Utah Buddhist monk plays the blues
Jul 1, 2024, 11:11 AM | Updated: 11:52 am
SALT LAKE CITY — A Buddhist monk walks into a bar. That’s not the set-up for a punchline. For Brad Wheeler, blues musician and Buddhist monk, that’s a matter of life and death.
“Totally seem like two opposites completely, a blues man and a Buddhist monk., right? Is that what you’re saying? Yeah, they kind of are, but they kind of aren’t,” Wheeler said.
The story of how a bluesman discovered Buddhism begins with Joe McQueen, the late celebrated Ogden jazz musician. Wheeler was working at a bar on 25th Street when he met and developed an unlikely but deep friendship with McQueen, some 50-odd years his senior.
“(He)talked to me one night about what do I do for other people,” Wheeler recounted. “My answer was I worked in the bar. Joe challenging me to be more than just somebody walking through life, to do something for other people.”
Because of that conversation, Wheeler ended up becoming Ogden’s “pied piper” of the blues, teaching more than 30,000 schoolchildren to play harmonica through his own blues-in-the-schools program.
“Bad” Brad Wheeler also spent years broadcasting on Utah public radio.
In April of 2016, Wheeler was helping McQueen park his car when his 96-year-old best friend accidentally backed into him, pinning him between two cars and crushing his right leg.
“I had a moment where I thought I was going to die. It was it was existential. I’ve really thought this is it. And Joe told me he wasn’t going to let me die, and he put the tourniquet on my leg and kept me alive.,” Wheeler said.
Doctors, he said, weren’t sure they’d be able to save his leg, and, in fact, Wheeler developed gangrene and ended up in the University of Utah’s burn unit, because of the staff’s particular expertise.
Joe McQueen challenged Wheeler once again.
“(Joe McQueen said) ‘I feel horrible. I feel bad. But I think that this is happening for a reason. And I need to tell you, Brad, there is a gift in everything, including this accident,’ ” Wheeler said. “There are some things that happen to us that we don’t understand. We can’t understand in this moment. But with time and space and the ability to look back and understand where you are you realize everything is happened for a reason.”
The accident left Wheeler with deep scars, both physical and emotional. He developed post-traumatic stress disorder and experienced panic attacks, difficulty speaking, and agoraphobia. He said at times, he would break down and cry.
“Being from Ogden. I thought I could handle PTSD, it’s you know, but I was naive,” Wheeler said.
A friend witnessed Wheeler having a panic attack and signed him up for a half-day retreat at the Two Arrows Zen Center in Salt Lake City with Michael Mugaku Zimmerman Roshi, former Utah Supreme Court chief justice and cofounder of the center.
Wheeler pointed to a cushion on the floor in a center meditation room.
“I think I sat right this cushion right here, and something started to happen. I started to get relief, not just from my PTSD, but from a lot of suffering that I experience in life.”
As he learned to meditate, he calmed his brain and began to understand that he was responsible for his own suffering. In 2018 he participated in a Buddhist initiation ritual. In 2021, Wheeler was ordained as a Buddhist monk.
“I think some people wondered, like, are you different?” Wheeler said. “Can you still play the blues? I told them yeah, I’m still the same Brad. I’m just a vehicle for Buddhism now. To help people discover it, understand it, and participate in it.”
He takes vows to refrain from taking life, taking what’s not given, sexual misconduct, “wrong speech,” and abusing intoxicants, but not from playing the blues. In fact, Wheeler says he sees similarities between Buddhism and the blues.
“I’m doing the same thing when I play my harmonica. I’m trying to get into the present moment.”
“‘All the doctors you can hire, all the medicine you can buy, you got to take sick and die one of these days,” Wheeler said, quoting a Muddy Waters song. “It’s not light stuff. Life is tough, and I think a blues guy would tell you that. I think a Buddhist would tell you that, too. But it’s also beautiful.”
“I think they’re both dealing with the transmutation of suffering.”
The monk lives as if he’s going to die. The bluesman plays as if every song is his last.
“(Joe) put me on a track where the rest of my life was going to be for the greater good of all.
“Joe knew everybody had a burden and he was trying to help me lay my burden down. And that’s what I’m trying to do for others because we all suffer. And it sucks. And it hurts. You don’t want to see anybody suffer. There’s so much to be grateful for. We’re so lucky we’re sitting here having those conversations. Life’s gonna be over like that. All we have is this.”