Brad Warner Video Interview

[Jinzang]

Brad Warner was interviewed on Dutch Television. The interview is in English with Dutch subtitles and is about ten minutes long.

[Astus]

Based solely on what was said in the interview: Zen sounds like "believe what you want" and "as long as you sit you do Zen". It is like a group of lazy yogis who try to master a single asana and nothing else. Wanted to say freethinkers instead of yogis, but even free thinking is not involved here. In a sense it is an interesting and strange phenomenon, this whole "sitting Zen". On the other hand, it takes Buddhism and even the Zen tradition as something completely marginal or irrelevant.

[Thomas Amundsen]

Based solely on what was said in the interview: Zen sounds like "believe what you want" and "as long as you sit you do Zen". It is like a group of lazy yogis who try to master a single asana and nothing else. Wanted to say freethinkers instead of yogis, but even free thinking is not involved here. In a sense it is an interesting and strange phenomenon, this whole "sitting Zen". On the other hand, it takes Buddhism and even the Zen tradition as something completely marginal or irrelevant.

The thing is though, Brad doesn't claim to be a Buddhist master. I think he's actually serious about that.

[boda]

Based solely on what was said in the interview: Zen sounds like "believe what you want" and "as long as you sit you do Zen". It is like a group of lazy yogis who try to master a single asana and nothing else. Wanted to say freethinkers instead of yogis, but even free thinking is not involved here. In a sense it is an interesting and strange phenomenon, this whole "sitting Zen". On the other hand, it takes Buddhism and even the Zen tradition as something completely marginal or irrelevant.

The thing is though, Brad doesn't claim to be a Buddhist master. I think he's actually serious about that.

Doesn't that takes Buddhism and even the Zen tradition as something even more marginal or irrelevant?

[Jinzang]

Based solely on what was said in the interview: Zen sounds like "believe what you want" and "as long as you sit you do Zen".

This attitude is widespread in American Zen, and maybe American Buddhism generally. I goes with the pragmatic streak in the American character: "Teach me a kind of Buddhism where I don't have to believe in anything."

[yan kong]

Based solely on what was said in the interview: Zen sounds like "believe what you want" and "as long as you sit you do Zen".

This attitude is widespread in American Zen, and maybe American Buddhism generally. I goes with the pragmatic streak in the American character: "Teach me a kind of Buddhism where I don't have to believe in anything."

I find that sort of Buddhism lacks direction.

As for Warner I've always found him to be overly agnostic for me. I never really studied Japanese zen though so I don't know if his opinion reflects it all too well.

[Karma Dondrup Tashi]

... where I don't have to believe in anything.

It may be an American Buddhist thing but I don't know if it's a totally American thing. I know a lot of people here who are all too eager to believe in something, anything, as long as they can avoid the pain of analyzing a view for themselves. Not just the theists but the hip atheist cool kids too. Some people use Buddhism just as a polite socially acceptable atheism. So I guess if we're kicking Brad Warner around we should probably kick Sam Harris around too.

[Wayfarer]

I think it is more the case that there are aspects of modernity (or modern liberal individualism) which are inherently antagonistic to religious commitment - specifically that the individual him or herself becomes the sole arbiter of value. In other words, 'nothing beyond ego'; and science and the liberal arts in the service of the ego.

As for Brad Warner, I have casaually read some of his blog posts and excerpts from his books. He's a generation younger than me, and seems pretty whimsical and off-beat. But I think he's actually a pretty hard-working guy, he does lead meditation groups pretty well full-time, gives talks, and writes books and articles. Absent the hereditary temple system that Soto has in its homeland, don't know what else he is expected to do. Oh, and I like him tons more than Sam Harris.

[Wayfarer]

Warner is one of the main students of Nishijima Roshi who died in 2014 and who was a translator and Soto Zen priest. Nishijima-roshi had a dojo in the suburbs of Tokyo that played host to quite a few Western students of Zen. The other prominent students were Jundo Cohen (of Treeleaf Sangha, and a sometime contributor here) and Michael Leutchford, and a few others whose names escape me. Nishijima-roshi's book To Meet the Real Dragon was a personal favourite of mine for many years. He does have a unique interpretation of Dogen's take on the Four Noble Truths (which can be found here) which I think has a lot going for it. (But I got Jundo Cohen's recent Talks with Old Master Nishijima and was dissappointed with it, on account of it being rather too secularist for my liking. Still, overall I like their approach.)

[MalaBeads]

All very interesting.

Im certainly no expert on zen, but warner is an interesting guy in the ongoing process of zen in america.

In ZMBM, Suzuki-roshi says, "I discovered that is it necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing."

Some of this may come from that statement.

However, this "believing in nothing", while it may be necesaary for a certain phase of practice, is only a stage I think. I do think its important to divest oneself of all belief, in order to progress, just as it is important to get beyond all conceptuality. But one cannot stay there or live there. Samsara always returns, doesnt it? And as the man said, "samsara is nirvana".

Even Thich Nhat Hanh teaches that one must let go of even Buddhism at some point. Just dont get stuck there.

Haha, just what i think.

[boda]

... where I don't have to believe in anything.

It may be an American Buddhist thing but I don't know if it's a totally American thing. I know a lot of people here who are all too eager to believe in something, anything, as long as they can avoid the pain of analyzing a view for themselves. Not just the theists but the hip atheist cool kids too. Some people use Buddhism just as a polite socially acceptable atheism. So I guess if we're kicking Brad Warner around we should probably kick Sam Harris around too.

From Publishers Weekly, regarding Warner's book "There's no God and he is always with you"

For Warner, his practice is a way to approach and understand God without dealing with religion. His God is one to be experienced, felt, and intuited, something that lies beneath the surface of reality that is already naturally understood, if only one could learn to listen to silence, to listen to nothing, and to learn from nothing.

More than anything Warner wants to be unique, it seems to me, so neither theism or atheism would be adequate.

[boda]

I think it is more the case that there are aspects of modernity (or modern liberal individualism) which are inherently antagonistic to religious commitment - specifically that the individual him or herself becomes the sole arbiter of value.

As I understand it, the significant aspect of modernity in regard to religion is essentially in how values can be separated. For a practical example, the notion of separating 'church and state' may have been difficult to grasp in ancient civilizations. The ability to separate values may be liberating for individuals, but this doesn't necessarily interfere with religious commitment.