The Zen of Dropping Out: 3 Agorist Keys for Leaving an Evil Society

Treat every moment as your last. It is not preparation for something else.

—Shunryu Suzuki

The crux of many libertarians’ struggle today is this: I want to have my cake, but legally. And vote for it, too. But freedom doesn’t work that way. Freedom is inextricably tied to risk and responsibility, and political processes only pawn this off down the line onto someone else, delaying the inevitable, and giving a false sense of security to participants. After all, if you merely vote for gun rights, the state can’t really hold it against you because you used the system. If you merely vote for cannabis to be legal, so you can stop your child’s seizures, for example, you cannot be jailed.

Afraid to step into direct action to any degree whatsoever, scared libertarians will ultimately find themselves in the exact same place as those who outright break the law: face-to-face with a cruel and merciless state that doesn’t give a single fleeting thought as to the possible value of your life. Difference being, those bold enough to stand for what they know to be true now, will be much better prepared for the fallout, and living a life they and their progeny won’t be ashamed of, while even Libertarian statists will be shocked to see the system they supported so earnestly turn to eat them alive, after a lifetime of groveling before it. One must drop out. Not protest. Not vote for change. Not beg a master. Just escape the palace walls.

Dropping Out, Zen-Style

Many understandably balk at suggestions of direct action and living free now, choosing instead to push buttons in a voting booth, or ask self-appointed caretakers to make all their hard decisions for them. Begging to be left alone where these very same sociopaths are intentionally making their lives insufferable. It’s understandable, because we know what thoseidentifying themselves as ‘the state,’ do. They kill people. They crush human life. They torch whole buildings full of families. Shoot mothers holding newborn babies — cage innocent men, women, and children for no reason other than arbitrary decree. They splatter the brains of infants and keep right on smiling and laughing. These people are not human, in a very real sense, but devils.

The fearful libertarian shirking of self-responsibility nonetheless creates big problems. Reality doesn’t care about your feelings, or fear. In one sense, nature doesn’t concern itself at all with what is ‘fair’ or ‘right’. It simply is. The cancerous tumor in your brain isn’t going away because you are a good person. The pounding pain of a toothache won’t abate just because you brush your teeth and stop eating sweets. Mandatory vaccination, gun grabbing, and other constitutional violations are not stopped because you voted Libertarian in some meaningless election, run by the same psychos. Refusing to see a skilled doctor with correct knowledge and tools, and not taking proven steps to remove these problems, means they will finally meet you face to face later, in a much more painful — and potentially deadly — fashion.

Further, you can’t cure a headache with the same hammer that caused it. The state isn’t going to eliminate itself via its own mechanisms which were expressly designed to preserve the state’s being in the first place. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too, in other words. And another, more-crude-but-immediate maxim is: you can’t make ice cream out of shit. Those too afraid to stand up to power today, in whatever small or large way, will force their children to do so tomorrow. But how does one do this standing up, and what in hell does Zen Buddhism have to do with it? Well, what follows are three keys that can help unlock anyone’s inner anarchist, and (in my view) lead to a happier, more fulfilling life as well, right now.  After all, if one isn’t realizing freedom in the present, there’s no happiness to be had, and no freedom in the future, either.

1. Awareness: Accepting Yourself

The Buddha is a shit-wiping stick.

Dropping out and leaving statism (including Libertarian statism) is easy in a sense, because it all starts with your tiniest thoughts. American jazz poet and musician Gil Scott Heron once clarified that his  legendary song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” wasn’t talking about TV coverage of a physical event or revolution at all. It was talking about an internal transformation. Awareness, in other words. “That was about the fact that the first change that takes place is in your mind,” Heron said in an interview.

