Buddhism for Dummies

When I was little I was scared of earthquakes

Out in California that's where the earth shakes

Techtronic motion, it was terrifying

I'd think of windows breaking and I'd think of people dying

The Bay Bridge collapsed in 1989

Richter scale 6.8, buildings shook a real long time

I was in the other room when I heard my mother scream

Thought adults were invincible it wasn't what it seemed

15 seconds later there were dozens left dead

I'd get scared at night and climb into my parents' bed

I still get chills when I see photographs

Of the freeways that were cracked and the buildings that collapsed

So I'd act out in class shaking other people's desks

Yelling "Earthquake!", to cope with the stress

Using comedy, like I still do today

20 years later nightmares haven't gone away

Impermanence, what you gonna do about it?

Impermanence, run for your life? I doubt it

Impermanence, I think about it every single day

Everything falls apart, nothing you can do or say

There was an Oakland Hills fire in 1991

People burned to death, I was very young

They evacuated us to my grandparents' house

We grabbed the cat and dog in the Volvo we were out

Turned the news on, it was terrifying

I was freaked out and my mom was crying

And my sister too, but grandma turned it off

She said, "Is this something that we really need to watch?"

One thing I remember so clearly to this day

Is an image in my head that won't seem to go away

A car was crushed, a doll was melting on the seat

The burnt black eyes were all that I could see

Some nights I can't sleep, I still see her face

Her eyes they still haunt me, I'm stuck in that place

I try to make it go away, all I think of is the flames

That week was so traumatic, I've never been the same

I was leaving for college, my dad woke me up

He said, "We've been attacked," and sure enough

Terrorists had hit the World Trade Center

The Pentagon too, I clearly remember

Sitting with my mom, now she was quiet

It was raining bodies, dripping down the sidewalk

Ten years later our economy's in crisis

Bin Laden and his boys, they were not the nicest

The earth is so alive so expect defenestration

Constantly evolving decimating antiquation

Collapsing new buildings, einsturzende neubauten

The cities will all crumble when man has been forgotten

The Buddhists believed that change is eternal

Heraclitus thought that the world is an inferno

One day we're here and the next we're gone,

Impermanence, that's the point of this song