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 WARNERSuffering occurs when your ideas about how things ought to be don’t match how they really are.
More Brad Warner Quotes
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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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Faith keeps you going, but doubt keeps you from going off the deep end.
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We believe Somewhere Else is out there for us if only we could find it. But there’s no Somewhere Else. Everything is right here…Make this your paradise or make this your hell. The choice is entirely yours. Really.
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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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So he [Shoko Asahara] was insane but managed to convince a couple thousand people that he was enlightened. Western culture, which Japan is now definitely a part of, doesn’t have an understanding of what Enlightenment is.
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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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True mindfulness is the awareness that everything you encounter is a vigorous expression of the same living universe as you.
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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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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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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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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 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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Just know that your expectations are only thoughts in your head, and keep on doing what you do.
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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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