Ever since my teacher, the late Gudo Wafu Nishijima made me the head of the Buddhist order he established in Japan, it has been my dream to establish a center in the tradition I learned from him. This is a unique and powerful stream of Zen practice, one that truly represents the Middle Way that is neither religion nor atheism, neither dogmatic nor indifferent. Nishijima Roshi taught a welcoming attitude of tolerance and acceptance for all and yet he was very committed to the way he learned when he was ordained by the abbot of Eihei-ji, the head temple of the Soto school of Zen. I have decided to establish a Zen space in Los Angeles, California called Angel City Zen Center.
In order to make this happen, we need your help. Please go to this link, https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/angel-city-zen-center and donate what you can. We’ve got a bunch of videos that we’ll be posting over the next few weeks that show how much a center like this would impact the Los Angeles community, and of course we’ve got a ton of perks ready for those of you who donate.
Although the orientation of our formal services would be Soto-style Zen Buddhism, this center would be open to anyone of any religious affiliation as well as to atheists, agnostics and everything in between. We would promote interfaith events (and inter non-faith events) and partner up with like-minded churches, synagogues, mosques, atheist clubs and other such organizations who wanted to establish mutual understanding and respect. I want it to be the kind of place where born-again Christian Republicans can hang out with gay atheist cross-dressers and have a good time together.
Although the Zen sittings and ceremonies at these places would be quiet and meditative, I want to keep the atmosphere light and fun and avoid any sense of stodginess or excessive formality. I do not want it to be a “religious” place. I want people to go there because they enjoy and benefit from the practices or just like hanging out in a supportive environment with good people.
If you’re broke, we don’t want your money, but we could use your support in many other ways. Just ask. If you’re rich, we want as much of your money as you’d like to give us (it’s tax-deductible!). If you’re somewhere in between and you like what we do, please consider contributing.
Here’s a link to the Angel City Zen Center business plan: http://tinyurl.com/nh6kasy
I want it to be the kind of place where born-again Christian Republicans can hang out with gay atheist cross-dressers and have a good time together.”
Anything is possible lol!
(*_/\_*)
Congratulations, Brad, on what to me is an inspiring mission statement for a new Zen center; hopefully tomorrow, I can give the college fund ($20?) to Preacher Bob (I mean, Angel City Zen Center!).
Maybe someday I’ll get down there, to have some fun with you and the gang, and take out the garbage.
Good luck! 🙂
Doesn’t Los Angeles already have a Unitarian Universalist Church?
Probably, but this will be a Hardcore Zen Unitarian Universalist Center. It won’t be Zen or Unitarian. It won’t be Hardcore or Universalist. It won’t be any particular thing, cuz it’s the middle way.
Isn’t the middle way a particular way? Well, uh… the middle is the best fucking way! Cuz like, the Buddha said so.
Great! So, I can show up and practice Cross Fit in the corner while the rest of the dweebs sit on their asses?
If this is “soto zen style sitting” without any formality or connection to soto, why call it zen at all? Will there be a Buddha statue on an altar, or just copies of Brad’s books for sale?
Lovely. I will folks to support this.
Gassho, J
Shouldn’t we be supporting more important issues in California, like freeing Willie?
Be careful with that willie stuff Father.
I thought you liked whales.
Jundo Sweet Leaf!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urG8oKQU7Zc
Hasho, C
Can you imagine a gay Treeleaf cross-dresser happily hanging out with a born-again Integral Republican? I sure as hell can, but then I’m not religious.
I don’t think the will works that way…
Brad Warner is looking more and more like Mungo Jerry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG0oBPtyNb0
Brad Warner is looking more and more like Mungo Jerry.
http://www.soulshine.at/pages/artists.php?artist_id=129
Wow. Ok, Fred, he’s looking more and more like old school Mungo Jerry 🙂
Good luck. Starting a meditation center in Los Angeles is like building a new casino in Las Vegas. You better stand out. But then again, being broke and having little to no attendance is pretty zen-cool too.
“I want it to be the kind of place where born-again Christian Republicans can hang out with gay atheist cross-dressers and have a good time together.”
What? Don’t you have prisons and public toilets in LA already?