If the reader will indulge me with a personal anecdote here: I can remember very clearly, sitting at a red light in my car soon after making the jump from libertarian statist to full-on anarchist, and having my own little untelevised revolution. No one coming for miles, waiting there frustrated, I realized that if I used my own eyes and senses and went safely through that intersection, I could be ticketed and forced to pay money, or be kidnapped and locked away in a cage if I refused. It was as if a ceramic enclosure around my brain cracked, shattered, and then fell away to reveal a glowing filament as in a light bulb. A flash of understanding. I saw clearly that I was viewed as the property of someone else. I had paid for that road. I paid for that traffic light. I was forced to. But to use my own senses and my own car to navigate on that paid-for road was a crime, and a camera on the traffic light would incriminate me, even if no one was harmed by my action of proceeding down the street.

When things blindly accepted and revered by the masses are reduced to what they actually are, programming and propaganda drop away with no effort. This I think, is the basis for the Zen saying: “The Buddha is a shit-wiping stick.” Shocked and perplexed, the religious hearer of this proclamation has to face reality. If buddha nature is everywhere, it extends even to the bark you use to wipe your ass. That’s it. Plain and simple, practical and useful. Similarly, when the gilded temples and polished edifices of the state are viewed soberly, they’re reduced to the murder monuments built with stolen loot they are. One may be delusional enough to worship an image of ‘patriotic holiness,’ but the reality is the whole thing is covered in blood. The shit-wiping stick is of course much more valuable than this, and infinitely cleaner. And just as the idolization of the concept ‘Buddha’ can lead the Zen adherent astray from reality, disrupting his practice, so can the idolization of the state sully an otherwise sane person’s thinking.

To bring this to practical, immediate terms, the first thing to do if you want to be totally free is to accept yourself unconditionally. Be a passive observer of your thoughts and feelings, withholding moralizing judgement. You’ll begin to see why you are how you are, why you believe what you do, why you do what you do, and toxic assumptions and parasitic beliefs you’re host to will fall away on their own. With them, statism and its cancerous vestiges. With them, shame and abuse and self-hatred and all the other forces that give unnecessary suffering life. Logical fallacies evaporate, peeling things back closer and closer to the center of the onion, leaving only reality. A reality that is beyond all labels such as libertarian, voluntaryist, leftist, democrat, republican, black, white, trans, gay, etc. It simply is. It favors the individual, too. But don’t take my word for it.

Another Zen proverb: “You see what you are thinking and feeling, seldom what you are looking at.” Think of the rabid BLM protestor screaming and shrieking like an animal, mobbing cars navigated by old ladies. A pure divorce from reality, isn’t it? Self-acceptance reveals the happiness you already have underneath, that literally is you. With this discovery, comes real, positive change. Pile on delusion, and there is only more suffering. And in the end, more statism. Pretty damn Zen, if you ask me.

2. Reconnect With Nature, Learn to Survive

The fifth patriarch of Zen was once a pine-planting wayfarer; Rinzai worked on planting cedars and pines on Mount Obaku. . . . Working with plants, trees, fences and walls, if they practice sincerely they will attain enlightenment.

—Dōgen, Awakening the Unsurpassed Mind, No. 31

As mask mandates, brutal lockdowns, and systematic destruction of whole economies is the Orwellian order of the day, escaping to woods or mountains isn’t just a distant consideration for libertarians anymore, or a water cooler joke for the cubicle serfs in the city centers. As Zen Buddhist (okay, not really) entertainer Cardi B. said back when this all was getting started, in March: shit is getting real. And it truly has. So the time has finally come to grab that stick, wipe the shit away, and draw one’s line in the dirt.

For many libertarians this final straw will be the impending vaccine mandate for travel, commerce, and other social activity. For those not comfortable with permanently altering their DNA by way of an untested RNA vaccine, this means it’s time to consider the construction of new communities in rural or wilderness areas that are self-sufficient, and able to function outside government purview. More immediately, it means it’s time to learn to hide, and survive alone. If you look at most city dwellers — and even people in rural areas nowadays — it’s clear many will wind up dead rather quickly, left to their own devices outside.

