Brad Warner Quotes
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I think real enlightenment is total sanity, a kind of acceptance of what actually is. It does involve a kind of different way of looking at things. As I've done this Zen practice for years and years, I've acquired what I realize is an almost upside down view of life compared to what most people think, which is just what I used to think it was too. It's not really an insane view, at least I hope it's not.
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One of the things I regret about not putting in that book or I think it's there but I didn't really elaborate on it, is contraception. I came across someone who articulated very clearly that one of the things which makes our approach to Buddhist practice in regards to sex different these days than it was in Buddhist times, is the simple existence of reliable contraception, which is a no brainer but I missed really addressing it in the book.
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Buddhism is all about finding your own way, not imitating the ways of others or even the ways of Buddha himself.
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Disappointment is just the action of your brain readjusting itself to reality after discovering things are not the way you thought they were.
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So I'm skeptical and cynical about the whole thing and it's only if something seems to be genuine that I would pursue it. That's why I've stuck with Zen for so long and not gone on to some other path with it.
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Much of the hatred and fear of sexuality found in religions stems from the idea that sex is a thing of the body and that the body must be denied so that the spirit may be elevated. In Buddhism there is no notion that the body is made of inferior matter while the spirit flies free within.
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True mindfulness is the awareness that everything you encounter is a vigorous expression of the same living universe as you.
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The state of ambiguity - that messy, greasy, mixed-up, confused, and awful situation you're living through right now - is enlightenment itself.
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Godzilla also represents the fear of nuclear annihilation, which was something that was big in my mind at the time. It was something that the people of this forthcoming generation haven't had to live with, but people around my age grew up with the idea that we could all be blown up at any minute. That's also what got me into hardcore music.
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I never really got around to discussing that specific topic which I think it crucially important to understand. If you were a monk in Buddhist time and you had sex, there was a good chance a child would be conceived.
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For a very long time science and philosophy were considered part of the same continuum and it was only within the last few hundred years they've been considered different areas of inquiry, and now we're starting to go back to the idea that maybe they aren't two separate realms of inquiry.
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The obvious example would be Jesus. Jesus is an object of fascination for me. He's an interesting historical character because we don't know much about him. He seems to be a guy who was in touch with something deeper than most people around him were and someone who was very concerned with trying to communicate that.
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Well it's always been an interesting area for me. In referencing something I just reread from Dogen it says, "Enlightenment doesn't break the person anymore than the reflection breaks the water" and Suzuki in his commentary is saying you don't lose your personality once you acquire some sort of Buddhist understanding.
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As for enlightenment, that's just for people who can't face reality.
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Compassion is the ability to see what needs doing right now and the willingness to do it right now.
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No matter what we predict for our futures, we're always wrong anyway. The only sensible thing to do is to live this life as it is right now. Leave what happens after you die till after you die.
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What attracted me to Zen was my first teacher, Tim McCarthy. He was extremely genuine. It wasn't even really a Zen thing, that sort of came along later.
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I think the understanding of oneness and interconnectivity of the whole Universe is something we have innately, something we're born with. We are however very skillful at ignoring and pretending we don't have or know it.
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I was very attracted to the way that Zen did not go into the imagination land. And now I've forgotten what your first question was and how we were going to tie this together.
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Zazen isn't about blissing out or going into an alpha brain-wave trance. It's about facing who and what you really are, in every single goddamn moment. And you aren't bliss, I'll tell you that right now. You're a mess. We all are.
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The real goal of Zen is to find a way of life that's easy and undramatic. Strong attachments lead to upset and drama.
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So what I liked about Zen was that it never goes off into the realm of imagination land, or if it does occasionally, the good teachers will openly address it specifically as only imagination. Both of my teachers were very good at that.
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If you want to believe in reincarnation, you have to believe that this life, what you're living through right now, is the afterlife. You're missing out on the afterlife you looked forward to in your last existence by worrying about your next life. This is what happens after you die. Take a look.
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Sometimes people pick up pet worries that they'll entertain themselves with and that was my big one. So as far as thinking about what that means, one of the definitions of insanity is that you lose your ability to communicate to anybody because your frames of reference have become so different from the rest of the world that you can't communicate anymore.