SuicideGirls > News > Culture > Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen: Myanmar? Didn't Even KNOW Her!:
"...Were I to speak to one of the guys who keep sending me these bulk e-mails, I might say, "Turn off your TV. Close your newpaper. Disconnect your internet for a few hours." What you read in newspapers and blogs and what you see on TV is not reality. It's third hand reports of confused misunderstandings of situations you can never truly grasp because they are forever beyond your capacity to know them. A photo or video only shows you what went on in front of the camera -- if it truly shows even that -- and ignores the universe that contributes to and influences the events you're seeing. It's a lie. Those things are not real. But your reaction to them is. Be very careful.
...All of the problems in the world, from Myanmar to Iraq to Iran and wherever else start from exactly the same place. You. I’m not trying to be poetic here either. It’s really, literally all your fault. One of the hardest ideas in Buddhism for most folks to wrap their craniums around is the idea that even problems that seem to be absolutely positively beyond any shadow of a doubt out there -- like the nasty shit going down in Myanmar -- are, in fact, very much internal problems. The connection between you and all of humanity and the rest of the universe is incredibly intimate. It’s so close you can’t see it anymore than you can look directly into your own eyeballs. Yet it’s even more real than your own eyeballs.
When I talk about this stuff sometimes people think I’m advocating complacency. Like I’m saying, “Myanmar is way far away dude. Don’t sweat it.” But that’s not it at all. The real Myanmar is right here. You just think it’s out there. And by imagining it to be far, far away you’ve placed it in the realm of things you can’t possibly really deal with and you avoid taking the action that's truly necessary.
The most truly compassionate thing you can do for the world is to work on yourself. That is your interface with everything. That’s where it all begins. This is how you start to fix what’s wrong with the world. The ripples you send out never dissipate completely..."
That's the second thing I've read in as many weeks that says the same thing - everything is inside you... everything is your internal "problem." Oddly, the other book saying this had zero to do with Buddhism. Weird. Odd. Synchronistic.
SuicideGirls > News > Culture > Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen: Magic E-Mail and Other Miracles:
"...Every day I’m exposed to all kinds of examples of the kindness of the Universe that I am at a complete loss to know how to explain. Like a couple months ago when I found out I’d been lucky the right front wheel of my car didn’t fly off while I was driving since the weird rattling noise I’d been putting off having checked out was due to it being literally held on by one very loose bolt. It’s gotten to where, even when bad things happen I try to view them as examples of the kindness of the Universe that I just haven’t come around to getting the point of yet.
This isn’t always easy to do, mind you. But I try. When I have trouble adopting the right point of view I remember a story I read about Shunryu Suzuki, the author of the great book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. He had been diagnosed with Hepatitis. This was doubly troubling to him because he liked to eat ice cream with one of his students. The doctors told him to stop doing this, lest she contract the disease. A while later, the diagnosis was revised. Suzuki had cancer and it was likely terminal. When he told his student she didn’t understand why he was so happy about it. Then Suzuki said, “Don’t you see? This means we can share ice cream again!”
...I just accept the fact that there are things beyond intellectual comprehension, that no matter how hard I, or anyone else, tries to work certain things out, they’re never going to make sense. In fact, I’d go further and say that no matter how hard anyone tries to work anything out it’ll never make sense completely. Our brains are super duper sharp. But we’re not infinitely smart. None of us.
...Yet pretty much all of our philosophies and religions fail to accept this startlingly obvious fact. For all their talk of being “spiritual” most religions are really just deeply intellectual. Some go further into the realm of intellect than others, yet fail to ever break out of the mental prisons they build for themselves. Unfortunately, even most of the meditative practices I’ve encountered go no further than engaging the brain’s power of imagination to create astounding fantasies. Our own dreams of Enlightenment can be made to seem so real and so beautiful their seductive power is nearly impossible to resist. Get a whole bunch of people believing in the same Enlightenment fantasy and you’ve got yourself a pretty powerful movement. But it don’t mean a damned thing.
My favorite depiction of the Buddha is the one where he’s meditating and his hand is touching the ground. This symbolizes his grounding himself in reality. We may not know just what reality is, but we know it’s real, and so we have to stay with it no matter how pretty our dreams might be."
Reminds me of this -
"In fact, you have no knowledge of where anything is or what anything is or how it came to be. Life is a mystery. My ignorance is based on this understanding. Your understanding is based on ignorance. This is why I am a humorous fool, and you are a serious jackass."- Socrates to Dan, Way of the Peaceful Warrior.
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