Why don’t we just settle for you and Ken Wilber. You might start with an apology for calling him an idiot last week.
Or perhaps Integrals are not “like-minded” enough for Angle City. Well, every religion has to draw the line somewhere, or it won’t be a religion.
Hello,
Thanks for typing. WHO’s a good typer? YOU are!
Questions:
PayPal address?
Los Angeles Zen Center name taken?
Thank you.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/angel-city-zen-center
mtto,
Thank you for the link, but, my browsers only list credit/debit cards (unavailable) so i was interested in Brad’ s PayPal address to continue donation. Thank you again. Gassho
“Well, every religion has to draw the line somewhere, or it won’t be a religion.”
“Cuz it feels less meaningful. It is less meaningful.”
“Of course true believers don’t consider it belief, because they believe it is true.
“Meaning systems don’t need to do anything but supply meaning.”
Dads.
Father, we always know when the medication starts to wear off because that pesky tautological stutter of yours starts up again.
It does my heart good to see you’re following along so closely.
Love ya, kid!
“Love ya, kid!”
Kessas on your wise old wrinkled lips too, Father.
But we (Moms and Pumpkin) do pine for the old days when instead of terse tautologies our dear Fathers lips used to ejaculate pithy zen koans. Come back Dads!
You’re adorable.
“Ever since my teacher, the late Gudo Wafu Nishijima made me the head of the Buddhist order he established in Japan…”
Brad, didn’t you abdicate your title as head meditator of Dogen Sangha Somethinger-ether a few years back?
And I always thought it was important to you to NOT found a center but instead remain a free bird Zen man?
Oh well, times change, people change. Wish you all the best in this new adventure. Nice ending music to that video, yours?
Brad abdicated his leadership of “Dogen Sangha International,” not “Dogen Sangha Los Angeles.” You can look up old posts if you care to try and figure out what exactly Dogen Sangha International was or was supposed to be. He’s always been the “zen teacher” here in LA, even when he’s been on the road for long stretches, as well as the head of the board of directors of the nonprofit. There are lots of links on this page to Dogen Sangha Los Angeles, and have been for years. Dogen Sangha Los Angeles is the nonprofit behind Angel City Zen Center.
Thanks mtto, I know Brad’s quote in this post is referring to what Gudo asked him to head up: DSI. It seemed odd (to me) that he would refer to that leadership position he vacated in the present context of Angel City Zen Center, especially if as you say they are completely different.
That’s a good point…
I’m not clear what Dogen Sangha International was supposed to be. There were no meetings, no membership list, no retreats, no zen sittings.
It might be overstating to say they are completely different. Nishijima Roshi asked Brad to teach zen, and that is what he is doing.
Amen.
Can you imagine a gay Hardcore Zen cross-dresser happily hanging out with a born-again Hardcore Zen Republican? I sure as hell can, but then I’m not religious.
I find it heartening and inspiring, Brad. I’m sure, however things work out for the centre, that your and others’ efforts in this will do much good – and in innumerable unseen and unrecognised ways.
Thank you.
If you had named it Angel City Dharma Center everyone could have called it ACDC for short. It would have jibed with the whole Christian Republican Cross-dressing thing…
This is good coffee.
Somebody already suggested Angel City Dharma Center. Kind of awesome, but doesn’t tell you what kind of dharma: Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Jain?
We were going to use the ACDC font for an ACZC advertisement. One lawyer said we’d be OK, the other said we’d 100% get sued. We erred on the side of caution.
My wife and I laughed pretty hard at yer comment this morning, Harlan. Of course we’d just had some awesome coffee, too, and lots of it.
mtto: Too bad about the (other) lawyer’s opinion. How many lawyers do you guys have, anyway? Jeez, L.A… “Lawyer up & (don’t) ride!”
Goes w/out saying (but I will anyway:) You could’ve used the opening chords to this to advertise:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAgnJDJN4VA
The hottest new Zen Center in LA is called ACZC. They’ve got everything:
Crossdressing Republican housewives
His AND Her industrial grade jungle hymns
Lots and lots of glitter
Feminist handguns, hand painted by Sri Lankan monks
* Togetherness *
Jundo’s pet project, and its father Fred Sr.
