Brad Warner
Brad Warner is an ordained Zen Master (though he hates that term) in the Soto lineage founded in Japan by Master Dogen Zenji in the 13th century. He's the bass player for the hardcore punk rock group 0DFx (aka Zero Defex) and the ex-vice president of the Los Angeles office of the company founded by the man who created Godzilla.
Brad was born in Hamilton, Ohio in 1964. In 1972, his family relocated to Nairobi, Kenya. When Brad returned to Wadsworth three years later, nothing about rural Ohio seemed quite the same anymore.
In 1982 Brad joined 0DFx. 0DFx caught the attention of a number of major bands on the hardcore punk scene. But they soon broke up leaving a single eighteen second burst of noise, titled Drop the A-Bomb On Me, as their only recorded legacy on a compilation album called P.E.A.C.E./War.
In 1993, Brad went to Japan to realize a childhood dream to actually work for the people who made low budget Japanese monster movies. To his own astonishment, he landed himself a job with one of Japan's leading producers of man-in-a-rubber-dinosaur-costume giant monster movies.
Back in the early 80s, while still playing hardcore punk, Brad became involved in Zen Buddhism. The realistic, no bullshit philosophy reminded him of the attitude the punks took towards music. Once he got to Japan, he began studying the philosophy with an iconoclastic rebel Zen Master named Gudo Nishijima. After a few years, Nishijima decided to make Brad his successor as a teacher of Zen.
In 2003 he published his first book, "Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies and the Truth About Reality." In 2007 he followed that up with "Sit Down and Shut Up," a punk-informed look at 13th century Zen Master Dogen. His third book is "Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate."
“The very idea of higher states of consciousness is absurd. Comparing one state of consciousness to another and saying one is "higher" and the other is "mundane" is like eating a banana and complaining it's not a very good apple.”
“This world is better than Utopia because - and follow this point carefully - you can never live in Utopia. Utopia is always somewhere else. That's the very definition of Utopia.”
“Those who hope for purity and righteousness always try and destroy that which disturbs them. They think the disturbance comes from outside themselves. This is a serious problem. Wars, suicide bombings, and all sorts of other nasty things start from the premise that we can destroy "evil" outside ourselves without dealing with the evil within.”
“Consider this:1. Would you ride in a car whose driver was on the consciousness-expanding "entheogenic" drug LSD?And here's a bonus question:2. Why does an "expanded consciousness" include the inability to operate a motor vehicle?”
“Reality's all you've got. But here's the real secret, the real miracle: it's enough.”
“You won’t understand life and death until you’re ready to set aside any hope of understanding life and death and just live your life until you die.”
“The thinking brain influences the body’s responses and it makes a neat little loop.”
“You can always improve your situation. But you do so by facing it, not by running away.”
“You can't function in society if you don't involve yourself in the fictions society accepts about time. But you do so with the understanding that you're playing a game.”
“How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? The plum tree in the garden!”
“As for enlightenment, that's just for people who can't face reality.”
“Faith keeps you going, but doubt keeps you from going off the deep end.”
“If a tree falls in the forest and it hits a mime, would he make a noise?”
“The state of ambiguity - that messy, greasy, mixed-up, confused, and awful situation you're living through right now - is enlightenment itself.”
“If you want to believe in reincarnation, you have to believe that this life, what you're living through right now, is the afterlife. You're missing out on the afterlife you looked forward to in your last existence by worrying about your next life. This is what happens after you die. Take a look.”