Brad Warner Quotes

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.
BRAD WARNER

Book Sex Writing
Your role is to do and say the things that need to be done and said from your unique perspective.
BRAD WARNER

Needs Perspective Unique
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

Effort Order Thinking
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

Enlightenment People Powerful
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

Ideas Insanity People
The real goal of Zen is to find a way of life that’s easy and undramatic. Strong attachments lead to upset and drama.
BRAD WARNER

Drama Real Strong
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

Believe Land Laughing
Just know that your expectations are only thoughts in your head, and keep on doing what you do.
BRAD WARNER

Expectations Head Knows Thoughts
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

Death Life Live Understanding
As for enlightenment, that’s just for people who can’t face reality.
BRAD WARNER

Enlightenment People Reality
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

Mean People Water
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

Death Real Time
We believe Somewhere Else is out there for us if only we could find it. But there’s no Somewhere Else. Everything is right here…Make this your paradise or make this your hell. The choice is entirely yours. Really.
BRAD WARNER

Believe Choice Poetry Somewhere
How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!
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Garden Light Tree
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

Genuine Guy Person Talking
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.
BRAD WARNER

Blow Buttons Scary
You can always improve your situation. But you do so by facing it, not by running away.
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Always Away Running Situation
Reality’s all you’ve got. But here’s the real secret, the real miracle: it’s enough.
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Miracle Real Secret
The state of ambiguity – that messy, greasy, mixed-up, confused, and awful situation you’re living through right now – is enlightenment itself.
BRAD WARNER

Awful Confused Enlightenment
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.
BRAD WARNER

Believe Choices Else Somewhere
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

Cynical Long Path
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.
BRAD WARNER

Country Couple People World
True mindfulness is the awareness that everything you encounter is a vigorous expression of the same living universe as you.
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Encounters Expression Meditation
The thinking brain influences the body’s responses and it makes a neat little loop.
BRAD WARNER

Body Brain Thinking
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

Chill Littles might
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.
BRAD WARNER

Character Mean Real
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.
BRAD WARNER

Firsts Genuine Teacher

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