Suicide Girl mud wrestling
Ke$ha’s cat
Autographed copy of Keith Richards official death certificate
More hardcore zen porn than you could shake a ****** at
Don’t forget, Ken Wilber’s words:
“so simply suck my dick, whaddaya say?”
I think that Joshu Sasaki said something like that too, but he meant it in a different way.
I doubt that.
I lived above Hamburger Mary’s in San Francisco for awhile. I met guys who were cross-dressed and casual, they could have been Republicans, and the housewives at Mary’s belonged to some rugged women.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XKJW0qlFw4
Forget the casual cross dressers, what was it like living above all those burnt cow fumes bro? If you were some kind of vegetarian (like uh, me) that must’ve sucked. If not, how heavenly, huh?
Or is “Hamburger Mary” some kind of euphemism for ground chuck in drag?
So true…
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/03/bill_maher_smacks_down_gops_supply_side_jesus/
Slow day…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o-7MmhqNfA
Big congratulations. The check is in the mail. But seriously, there’s a lot of (financially) wealthy people in LA that would be great benefactors. And there’s not a damn thing wrong with that. Just sayin’.
“Or is “Hamburger Mary” some kind of euphemism for ground chuck in drag?”
Well, thanks for that, J.E., because you sent me to the search engines, to discover that Hamburger Mary’s may reopen in the Castro. Here’s an article with a couple of shots from the original location:
http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2014/02/07/will-hamburger-marys-return-to-san-francisco/
In fact, what is pictured at the top of the page is the side of the building, the back entrance near the pinball machines. For awhile I lived right above the billboard on the second floor, then I moved up to the third floor above that back entrance.
I discovered “Hamburger Mary’s” is a listing on Wikipedia; pretty interesting, here’s what they had to say:
Brad could open the “Angel City Hamburger Mary’s Zen Center” and see at least half the people he described as regulars there in no time.
[Because of the 2-link per post restriction]:
I did a Dummies book Photoshop concoction a few years back which I’ll share because it’s in the same vein – except that it was actually just satire, I wasn’t trying to sell something (apologies to Broken Yogi [Conrad], who was the inspiration for it):
Acausal for Dummies
The Dummies book was kind of brilliant.
I kind of agree with your assessment of the video in the comment below, thanks for linking that, apparently that wasn’t otherwise for this blog’s viewing pleasure.
& yeah…It looks more like any other advertising: be a (accepted version of a) beautiful person (oh, excuse me) be a “hip” and beautiful person like we are and enjoy the benefits of whatever we are selling.
Remember, we’re all beautiful people and we don’t have to.
The Dummies book was kind of brilliant.
Thanks Mumbles! I kind of specialized in spiritual satire when I was hanging out at the now-defunct Lightmind Da Forum last decade. Here’s a Da satire I concocted (strictly for entertainment purposes, mind you)…
The 7-Stage Tantra of Frank
Hahahahaha!! Good stuff, mb!
Somewhere in the ethers, Bubba F.J. etc. is laughing, too.
“There is no response to My Literature. Why should I even print it? Nothing comes of it.”
Hey all –
I just got the weekly DSLA e-mail notification which contains this promotional video for the Angel City Dharma Center:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1_4I4ueXPY
My reactions after having watched it:
1) I appreciate the tongue-in-cheek humor that underlies the pitch
2) But isn’t trying to sell “doing nothing” like it was soap or something more than wee bit strange?
From having lived in American commercial culture all my life, my brain was filling in from the video the following spontaneously-generated thoughts:
“No messy mantras! No effortful visualizations! Just pure awareness! It’s simple! It’s clean! Get yours today!”
I know, I know. If you’re trying to get donations, you have to have some kind of pitch. And why not a cheeky, somewhat irreverent one? People like humor.
So much for my immediate reaction – anyone else care to comment on this?
I did not detect any tongue-in-cheek humor or sales pitch in that video.
I watched it again and…maybe you’re right. On 2nd viewing, it seemed the three people on the screen were fairly humorless. My brain’s tongue is always in its cheek when I see things like this, though. I just have to think that the creator of the video was winking to himself.
