Brad Warner Quotes
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They really make sex into such a horrible thing and how terrible anything related to sex is, but isn't that why we're all here? We wouldn't be here at all if two people in our past hadn't been horny for each other, that's how it works. So we can't continue unless people keep being horny for each other, that's just the way it is.
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Do what you do as well as you possibly can. That's Buddhist morality.
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I'm not sure that Eastern culture does either, but I've never lived in India etc so I couldn't tell you. I can say we definitely don't. So people will sometimes come in contact with something strange and think, "Oh, it must be like this" and have a lot of fantasies about it, and somebody who sort of looks like our fantasy version of what enlightenment is can be very convincing in seeming like they've got something and then play that role.
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Now however, we have contraception and it's mostly reliable so you can have sex without that happening. So then you start vilifying the act of sex itself. I don't think Buddhism has ever done that necessarily, or at least I'm not aware of Buddhism taking the stance that Christianity often has which says that sex itself is a kind of evil act, which is a really weird idea.
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Suffering occurs when your ideas about how things ought to be don't match how they really are.
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Since then, my approach to all things spiritual is rather cynical you could say. When somebody present something to me as spiritual, my first instinct is to be cynical and think, "oh yeah, one of those again." You see so much of it see in "spiritual culture" and people get very excited about it. It's all very "hoo haw."
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I thought that deserved a book and feel like the door needs to be open so people can say, "Ok, here we go, let's deal with this" because we're not dealing with it. I'm waiting for somebody to write another book but it hasn't happened yet, though I guess mine's only been out for a year and a half.
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In the Japanese movie's they're throwing everything they have at him, every missile, but he keeps coming, he can't be stopped and that represents death. There's nothing you can do to stop it, to keep yourself from dying. You can try every trick in the book and it still won't prevent it.
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I mean somebody could write another book and say Brad's idea about Buddhism and sex is wrong, and here's mine, and that would be great. Just the fact that it would exist would be good because nobody is saying it, it's like they're trying to pretend it's not there.
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How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!
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There's also an aspect which I tried to express yesterday by saying the same "something" that looks out through Curlys eyes is also the same exact thing which looks out of Moe's eyes, and that's harder for people to grasp. So the thing is, you have to find a way to ultimately embrace both sides or else you can't function. If you only embrace the side of pure oneness then you end up sort of spacing out and sitting under a blanket.
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So I was first exposed to this guy Tim McCarthy, and he's talking about Zen, but deeper than that he was a genuine person. I thought maybe he's someone I can trust and follow this thing he's talking about all the time.
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I was living in Japan at the time, Shoko Asahara was an important figure and you could say his name and people would immediately know who you were talking about but since being back in America I've realized most people don't know who he is, which I find odd because he was far worse than Charles Manson. He killed many more people than Manson and was actually trying to kill thousands but wasn't careful enough in his process.
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The thing with the question of oneness or non-oneness is that you can literally discuss it forever. You can go into the philosophy section of any library and you'll see people have been discussing it forever and will continue to do so.
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I guess that all figures into my approach because once I start hearing the imagination land stuff that's my new phrase now I guess I tend to tune out or start laughing at it like, "Haha, you guys really believe there is a heaven."
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You can't live in paradise—but you are living right here. Make this your paradise or make this your hell. The choice is entirely yours. Really.
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There's also something that is often mistaken for enlightenment which is a kind of insanity. Often, people will have some kind of weird experience which is quite abnormal and think, "Oh my God, that's it, I understand everything" because they start seeing things in a very weird way and think that's how enlightened people see things as well.
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Just know that your expectations are only thoughts in your head, and keep on doing what you do.
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I really thought Reagan was going to push the button and blow us all up. It was scary. So when they did the 1998 American Godzilla film, Hollywood didn't understand what Godzilla was.
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Reality's all you've got. But here's the real secret, the real miracle: it's enough.
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The problem is the way we let our desires stand in the way of our enjoyment of what we already have.
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So with science, it's original idea was to ignore the spiritual or nebulous side of reality and to strictly work on concrete things. Say there's a brick which we cut it in half and then see there's two half's of a brick. If we keep cutting we can then see there's particles and so on and so forth.
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Jesus was probably a guy who thought, "This thing that I've discovered can save the world and everybody is miserable without it." So he was probably a very kind and giving person and thought he had to give it to people, even if it killed him. He had to make sure they got the message, and he paid the ultimate price as they say due to his insistence.
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Leaving home' to me means adopting the attitude that the pursuit of the truth is more vital than the pursuit of what society — your home — tells you is important.