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Buddha might be the one thing that could settle Godzilla down. He might say, Listen Godzilla, you don't have to do all this. Just chill out a little bit and everything will be fine.
Brad Warner
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Brad Warner
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: March 5
Author
OshÅ
Writer
Akron
Ohio
Bits
Littles
Godzilla
Little
Chill
Might
Buddha
Everything
Settle
Thing
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Listen
Fine
More quotes by 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
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.
Brad Warner
A lot of seriously insane people have managed to acquire huge followings based on the idea that their insanity is a kind of enlightenment. An obvious example would be Charles Manson or Shoko Asahara who is the person responsible for the Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway.
Brad Warner
Buddhists have a long-standing tradition of believing that at some level we always know what the best course of action is in any given situation. We just have to be quiet enough to let that course of action present itself to us. And we need the confidence to act when life shows us what we need to do.
Brad Warner
At times, Zen does get into some Buddhist Cosmology. Nishijima Roshi, my main teacher would talk about that and almost every time immediately say that it was only one way of looking at it. Whenever addressing realms of Heaven or Hell, he'd also address that it was just a psychological state.
Brad Warner
Real morality is based on a single criterion: right action, appropriate action, in the present moment and present situation.
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
Suffering occurs when your ideas about how things ought to be don't match how they really are.
Brad Warner
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.
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
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
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.
Brad Warner
Do what you do as well as you possibly can. That's Buddhist morality.
Brad Warner
Reality's all you've got. But here's the real secret, the real miracle: it's enough.
Brad Warner
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.
Brad Warner
Everything you have, whether it's money or stuff, is an obligation. It is as much your duty to care for and nurture any object you own as it would be if that object were your child. All possessions come with responsibilities. More possessions equals greater responsibility.
Brad Warner
It may look like we're doing nothing when we sit zazen. But actually we are exposing ourselves to ourselves.
Brad Warner
People will come and give you sandwiches every six hours but you're really of no use. A lot of people get excited about guys like that but I can't get too excited about it because I think he's sorta useless. He's just sitting there in India under a blanket looking beautiful, so what.
Brad Warner
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.
Brad Warner
