Brad Warner's latest blog

Now that the discussion of Brad has covered just about all the bases -- critic, amusing author, self-promoter, etc. -- I'll chime in from a somewhat privileged position: I know Brad, a little, and have spent several hours conversing with him in private.

I met Brad in person several years ago when he accepted my invitation to come to New Mexico after his first book was published and give some talks. Our Zen Center of Las Cruces was the official sponsor of his visit. Brad stayed in my home, ate meals with me and occasionally with some other folks from the Zen Center. After his third book came out, we invited him back and he stayed at my place again. On his first visit I also got to meet his father and his (now-deceased) mother.

Brad is a performer. One-on-one, he's very low-key, with a milder version of the biting sense of humor he displays in his writing. The more people are present, the more lively Brad becomes. Put him on a stage, and he beams. Like all performers, he feeds off the energy of his audience.

Brad's teacher, Nishijima, is the source of Brad's strange ideas about Bodhi. In fact, Nishijima is even more extreme. In Nishijima's book TO MEET THE REAL DRAGON and in his blog, he offers a decidedly unorthodox view of Bodhi. Although I like Brad and I think Nishijima seems sincere, I can only conclude that the view of Enlightenment they uphold stems from lack their of Enlightenment.

Someone can be a really fine person without being Enlightened. But even the best un-Enlightened person cannot make well-informed claims about something he or she does not have.

"Now that the discussion of Brad has covered just about all the bases -- critic, amusing author, self-promoter, etc. -- I'll chime in from a somewhat privileged position: I know Brad, a little, and have spent several hours conversing with him in private.

I met Brad in person several years ago when he accepted my invitation to come to New Mexico after his first book was published and give some talks. Our Zen Center of Las Cruces was the official sponsor of his visit. Brad stayed in my home, ate meals with me and occasionally with some other folks from the Zen Center. After his third book came out, we invited him back and he stayed at my place again. On his first visit I also got to meet his father and his (now-deceased) mother.

Brad is a performer. One-on-one, he's very low-key, with a milder version of the biting sense of humor he displays in his writing. The more people are present, the more lively Brad becomes. Put him on a stage, and he beams. Like all performers, he feeds off the energy of his audience.

Brad's teacher, Nishijima, is the source of Brad's strange ideas about Bodhi. In fact, Nishijima is even more extreme. In Nishijima's book TO MEET THE REAL DRAGON and in his blog, he offers a decidedly unorthodox view of Bodhi. Although I like Brad and I think Nishijima seems sincere, I can only conclude that the view of Enlightenment they uphold stems from lack their of Enlightenment.

Someone can be a really fine person without being Enlightened. But even the best un-Enlightened person cannot make well-informed claims about something he or she does not have.
"

Until this post, I'd come to the conclusion that Warner was trying to downplay "enlightenment experiences" while encourging "enlightened activity" but Gozan, it sounds like you are saying that he downplays the entire concept of enlightenment?

"Until this post, I'd come to the conclusion that Warner was trying to downplay "enlightenment experiences" while encourging "enlightened activity" but Gozan, it sounds like you are saying that he downplays the entire concept of enlightenment?


Someone can be a really fine person without being Enlightened. But even the best un-Enlightened person cannot make well-informed claims about something he or she does not have.

"


I guess this would also be accurate and perhaps helpful with regards to what is being said:- "But even the best un-Enlightened person cannot make well-informed claims about something he or she only think they have."

"Although I like Brad and I think Nishijima seems sincere, I can only conclude that the view of Enlightenment they uphold stems from lack their of Enlightenment." -Gozen

This would explain a great deal.

telecaster wrote:
"Until this post, I'd come to the conclusion that Warner was trying to downplay "enlightenment experiences" while encourging "enlightened activity" but Gozan, it sounds like you are saying that he downplays the entire concept of enlightenment? "

Brad's view was strongly influenced by that of his teacher Nishijima, which is very unorthodox (see his blog post "What is the enlightenment, or Satori?"):
gudoblog-e.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-is-...nment-or-satori.html

Basically, Nishijima believes in 2 kinds of Enlightenment: a physiological one (balancing of the ANS -- autonomic nervous system which comes from daily practice of zazen) and a mental one ("when we have continued our daily practice for more than 30 years, we can continue our consideration of Buddhist Philosophies everyday for more than 30 years, and so we can solve the all kinds of Buddhist Philosophical Problem totally at last").

Highly eccentric! Like a wheel is eccentric when its circumference is not smooth and regular. Nishijima and Brad are both highly eccentric: opinionated, one-of-a-kind people who go their own way. Such people can be entertaining and even inspiring at times. But they do not necessarily know what they are talking about when it comes to the many matters on which they express strong opinions.

Thank you for your very sharp insider's analysis, Gozen. The irony is that in his first book, Brad Warner provides us with a pretty good description of his kensho experience. But our strait-edge-geeky-Zen-master seems to be too prudish to call a spade a spade. In the line of Clinton's 'yes I smoked a joint, but I did not inhale the smoke', Brad would say something like: "ok, I confess that I experienced something that we could call kensho, but I only call it '˜solving a philosophical problem'. Kensho is bunk. Satori is ********'.

That's a common problem with a large part of the Western Soto Zen community. They wouldn't mind publishing all the crispy details of their adulterous liaison with a female student, but would then find absurd ways to deny the fact that genuine Zen practice may lead to genuine Zen experiences.

My conclusion is that Brad isn't short of insights, but doesn't know how they fit within the wider context of genuine Zen practice-realization, probably because these have only been partial glimpses, but also because of his exclusive attachment to his teacher's strange opinions.

I think Alex really hit the nail on the head with that one... its funny I remember reading one of his books earlier this year and clearly seeing the stages mapped out in one of his stories, A&P dark night and equanimity, but of course he would never use that framework...

