ABSTRACT
At first glance, Nate DeMontigny’s blog Precious Metal might seem atypical for a Buddhist blog (see Figure 12.1). Its logo shows a man with a shaved head and multiple tattoos, wearing a black t-shirt with a dharma-chakra on it, with two arms in a meditative gesture and two others making the “sign of the horn” or the “rock hand sign” while also holding Buddhist prayer beads and a vajra. The blog header reads: “The Road to Nirvana Is Paved with Samsara.” While the interweaving of Buddhist symbols and ritual objects with heavy metal and punk motifs might seem anomalous, in fact the merging of Buddhism with other markers of identity is quite common in Buddhist blogs.
