Real morality is based on a single criterion: right action, appropriate action, in the present moment and present situation.
BRAD WARNERI 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.
More Brad Warner Quotes
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Do what you do as well as you possibly can. That’s Buddhist morality.
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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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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.
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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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Faith keeps you going, but doubt keeps you from going off the deep end.
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The thinking brain influences the body’s responses and it makes a neat little loop.
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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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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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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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How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!
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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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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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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.
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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