You can always improve your situation. But you do so by facing it, not by running away.
BRAD WARNERThe state of ambiguity – that messy, greasy, mixed-up, confused, and awful situation you’re living through right now – is enlightenment itself.
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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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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The state of ambiguity – that messy, greasy, mixed-up, confused, and awful situation you’re living through right now – is enlightenment itself.
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The real goal of Zen is to find a way of life that’s easy and undramatic. Strong attachments lead to upset and drama.
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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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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.
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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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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 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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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.
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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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How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!
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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.
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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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Do what you do as well as you possibly can. That’s Buddhist morality.
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