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 WARNERBuddha 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”.
More Brad Warner Quotes
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Zen practice is about not getting high on anything and in so doing getting high on absolutely everything. We then find that everything we encounter – bliss or nonbliss – possesses a tremendous depth and beauty that we usually miss.
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Your role is to do and say the things that need to be done and said from your unique perspective.
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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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Reality’s all you’ve got. But here’s the real secret, the real miracle: it’s enough.
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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.
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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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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”.
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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.
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As for enlightenment, that’s just for people who can’t face reality.
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I remember writing the post but not what I said specifically, so I’ll either repeat myself or say something completely different and baffle everybody.
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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.
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People imagine enlightenment will make them incredibly powerful. And it does. It makes you the most powerful being in all the universe- but usually no one else notices.
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The thinking brain influences the body’s responses and it makes a neat little loop.
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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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You won’t understand life and death until you’re ready to set aside any hope of understanding life and death and just live your life until you die.
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I mean, I can do that all day long. I can tell you the Vulcan’s are not actually devoid of emotion. That they work hard to suppress their emotions. And of course, there actually are no real Vulcan’s, though I know the ins and outs of them as fictional characters.
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Real morality is based on a single criterion: right action, appropriate action, in the present moment and present situation.
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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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I mean Godzilla is eternally pissed off at everything but of course he’s gonna be because every time he pops out of the water for a look around somebody is firing a missile at him. Buddha would probably have to act as a mediator between the people and Godzilla.
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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.
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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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Faith keeps you going, but doubt keeps you from going off the deep end.
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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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Do what you do as well as you possibly can. That’s Buddhist morality.
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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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You can always improve your situation. But you do so by facing it, not by running away.
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