Here is a serious and slick commercial for a New Age cult for comparison:
Ugh. Well, they’re close by. Maybe I should join their group because I won’t have to drive much. Is this how millenials get spiritual? I sense an evangelical Christian-vibe with these people, though they claim to be non-denominational.
The ‘pure and simple’ approach doesn’t seem like a good strategy now that the McMindfulness craze is in full swing. With mindfulness groups you don’t have to listen to the endless boring talks about emptiness. And no lectures about ethics either.
They sure look a lot like my ilk fifty years ago. Of course, at our circles there were also doses of acid and sprigs of Hawaiian Baby Woodrose seed pods. And a perennial haze of pleasant-smelling smoke. I bet we talked about pretty much the same stuff.
Thank God I listened to all those conservative businessman customers who hired my cab, who told me I would snap out of my hippy fad when I married and got a kid and a “real job.” Wish I could tell the kids what they can expect down the line if they don’t shape up and drop the mumbo-jumbo. I mean, nothing’s sadder than old hippies trying to grasp onto their ersatz memories of false joy:
http://tinyurl.com/qxouuxr
Nice pic, minkfoot!
The fly swatter on the wall
Says it all.
Argh! You saw that! Wasn’t my house!
I like the video that came on after the ACZC promo, where Brad takes five minutes to explain that emptiness means nothing has an essence. But why don’t I have an essence, Brad? Why-oh-why don’t I have one?
Why ask why?
(That’s also a Leo Kottke composition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsjROB9p2dc)
You’ll just get a rhetorical answer. Unless that’s what you’re looking for.
“Why-oh-why don’t I have one?” … coz you don’t got an existence either. No cake until you eat your broccoli
I’m not really very good at chanting. Or yodeling. Somebody at the karioke parlor thought I sold “Don’t Worry, Baby” just fine, but I don’t know how I hit half of the high notes; I’m not very good at falsetto, either.
I’m really bad at respecting Zen teachers who bore me when they speak, even if they can sit like a bulldozer. It’s worse when they miss the mark in their explanations.
There’s no mention of chanting in the Pali Canon, as far as I know. I think the rituals came later; the statues certainly did.
Far be it from me to take meaning away from people’s lives. I sure am a junky for meaning in mine, and the community that finds the same kind of meaning I do in things is like a murder of crows that stays together by chance. But I’ll hang with old hippy dreamers any day.
old hippy dreamers
knew the meaning of love
the world grew cruel
anyway
poor lama Christie
a goddess of love
hiding in a desert cave
her essence dried up
and emptiness shrivelled
Army Dreamers
Hey Lama Christie survived. God only knows what she’s up to now. She’s still got time to reinvent herself. Krishnamurti rejected the Theosophical Society. Christie could come to her senses and reject the perverted form of Buddhism that her good buddy was purveying. Of course, he’s still alive too. Doubt that he can reinvent himself!
By what chance do you come to think that murders happen by chance?
After one year living in a tent, I got to understand crows really have a language. They really have conversations. I almost understood them.
Don’t think it says how many residents the place is envisioned to support; being built primarily with donations from Japan, and maybe that support is expected to continue to sustain the place?-
“Soto Zen Training Monastery Comes to Northern California”:
http://sweepingzen.com/soto-zen-training-monastery-comes-to-northern-california/
Actually, Sonoma Mountain was made an official training monastery two years ago.
“The rigorous monastic training will include familiar Soto Zen practices, allowing the estimated global population of 900 Zen priests registered outside of Japan wanting to further their studies and practice in Dogen’s way to do so without needing to travel to Japan.”
I was thinking about acquiring a mobile in Lucerne, on the other side of Clear Lake, but I couldn’t get the family cow to my friend fast enough to close the deal. Just as well. Clackers at 4am is enough to scare any crow.
To Zafu. In the last thread I stated that sitting practice has helped me drastically change my behaviour and life and you chose to make condescending comment that I must have been a “very bad girl” before that. You don’t know anything about me at all. I was consistently sexually abused as a kid and as a result, was full of self-hatred and self-destructive behaviours such as never letting people get close etc.
I just wanted you to know what I was talking about so you might reconsider your flippant, sexist comment next time someone is talking about their life-experience, and experience of sitting practice. Or most likely, you’ll give it no thought at all….
