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 WARNERA 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.
More Brad Warner Quotes
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As for enlightenment, that’s just for people who can’t face reality.
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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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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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Just know that your expectations are only thoughts in your head, and keep on doing what you do.
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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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How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!
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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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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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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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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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Your role is to do and say the things that need to be done and said from your unique perspective.
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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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I really thought Reagan was going to push the button and blow us all up. It was scary. So when they did the 1998 American Godzilla film, Hollywood didn’t understand what Godzilla was.
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Do what you do as well as you possibly can. That’s Buddhist morality.
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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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