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 WARNERWhat 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.
More Brad Warner Quotes
-
-
Just know that your expectations are only thoughts in your head, and keep on doing what you do.
BRAD WARNER -
Reality’s all you’ve got. But here’s the real secret, the real miracle: it’s enough.
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 -
Suffering occurs when your ideas about how things ought to be don’t match how they really are.
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 -
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 -
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 -
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.
BRAD WARNER -
Do what you do as well as you possibly can. That’s Buddhist morality.
BRAD WARNER -
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 -
You can always improve your situation. But you do so by facing it, not by running away.
BRAD WARNER -
The thinking brain influences the body’s responses and it makes a neat little loop.
BRAD WARNER -
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 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 -
The state of ambiguity – that messy, greasy, mixed-up, confused, and awful situation you’re living through right now – is enlightenment itself.
BRAD WARNER