Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
It may look like we're doing nothing when we sit zazen. But actually we are exposing ourselves to ourselves.
Brad Warner
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Brad Warner
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: March 5
Author
OshÅ
Writer
Akron
Ohio
May
Look
Nothing
Looks
Like
Exposing
Actually
More quotes by Brad Warner
I used to worry when I was a teenager, even into my twenties, after I'd heard something about schizophrenia and how people just suddenly become schizophrenic that I was insane.
Brad Warner
It's sort of another innovation, probably a good innovation, of Western culture to separate the ideas between science and philosophy, but it's important to remember they weren't always separate realms of inquiry.
Brad Warner
The real goal of Zen is to find a way of life that's easy and undramatic. Strong attachments lead to upset and drama.
Brad Warner
Real morality is based on a single criterion: right action, appropriate action, in the present moment and present situation.
Brad Warner
the only real time as far as Buddhism is concerned is right now. Right now there is no old age or death because old age and death are descriptions of things as they are now when we compare them to things as they used to be.
Brad Warner
Those who hope for purity and righteousness always try and destroy that which disturbs them. They think the disturbance comes from outside themselves. This is a serious problem. Wars, suicide bombings, and all sorts of other nasty things start from the premise that we can destroy 'evil' outside ourselves without dealing with the evil within.
Brad Warner
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.
Brad Warner
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.
Brad Warner
Truly compassionate action arises spontaneously without thought and is carried out in real action with no anticipation of reward and, indeed, no concept of a doer of that action.
Brad Warner
How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!
Brad Warner
Disappointment is just the action of your brain readjusting itself to reality after discovering things are not the way you thought they were.
Brad Warner
Morality is a personal matter.
Brad Warner
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.
Brad Warner
Consider this: 1. Would you ride in a car whose driver was on the consciousness-expanding entheogenic drug LSD? And here's a bonus question: 2. Why does an expanded consciousness include the inability to operate a motor vehicle?
Brad Warner
The fact is that there is a contradiction going on but our brains don't like contradiction. So when Moe hits Curly on the head with a sledgehammer and Curly says, ow and Moe says, Serves you right Numbskull, you can say that's because they're separate beings, and that's true.
Brad Warner
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.
Brad Warner
It's crazy to me how concerned people get with what it looks like and what you can do there. People may as well be talking about JRR Tolkien or Star Trek or something.
Brad Warner
But people do the same thing with the Bible. They memorize all the fictional characters, the parameters and the rules of the game and think it's important, but I can't get excited about that myself.
Brad Warner
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.
Brad Warner
Do what you do as well as you possibly can. That's Buddhist morality.
Brad Warner