Luckily, there are some great resources on Youtube and elsewhere teaching nature newbs how to survive outdoors. Even to live in harmony with the wilderness, and all the perils and opportunities it presents to the challenge of starting again from nothing. Permaculture, gardening, farming and homesteading are becoming increasingly popular topics. It can’t hurt to view one or two of these videos now and then, and to start working on a bug-out bag for when it’s time to go. Topics range from making rope, fishing hooks, and baskets, to starting a fire and making water filters from grass and rocks. While the young zen monk still has internet access, it may be wise to use it.

As the Zen tradition acknowledges, natural phenomena reflect our own nature as human beings. The more we can observe nature, and live with it — not being opposed to life itself, as the state is — the more decentralized societies will be enabled, to be built from the ground up (not the top down) having room to grow, innovate, thrive and flourish healthily beyond even the most daring visions for any statist analog. Humans can only flourish, however, if nature is respected, and by extension, individual self-ownership. It’s only you that can tell when you are hungry, after all. Only you that can feel your own pleasure or pain. No one else. The single tree knows best how to bend and grow and get the most sunlight while growing amongst all the others. The river doesn’t need D.C. directives to arrive at its sea. Try telling everyone around you what to eat and when, how much and what they must pay, or what they can or cannot trade for that sustenance, and chaos emerges. As ridiculous as telling a tree how to grow.

3. Network With Other Buddhas, and Kill Your Idols

Where there are humans,

You’ll find flies,

And Buddhas.

—Kobayashi Issa

In anarchy, there is no king. The ‘king’ goes without saying as a universal property norm which affords any and all individuals a level playing field to start from. No one is special. And everyone is.

Anarchists, agorists, and voluntaryists seek to get as close as possible to philosophically harmonizing with — and building upon — the nature of reality itself. There is no antiquated and oppressive concept like ‘divine right to rule,’ where a person or group of persons decides arbitrarily they own vast swathes of land, or get to dictate how a whole population of other individuals in a certain area must live. Such actions potentiate violent conflict, and as such, are a non-starter. Indeed, statism makes such violence inevitable. Animals may do things like ravaging competing groups and destroying them regardless of nests being built, territorial markings, etc., but if the goal for us humans is minimizing violence, this animalistic way of being will not do. If the goal for humans is not minimizing violence, then there is no point to this conversation in the first place. Also very Zen. No reason. No point.

So there are no kings. No idols. No ‘Gods’ as such. Just reality. Just what is. In the Zen Buddhist tradition there is a famous koan, or riddle: “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him”. In other words, get rid of any silly, delusional image of perfection that hinders your path toward satori. Enlightenment. Freedom.

Politicians tear many away from their own path to freedom and self-sufficiency with empty campaign promises dangled down like sugar-coated poison from a fishing pole. The Libertarian Party is a humongous ‘Buddha in the road,’ as well, and sadly its own incessant dumpster fire existence hasn’t managed to burn itself out yet. This circles back to the opening of the article, discussing those who are so afraid of risk they search for a kind of ‘liberty-lite’ lifestyle with no responsibility or self-ownership. It will never work. Kill the Buddha and get on with your life. Soon you will have no choice, anyway.

As the reader knows all too well, the recent covid19 madness has already served to break down society on so many levels, that coming to the aid of our ‘fellow buddhas’ is vital. From offering a simple smile to a non-masked stranger, providing a space to vent for those worn down by the brainwashed zombies surrounding them (not to mention watching the whole world collapse in real time as the specter of totalitarianism swiftly closes in), to networking privately for the creation of unschooling groups, barter opportunities, and even the building of brand new agorist communities, connection is key. While running off to the woods alone sounds nice, and might be necessary, as social animals we still thrive in community and even the most introverted of introverts likely benefits from some human connection now and again.

Living together with others also affords greater defensive capabilities. More ideas. More weapons.

Are You Prepared to Die?

That’s a silly question. Who could be prepared for something unknown? As Zen master Dōgen Zenji remarks: “It’s too late to be ready.”

