Reality’s all you’ve got. But here’s the real secret, the real miracle: it’s enough.
BRAD WARNERZen 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.
More Brad Warner Quotes
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We always imagine that there’s got to be somewhere else better than where we are right now; this is the Great Somewhere Else we all carry around in our heads.
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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.
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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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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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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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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.
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Faith keeps you going, but doubt keeps you from going off the deep end.
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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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The thinking brain influences the body’s responses and it makes a neat little loop.
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How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!
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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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You can always improve your situation. But you do so by facing it, not by running away.
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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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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







