Brad Warner's Blog, page 21

ESCAPE FROM GERMANY!

Tomorrow, June 13, 2010, is my last stop on the European continent this tour. Details are:

•June 13, 2010 - Zazenkai in Nijmegen 9am - 5 pm: Kapelruimte, Erasmusiaan, Nijmegan. Contact: hannyvandeweerdt@gmail.com

After that I'm off over the sea to Northern Ireland. That info is all at http://web.me.com/doubtboy/Site/BookTour_2010.html.

Our stealthy entry into Germany was a success. We used clever disguises and made it across the border without being spotted by the enemy. Once in Germany we comme...

Amsterdam. But No Hamsters. Damn!

This is a photo of me in front of a porno shop in Helsinki owned by the father of the lead singer of HIM. Note the HIM logo in the window.

I arrived in Amsterdam last night and am now safely ensconced in a secret location near the German border. Below are the events I'll be doing while stationed in this location. First I will undertake a dangerous and highly secretive border-crossing into Germany under cover of night (or possibly by train in the morning) for a talk in the city of Wuppertal. Th...

Sex and Zen on the Swedish Morning Zoo in Helsinki

A couple days ago I was the guest on the morning drive-time show on YLE Radio XM3, "Extreme FM Helsinki." Kindo of a "morning zoo" type show with a couple of hip, young DJs and all the requisite sound FX and stuff. I was billed as "Zen and Sex Expert, Brad Warner." Well, I dunno about that. But they wanted to talk about my upcoming book "Sex, Sin and Zen" so that's how they promoted it. (The cover they're showing on Amazon is a dummy version, by the way. The real one is much better!)

This was ...

SUOMI ONCE MORE

I'm back in Finland. Yay! My tour page has been updated with all the latest info. Go here to see it all.

This is a land where the doors have no knobs on the outside, where they have brushes beside the entry ways to wipe off your shoes, and where the sun never sets in the summer.

Actually last night it was still bright enough to read outside at midnight. It finally got dark an hour or two later. Then the sun comes back up at like three or something. This is fucking with my circadian rhythms big ...

ACHTUNG!

Zero Defex had a song called Schwinehundt Doggen aka Swine Hunt Doggen, aka Sine Hunt Dogen. You can listen to a sample of it on the CD Baby page I've linked to. The song is 34 seconds long but the sample they give you is like 30 seconds, so you don't miss much. But you do miss Jimi Imij shouting "Achtung!" at the beginning, which is what I think of every time I see that word written on something here in Germany.

Today is my last talk here, in Berlin, by the wall, where I'm 5 foot 2 inches tal...

NOW IN GERMANY! HARDCORE ZEN ÜBER ALLES! and MY IMPRESSIONS OF POLAND

I arrived in Germany yesterday. Here's the schedule of talks I'm doing:

•May 26, 2010 7:30pm - Frankfurt, Zendo - Verein für Zenmeditation Frankfurt e.V. Galgenstr. 18 Weitere Infos:regina@dogen-sangha-frankfurt.de Fon: 06101 813 383

•May 27, 2010 7:30pm - Bielefeld, J.Kamphausen Verlag & Distribution GmbH Buddestr. 9 - 15 Weitere Infos:dirk.grosser@j-kamphausen.de Fon: 0521 560 52 12

•May 28, 2010 7:30 pm - Berlin, Dharma Buchladen, Akazienstr. 17 Weitere Infos:info@dharma-buchladen.de Fon...

"Paying For It" and "Who Is The Most Enlightened One Of All?"

I'm at the Bodhidharma Zen Center in Warszawa. That's how they spell Warsaw around these parts. They pronounce it vor-sha-vah. Crazy, huh?

So this morning at breakfast the woman who seems to be in charge here was asking me about my practice and my teacher. The usual Zen small talk. When I told her how Nishijima Roshi lived his life during the time I was with him in Japan she said, "So his students didn't support him financially?"

I said that they didn't. He had a regular job and he always encou...

MGMT and ULTRA SIMPLE ZAZEN

First this is my new favorite song in the world. I don't care what it's about. You don't need drugs. Just listen to this! It's called "It's Working" by MGMT. The whole album is amazing. I'm so jazzed that something really good is popular.

Although, I have to add that this is something like what I was trying to do with Dimentia 13 (altho MGMT does it sooo much better). Just sample this from the first Dimentia 13 LP.

I don't have a whole lot of time for a report. We'll be on our way to Warsaw in ...

Zen Master? ...Moi?

Apparently some Polish Zen chatroom has been all abuzz with questions of my legitimacy as a Zen teacher. The matter also came up on the comments section of this blog, so I thought I'd try to explain. I've gone through this a few times before and it's never satisfied everyone. But then again you got the "birthers" in the US for whom no amount of evidence of any kind will suffice to prove that President Obama was born in the USA and is not a Muslim. In any case, here's the deal on my qualificat...

Sleepless in Krakow or This is the Life

I am writing to you today from a train bound for Krakow from Wroclaw. Krakow, it turns out, is actually pronounced "crack-off" while Wroclaw does not sound like the first two syllables of Rock Lobster but instead is pronounced something like "vrotz-love." So if you love your vrotz, you're gonna love Wroclaw! Why the Poles spell things so weird is anybody's guess.

Anyway, at the bottom of this page is actual video footage of when the people of Wroclaw broke the world's record for the number of...