to search for an answer. Two events, featuring two people and two books, were pivotal.

The first of these events wasnt exactly welcome to begin with. My close friend Bens mother decided shed had enough of my bullshit. Jean was what most of us considered the fun mom. Her son Ben and I grew up together. Their house was the place where we could stay up late, play music, and get into trouble without getting into too much of it. All that changed one day when I was running around being a little jerk, as was my tradition back then.

Jean pulled me inside and chewed my ass out. I was addicted to drama, she told me, always creating problems for myself and those around me, and it was time for me to knock that shit off. She gave me a book called The Four Agreements, made me promise to read it, and sent me on my way.

My initial reaction was, Man, fuck Jean and her book.

That feeling, thankfully, didnt last.

What I found in that book would begin to change me. After a long, slow process I realized Jean had been right: I was full of shit, I was addicted to drama, and I did need to wake up. Jean, if youre reading this, thank you.

The second event was much more welcome. TBR was out on tour with a wonderful band called the Epoxies. I made a strong connection with their lead singer, Roxy, a friendship I maintain to this day. Roxy could tell I was hurting. We would have lots of late-night talks about life, loss, happiness, and suffering. She gave me a copy of Noah Levines memoir, Dharma Punx, and it immediately spoke to me. Suddenly, Id found the meeting point between the spiritual world my mother had lovingly tried to show me and my punk-rock life.

I was hooked. Id read every book I could get my hands on, watch every video, talk to everyone I could, and spend time every single day sitting my ass down on a meditation cushion and paying attention to my breathing.