Indeed, the hour is past late. Suicide rates are climbing. Masses are locked inside their homes, prevented from leaving by men with guns called the state. Literal millions of impoverished children are starving to death right now from the economic fallout the shutdowns have created. Media-fueled, government-created race wars are dividing nations, cash is being eliminated in favor of surveillance currencies, pseudo-science and snake oil medicine are pedaled as great scientific progress, and all this said to be connected to a virus that doesn’t kill more than the flu, prefers to spread only at events with specific political affiliations, kills people post-gunshot death, and about which the so-called experts cannot seem to make up their damned minds. Worse yet, the masses follow blindly along with these gaslit, nonsensical, ever-shifting, agenda-driven narratives based on magical thinking, word salad gibberish, and have even become violent toward those who so much as ask questions. I have to laugh at the absurdity of it all, but it’s tragic. Probably beyond expression.

I know my time may be coming soon. I won’t be getting vaccinated with the experimental drug. I won’t let them do it to my family, either. I don’t wear a mask in public. I refuse to do something just for the sake of making others feel comfortable in a delusion. Especially such an inhumane and dangerous one. In Tokyo two weeks ago, I was nearly the only human in the subway without a mask. A young mother boarded the train with her small daughter, looked at me intensely, then quickly pulled the girl’s small, black cloth mask up above her nostrils. With mass hysteria like this taking over, one only needs to look at history to guess what’s coming next. It’s probably not pretty.

Though endless wars have been raging for decades, and poverty and starvation have been ever-present around the globe, they’re usually pretty far removed from our cozy, lavish life in the castle of the developed world. Now all of that self-responsibility that has been pushed off onto the evil, catch-all abstraction called ‘government’ is coming back to land squarely on our heads, though, in a crushing blow. Like a landslide. Or a massive boulder from a great height. The well-known story of Buddha’s journey to enlightenment is one of choosing to leave the lavish life of the castle behind, to see suffering firsthand, outside the palace walls. He made the choice to see it. But no matter what, it’s a reality all will come to face sooner, or later. Palace servants and court jesters included. The tumor is now pushing against the walls of our skulls. The lightning-flash, searing pain of the abscess tooth has now become unbearable. The doctor’s visit may not be pleasant, but there’s not much of a choice anymore: It’s liberty, or slavery. When the news and biblical doomsday prophecies about frozen commerce and a one world religion start to line up, one has to pay attention.

Life is now. Is life as a soulless slave really worth living?

The Agorist Answer

Whenever anyone is ready to take a bit of freedom back, there are the woods, there is the river, there are cryptocurrencies, there are under the table jobs, there are illegal medicines, there are privacy-enhancing chat protocols, there are farmer’s markets, there is unlicensed work to be done, there are lakes to be fished, ‘public’ land to be camped and taken back, forgetful reporting of funds,refusal to pay for war, to be a cop, to be a soldier, to be a public school teacher, to wear a mask, to snitch on a neighbor. There are files to be shared, oceans to be explored, stories to be told, communities to be built, love and compassion to be shown to those in pain, meditation for peace and clarity, debate for greater understanding. All of these are antithetical to the state, in my opinion, and all of these reflect our true nature, which is not that of evil, immoral brutes hellbent only on exploitation, pilfer, and pillage, but that of human beings. At once ‘divine’ here on planet earth, and humbly animal, as well.

Refined self-interest says: I can get what I want through ideas, persuasion, and trade, and not through force. If I want my body and property respected, I must respect that of others. If not, chaos ensues as the social norm, and nobody has anything in the end, as we all struggle to club and steal from one another. Beyond this reasoning and underlying it, is the deeper logic of love, but of course this is beyond what I could hope to explain. Self-sacrifice. Laughter. Tears. Joy. Goosebumps. Brotherhood. Sisterhood. Music.

It doesn’t matter, though. What we know is enough. We don’t want violence. The objective way to get there is a property norm based on reality. The reality is that resources are scarce but we all need them to live. If the norm doesn’t apply equally to all, conflict emerges for these resources more easily. If the norm does apply universally to all individuals — and not just unequally to privileged kings, cops and politicians — conflict is less likely. If one doesn’t value minimizing violence in the first place, one doesn’t belong in society with me.

This is getting long. I’ll end with a Zen koan of my own:

How can one own oneself?