Suffering occurs when your ideas about how things ought to be don’t match how they really are.
BRAD WARNERI remember writing the post but not what I said specifically, so I’ll either repeat myself or say something completely different and baffle everybody.
More Brad Warner Quotes
-
-
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 -
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 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.
BRAD WARNER -
The state of ambiguity – that messy, greasy, mixed-up, confused, and awful situation you’re living through right now – is enlightenment itself.
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 -
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.
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 -
Just know that your expectations are only thoughts in your head, and keep on doing what you do.
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 -
True mindfulness is the awareness that everything you encounter is a vigorous expression of the same living universe as you.
BRAD WARNER -
Your role is to do and say the things that need to be done and said from your unique perspective.
BRAD WARNER -
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.
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 -
How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!
BRAD WARNER -
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.
BRAD WARNER