This unique book offers Buddhist dharma (teaching) in not only lyrical, but hip-hop, form. Chapter 8, “Practice,” begins:
“love is patience
love is grace and
both of these are
understatements
be the mountain
be the ocean
be forgiven
be devotion”
The author, known as Born I, also teaches under his given name, Ofosu Jones-Quartey. He is a Black man who grew up in and around Washington, DC. You may have come across him as a meditation teacher; he’s taught and led retreats at the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, Insight Meditation Society, Spirit Rock, and Brooklyn Zen Center, to name a few.
His book is often confessional, as in this portion of a rap:
“I must’ve cried at least a hundred
thousand times
attempted suicide a couple times
saved by the power
when understanding and love
combine”
Frequent illustrations and photos accompany pages of lyrics. Some photos are clearly personal to the author, including one of him with one of his children in his arms.
These are coupled with prose reflections, some of which go into detail about the sources and background of the hip-hop — for example, bodhisattvas, the Heart Sutra and Bhagavad Gita, certain Zen teachers, and reflections on blackness. A preface explains: “The lyrics in this book and the stories behind them are expressions of my life as a human walking on, drifting from, and returning to the path of transforming intense suffering into liberation of the mind, body, and heart, again and again. They are the stories of my life.”
Novelist Alice Walker contributes a short foreword.
It is a profound book — a lesson that hip-hop, in gifted hands, can be not just art, but a rich source of contemplative wisdom.