I'm really getting tired of the non-dual fundamentalist thing. A description of enlightenment is not a prescription for how to attain it. How many people are stuck because they're just sitting there "doing nothing" and then blaming themselves whenever they get a sense that they are, in fact, stuck? I'm so familiar with this faulty line of thinking: "Who is stuck? There is nobody to get stuck!"
Kenneth's outright description of a physio-energetic process is so helpful. There it is: Development through time exists because there is an individual body-mind. That doesn't invalidate Third Gear, but we also don't have to adopt extreme and unwavering views based on a Third Gear perspective...

So does that mean all of Zen is an extreme view? Is non-dual fundamentalism? Clearly Zen works for a lot of people, right? I'm confused about what you're upset about, Joel. Can you elaborate?

I wouldn't describe all of Zen as being non-dual fundamentalism, just a particular line of thinking that kind of flattens everything out into the absolute and never allows for the existence of the relative. If someone talks about stages, for example, the response would be: "That is all ego. There are no stages. There is nobody to attain anything." Enlightenment is the relative waking up to the absolute, right? It's not the relative denying the existence of the relative.

Alan Chapman has a sane take on non-dual fundamentalism vs. developmental fundamentalism.

openenlightenment.org/?p=509

Cheers,
Florian

"I wouldn't describe all of Zen as being non-dual fundamentalism, just a particular line of thinking that kind of flattens everything out into the absolute and never allows for the existence of the relative. If someone talks about stages, for example, the response would be: "That is all ego. There are no stages. There is nobody to attain anything." Enlightenment is the relative waking up to the absolute, right? It's not the relative denying the existence of the relative. "

I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think I know what Joel is talking about.
I guess the fun thing about what goes on here is that we can all talk about what is really happening in our lives, in our meditation, how things change, and, how we ENJOY it.
Know what I mean? How WE as persons are enjoying what we are doing (or hating it at times as well). There is no shame or embarassment at being people who are doing something to feel better to know more stuff and to be enriched -- as people.
In many many zen circles all of that would be denied and stuffed down and met with embarassment. Why? I have no idea, really.
F it, you know? I'm doing this to be happy and intimate with real life -- why are YOU doing it?
Like it or not the fact of no-self doesn't mean there is no happiness. Just the opposite, i think.
Listen to the Ed Brown (zen) podcast I posted -- he gets it.
(note -- this rant wasn't aimed at any particular person here -- just at that weird sort of no-self puritanism thing that is out there)

"I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think I know what Joel is talking about. "

Yeah, I hear you guys. When I first contacted Kenneth, I described my frustration with zen like this:

"When I was a kid, I once went to a Science "Museum" where one of the things to play on was basically a scaffolding, a forest of vertical columns with removable crossbars. Me and a couple other kids ended up taking all the crossbars up to the higher level of the columns, leaving no way for anyone to climb up. I've been feeling like my Zen practice was a sort of "karmic payback" for that..."

It felt like trying to climb a greased pole, while being told that I desperately needed what was at the top. Actually, I think this is a training methodology of zen, and is cultivated somewhat purposefully, but it left me, and it seems a lot of other people, with the feeling that everything just needs to be tolerated and that spinning your wheels is a good description of meditation. Which its not.

Having dug my wheels into the road with some good noting practice, my zazen has since taken off significantly as well. I finally found some of those scaffolding pieces that were on the same level as I was, and I can start climbing.

Yes, Alex, you are quite right. In Brad's first book he describes an event in awareness that is clearly kensho. Yet he refuses to call it that, for the reasons you mentioned. (BTW, that kensho event, which happened while he was walking to work, was supposed to end the book. But his publisher said the book wasn't long enough, so Brad wrote more. He wasn't happy about doing that.)

Brad does have many valid insights. He understands the Dharma very well and can explain it in contemporary language. Yet the view of Bodhi that he learned from Nishijima is so wide of the mark that it does a disservice. On the other hand, I think Brad deserves a lot of credit for pointing out the absurdity of Big Mind stuff from Genpo [Merzel].

"I think Alex really hit the nail on the head with that one... its funny I remember reading one of his books earlier this year and clearly seeing the stages mapped out in one of his stories, A&P dark night and equanimity, but of course he would never use that framework... "

Good point, Clayton. It's true for Brad as well as for me and for many other Soto Zen practitioners that we go through the same insight stages as Vipassana practitioners, except NO ONE in American Zen told us about these in advance, and MANY sanctioned Zen teachers are clueless about these stages (most likely because they themselves have not progressed far enough). I credit Dan Ingram's book for the detailed information about these stages which helped me to make sense of what I was going through. If I had had to rely alone on what my last Zen teacher said, I would have thrown out the baby and the bath water.

On the bright side, more and more people are crossing sectarian lines and learning from other schools of Buddhism as well as Advaita Vedanta, then bringing their new knowledge back to their home tradition. I have done this with my Zen students.

"Alan Chapman has a sane take on non-dual fundamentalism vs. developmental fundamentalism.

openenlightenment.org/?p=509

Cheers,
Florian"

Well, the referenced discussion is very interesting-- but it sounded to me that he lined up Zen and Theravadins on the same side as being too much about process / development vs. the Neo-Advaitins as being too much about direct realization to the detriment of life and development. Which was pretty much my take, but I was being uncharacteristically silent about it.

Although I find myself put off by Nishijima's poorly translated [and therefore unnecessarily difficult to understand] writings, I am actually quite interested in his claim that 'enlightenment is the balancing of the ANS'-- which is the heart of 'physioenergetic development' as far as I understand it. So I understand why the noisiest people @ Brad's blog go cuckoo over it; but it seems in line with some of what is written about here...?