Quotes from Brad Warner

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.

We just need to feel we know, or we can't rest. And yet much of life is unknowable and will remain so. Lots

The thinking brain influences the body's responses and it makes a neat little loop.

Rather than face what really is, we prefer to retreat and compare what we're living through with the way we think it oughta be. Suffering comes from the comparison between the two.

The pain of having your dreams come true appears vividly when you realize that even if your dreams really come true, they never really come true. From birth to death it's just like this

If we can all agree that none of us really knows what God actually is, maybe we can stop fighting about what we imagine God to be.

Thus a person can be a Buddha one minute and a jackass three minutes later. You don't just become Buddha at the moment of your first enlightenment experience and then stay Buddha forever.

You can't life in paradise- but you are living right here. Make this your paradise or make this your hell. The choice is entirely yours. Really.

Do as well as you possibly can. That's Buddhist morality.

You can master tantric yogic poly-orgasmic Wonder Sex but you're still gonna die alone.

In order to deal with the fear of annihilation you have to face annihilation again and again and again. It's not enough just to understand this intellectually. It's not enough just to read about this. You need to watch yourself being annihilated right now. If you can manage to sit quietly as you disappear from existence moment by moment, then you can see it's really nothing to be afraid of. You gotta meditate. Nobody likes to hear that. But it's true.

Our actions are part of who we are. It's not that we are inert things who do stuff. Rather, the stuff we do and who we are are inextricably woven together.

But don't get too hung up on the future. The future's out of your control. Enjoy what's happening right now. Do what is appropriate, what is right, in the present moment and let the future be the future.

Not-being-a-jerk means this and that are done, and now you gotta do the other thing. It's an ongoing process. Haku

Nothing can be separated from everything else.

Same deal here. It's not "you" and "the universe." It's "universeyou.

It's hard for most of us to admit, but when you start paying attention you'll notice that you actually enjoy being angry. There's this wonderful rush of self-righteousness to it. Because, obviously, you can't be angry about something unless you know you're right and the other person is wrong. You

You've won all creation. It's yours to do with it as you please- and you discover what pleases you most is doing the right thing for all creation in moment after moment.

The only way I know of to get in touch with what God wants is to be very, very, very quiet.

People imagine enlightenment will make them incredibly powerful, And it does. It makes you the most powerful being in all the universe- but usually no one else notices.

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.

Reality exists as it is. The words we use to explain our understanding of it are always pale reflections of the truth we are attempting to convey and of our own understanding of that truth.

To him, Buddhism was not a spiritual practice or a religion. It was simply a practical approach to real life that neither denied the spiritual side of things nor held that spirituality was better or nobler than the material side of life. Whereas

Because a lot of our philosophical stances these days are kind of half-assed. We're very bold in our proclamations of our own moral rectitude, but then we neglect to even keep our own toilets clean. You see a lot of that kind of thing. I used to see it all the time in my punk-rock days. Those guys were super-concerned with having the right political and philosophical views. But they never seemed to be able to keep their showers free from mold or