Brad Warner's Blog, page 28

SASSIFIED!

I thought this cartoon sort of explained what was the problem with the comments section of this blog pretty succinctly. I'm still on the fence about the comments section. I am working on a all new website right now that I intend to take the place of this blog anyhow. I'll still blog over there. But the whole layout and suchlike will be far more sensible. There will probably be some kind of forum for members like what Noah Levine has. So just hold tight and comment in Gniz's Reblogging Brad...

DEATH TO ALL MONSTERS!

So... what do you wanna know?

I see people are speculating on why I closed the comments section.

There were a lot of reasons. There were definitely good things about it. Some of the regular commenters were friendly, sometimes insightful. I liked reading Jinzang's postings, for example and even some of the trolls were at least entertaining.

It was also the free-est Buddhist themed discussion group on the 'net. A guy I know tried to sign up for one of the other on-line Buddhist groups and got the...

BUDDHIST BEACH VOLLEYBALL

Next Saturday, Oct. 31st, 2009, Halloween, we'll not be having our usual zazen at Hill Street Center. Instead a bunch of people from the group are participating in a Buddhist Beach Volleyball Tournament on nearby Santa Monica Beach.

Here is the schedule and other details from the website linked above:

9:30 - 9:50am Sitting meditation
9:50 - 10:30am Mindful Beach Clean Up (bring your own bags if you remember and gloves if you want them)
10:30 - 10:50am Twenty minutes of walking meditation in the s...

VICTORIA, VANCOUVER and NEW PLACE TO COMMENT

• November 13, 2009 - I will be in Vancouver BC speaking at the local Dharma Punx chapter on November 13th. Details are coming soon. Probably another gig will happen the following day. The gig on the 13th will be a talk and the one on the 14th will likely be several rounds of zazen followed by discussion.

•November 17, 2009 7pm, Victoria, BC Canada, University of Victoria Interfaith Chapel, Lot #6 UVic Ring Road, Tuesday Zen Open House, Zen meditation and Q&A, contact office@zenwest.ca for mor...

I'm So Narcissistic I'm In An Article About Narcissism And I'm Narcissistically Posting About It!

Yep! Elizabeth Bromstein up in the wilds of Toronto has quoted me in an article about narcissism for NOW! magazine. The link is here:

When Self Love Sucks

She did this interview with me by telephone the day I was writing the posts about conscientious selfishness. So the quote she used has a bit of that notion in there.

I'll try another way to express this: The reason you don't hurt others as a Buddhist is not because you're trying to be a kind, loving, beautiful, spiritual person who would neve...

DHARMA PUNX TOMORROW & DICKIE PETERSON

I totally forgot to post that I will be speaking at the Dharma Punx/Against The Stream center in Hollywood tomorrow at 11 AM (Sunday October 18, 2009). Tha address is 4300 Melrose (btw Heliotrope and Vermont), Los Angeles, CA 90029. All are welcome, no experience necessary.

I just found out only moments ago that Dickie Peterson, bassist and leader of the legendary heavy metal pioneers BLUE CHEER died on Monday. The official obituary is here. My friend John Battles said there's an obit out ther...

COMMENTS

I was taking a rare peak into the comments section of this blog the other day. Some commenter said:

"But is [Brad:] a Zen teacher? Then he has an obligation to correct ignorant behavior on HIS blog."

Another commenter thought that was so astute, he repeated it. Then someone else summed up my philosophy on this blog very well. He said:

"To my knowledge, this blog has always been just like any other blog, Brad talks about whatever he fancies at the time. Sometimes he talks about Kiss' latest album,...

KISS SONIC BOOM

Yesterday I went out to Walmart at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza Mall in Los Angeles and bought the new KISS album, Sonic Boom — their first new CD in 11 years. I brought along Steve from Dharma Zen Center who said that malls are soul-destroying places. It's true. In the hour or so I spent in the mall it was like I could feel my soul being slowly eroded. And I don't even believe in souls! What is it about places like that? It's sad that so many people spend so much of their time in those p...

CONSCIENTIOUS SELFISHNESS Part 2

I thought I ought to write a little more about this idea of conscientious selfishness because I think yesterday's post just muddled the issue. Sorry about that. This is the danger of blogging. I tend to feel that blog postings should be more immediate, unfiltered and un-fussed-over than regular articles. Maybe this idea is one I should have saved for a more well thought-out piece (of which this one you're reading is also not).

As I said yesterday I think the term I've come up with, "conscient...

CONSCIENTIOUS SELFISHNESS

I've been thinking about compassion lately. People keep asking me about it because Buddhist teachers are supposed to talk about compassion all the time. But I hate talking about things I'm supposed to talk about. Whenever some idea starts wending its way through a culture it very quickly turns into a cliche and dies. Compassion died a long while ago.

Which isn't to say that compassion itself is dead or cliche. It's just that once a word gets sent through the ringer of approved pop culture opi...