This podcast went longer than most of our podcasts because we just couldn't stop asking Guo Gu questions. He recently published Silent Illumination: A Chan Buddhist Path to Natural Awakening by Shambhala Publications. We talk about meditation methods, his life and how he began meditating at such a young age. We discuss his teenage years (his mother took him to a Zen master and asked him how to make him "more Buddhist") and his stint as a bassist in a 1980s hardcore punk band.