Brad Warner's latest blog

Here it is:

www.hardcorezen.blogspot.com/

Okay, I don't know if I agree or not with what he is saying (there is a zen context to his comments which are about a lot of things I've NEVER understood) but I just love the way he is so consistently disagreeable. It's a good read.

Sit down and shutup (his second book) was a big deal in getting me to do just that.

I dunno. Isn't maligning makyo just the flip-side of making it into a big deal. Notice, also, that he seems to have adopted a badge-of-honor kind of approach to the difficulties he faced on the retreat--he went into great detail about the mosquitoes and about how hard it was to stare at the ******* wall all day, as he put it. It's an ass-backwards way of doing, with difficult stuff, exactly the same thing he accuses others of doing with breakthrough experiences. Just my two cents...

"I dunno. Isn't maligning makyo just the flip-side of making it into a big deal. Notice, also, that he seems to have adopted a badge-of-honor kind of approach to the difficulties he faced on the retreat--he went into great detail about the mosquitoes and about how hard it was to stare at the ******* wall all day, as he put it. It's an ass-backwards way of doing, with difficult stuff, exactly the same thing he accuses others of doing with breakthrough experiences. Just my two cents..."

I know, he IS confounding, right? But, fun and provocative to read, I think.

Yeah, I agree with the spirit, if not the letter.

Something about this post felt amiss.

Is kensho/satori the whole point of practicing dharma? No, I don't think so.

Does that mean that kensho/satori has nothing to do with practicing dharma? No, I don't think so.

Is it likely that little Brad is somehow more wise than Bankei, Hakuin, Bodhidharma, Huineng, or any of the other great Zen Masters? No, I don't think so.

Is Brad right to downplay the importance of peak experiences? I suppose it is, but perhaps not to the enth degree, as he does in this article.

My two cents.

Downplaying peak experiences seems to be one of his primary rants. Along with attacking Genpo Roshi and "Big Mind."
He layed out all his reasons once in a blog called "satori porn," I'll see if I can find it.

it's on suicide girls (bonus!)

suicidegirls.com/news/culture/23675/

Unfortunately for me, the suicide girls page is NSFW. I'll read it from home

I see Brad Warner as a social critic and gadfly, and he can be very entertaining. What I haven't seen from him yet, though, is teaching; and that's what I would most like to see. If he has genuine understanding of his own, it will extend beyond the mere recognition that everyone else is doing it wrong. Socrates, for example, was both a self-proclaimed "gadfly" and a great teacher. And although most of us will not approach Socrates' level of brilliance in either department, he set a good example of how to use social critique as a way to set up your own teaching.

So far, Warner has succeeded in promoting himself and in diminishing others. Whether he has helped anyone is unclear.

"I see Brad Warner as a social critic and gadfly, and he can be very entertaining. What I haven't seen from him yet, though, is teaching; and that's what I would most like to see. If he has genuine understanding of his own, it will extend beyond the mere recognition that everyone else is doing it wrong. Socrates, for example, was both a self-proclaimed "gadfly" and a great teacher. And although most of us will not approach Socrates' level of brilliance in either department, he set a good example of how to use social critique as a way to set up your own teaching.

So far, Warner has succeeded in promoting himself and in diminishing others. Whether he has helped anyone is unclear.

"

I think he does see himself as more of a self-promoting professional author than as a standard zen teacher.
But, "sit down and shut up" is pretty educational.

"Unfortunately for me, the suicide girls page is NSFW. I'll read it from home "

There's nothing on the page I linked that's nsfw, but the site is probably blocked for a lot of people.

There's also a buddhist geeks podcast that revolves around that article if you want to check that out:
personallifemedia.com/podcasts/236-buddhist-geeks/episodes/48659-pop-buddhism-satori

"There's nothing on the page I linked that's nsfw, but the site is probably blocked for a lot of people.

There's also a buddhist geeks podcast that revolves around that article if you want to check that out:
personallifemedia.com/podcasts/236-buddhist-geeks/episodes/48659-pop-buddhism-satori"

Thanks, mumuwu, I just listened to it. I'd heard it when it was first posted but that was awhile ago.
I think he explained himself pretty well. Of course I loved it at the end when he insisted that enlightenment is an "activity, something you do."

Brad Warner likes to push our buttons so much he'll stretch things just to do it -- like he does in that blog post. It strikes me as a rather childish way of making a point that could be made more skillfully. Better. More communicative. More helpful.

"
Brad Warner likes to push our buttons so much he'll stretch things just to do it -- like he does in that blog post. It strikes me as a rather childish way of making a point that could be made more skillfully. Better. More communicative. More helpful.

"

He's kind of old to be so petulant.

I think Brad is fun to read. I disagree with most of what he writes though...

It's funny how this whole shadow thing works. Yesterday morning, in my practice journal, I made a point of highlighting that I'd endured a gut-it-out session. Later in the day, I criticized Brad Warner for highlighting his own gut-it-out retreat. The funny thing is, I would have been far more circumspect about taking a badge-of-honor approach to, say, a breakthrough experience of some kind. I likely would have written about it in the passive voice and made use of a lot of qualifiers and perhaps some self-deprecating humor.
Seems like a good thing to examine the other side of the equation--how we can identify with and tell stories about the difficulties on the path, rather than just labeling them "unpleasant" and letting the church roll on...

Wow! Well spotted, Jgroove! An old trickster-teacher once said: 'Sometimes I assert. Sometimes I deny. Sometimes I deny what i have already asserted; sometimes I assert what I have already denied.

I have to agree with him, and you, and Clayton-- Brad IS fun to read; sometimes I disagree with most of what he writes; and sometimes I completely agree with most of what he writes...

For some reason, I love his Big Mind/Genpo rants the most.
Wait--guess there must be some shadow lesson in there for me...

"For some reason, I love his Big Mind/Genpo rants the most.
Wait--guess there must be some shadow lesson in there for me...-jgroove"

And on the other hand...

"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." -S. Freud

;-D

I love Brad's books and his Big Mind stuff (I believe his article was called Big Mind = Big Fart) is hilarious. He also did a video of himself doing an interview with a sock puppet Genpo Roshi. I also love his "prepare to be bored" point of view about retreat. at the end of the day his message is awesome - sit down and shut up - whether or not we are concerned with enlightenment.

Big Fart Circle is what I'm reading now...
hardcorezen.blogspot.com/2008/09/big-fart-circle.html

here's the youtube video -

Awesome,

You can even take a course with the guy he's interviewing in that video
Big Sock Circle - homepage.mac.com/doubtboy/bigsock.html

"Awesome,

You can even take a course with the guy he's interviewing in that video
Big Sock Circle - homepage.mac.com/doubtboy/bigsock.html "

I might just sign up for that. Enlightenment via sock puppet for $50K. Seems like a deal.