How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!
BRAD WARNERPeople 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.
More Brad Warner Quotes
-
-
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.
BRAD WARNER -
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.
BRAD WARNER -
As for enlightenment, that’s just for people who can’t face reality.
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 -
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.
BRAD WARNER -
True mindfulness is the awareness that everything you encounter is a vigorous expression of the same living universe as you.
BRAD WARNER -
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.
BRAD WARNER -
Just know that your expectations are only thoughts in your head, and keep on doing what you do.
BRAD WARNER -
Suffering occurs when your ideas about how things ought to be don’t match how they really are.
BRAD WARNER -
Faith keeps you going, but doubt keeps you from going off the deep end.
BRAD WARNER -
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 -
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 -
The trick to not thinking is not adding energy to the equation in an effort to forcibly stop thinking from happening. It’s more a matter of subtracting energy from the equation in order not to barf the thoughts up and start chewing them over again.
BRAD WARNER -
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.”
BRAD WARNER -
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.
BRAD WARNER