Anyways, this blog is not a safe place to comment. I like it but won’t be back.
Zafu is a delusional worn-out piece of furniture that types.
Please don’t take typing seriously. Nobody does.
Gassho
Kyla, don’t read his stuff. He’s just trolling for responses.
I don’t know if anyone has told you how incredible your art is. Best wishes
Brad sent me a message saying what an asshat I’ve been and how I don’t respect Zen etc… and asked me to stop posting comments here.
So now the blog is a bit safer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSUIQgEVDM4
Just out of curiosity, do you believe one of Brad’s minions is impersonating him in the video too?
Anyway, it seems you don’t believe that Brad cares enough to try making the blog a safer place for people like Kyla. He does care, and he feels responsible. At least that’s what he wrote. I was genuinely moved by what he said and that’s why I’ve agreed to stop commenting here. Frankly, I didn’t think he was capable of being so sincere and open hearted. It made me ashamed of my behavior. He really does care, and he cares deeply.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neva1uGMeOc
GC – but then again, maybe you’re just paranoid!
I’ve met Brad twice – if he’s an “actor” merely playing the role for “unseen masters”, then he’s doing a pretty impressive job! And by that I mean he’s as low-key and un-charismatic as they get. I leave it to you to figure out whether that’s a plus or a minus. And for the record, I’ve never contributed a dime to his cause, (except for buying his books from Barnes & Noble).
Kyla-Congratulations to you for being strong and persevering. Zazen is helpful in many ways. Some people on this blog don’t understand yet that the suffering of other beings is indeed our own suffering as well. Best wishes, sister.
Hi Kyla–Zafu is merely a troll. And like all trolls, he is irrelevant. It’s best to ignore him.
I can’t apologize for being a monster. That’s what I am. That and the whole universe, in zen reality, of course.
Zafu, to assert that the creation of meaning underlies all human endeavor is an example of reductionism. Sadly, reductionist thinking almost always results in nihilism. And nihilism produces monsters like you and Hitler.
Godwin, baby, Godwin.
Fathers used to be a really good person, back when he was chanting his daily sutras and working hard on his koan. Then one-day, in a tragedy Moms and I are still trying to come to grips with, he was bitten on the knee by a radioactive monk and tragically transformed in-to the vitriol ejaculating Zafu of these pages. Moms and Sons pray daily to Cthulhu in hope for his eventual recovery. Hope is that zafu filled with feathers; you know.
It’s too late for me, son. Only true loves kesa can restore my humanity. And no one can love a beast. People only see the troll, and they run away. Folks only want to see beauty, and who can blame them. There is far too much ugliness in the world, right?
Let go, son. Cherish the memories of when we lived in beauty.
Meaning is the essential purpose of religion. It has other purposes, but meaning is the essential purpose. That’s not giving it an essence. That’s not a reduction. It’s only identifying it’s essential purpose and what it can’t exist without.
As others note, my essential purpose is trolling. That’s not reducing me to a monster. How can you reduce a whole universe to a monster? That doesn’t make sense. It’s only identifying my essential purpose and what I can’t exist without, in order to be me, and I gotta be me (the whole universe).
Sieg heil!
Oh Fathers, President Obama never let go of Osama bin Laden and Moms ‘n Me’s will never let go of you. Most-of the relevant indictments are still active and we both fervently hope-to claim the remaining bounty payments.
You’re a good son, son.
“I forbid you to go there.”
You always were a very forbidding father, Father. Especially between the sheets.
You and “Zafu” haven’t the faintest idea what real Zen practice is about. Acting crass and immature like a couple of middle-schoolers is not as funny as you seem to think it is I guess. Your weak, tired shtick has only become…even more tired. And weak. Now go find yourselves a nice high school blog somewhere and enjoy yourselves.
I’m happy to say im totally going to make a modest donation towards the center when I get the first paycheck from my new job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jt0NSoQwypA
The Straw Man Sniffs His Zafu, ft. Bill Ashbery
Signifying nothing. Is there anything full of sound and fury to be serious about beyond this otherness told by an idiot?
It is a tale: and then is heard no more that struts and frets his hour upon the stage that gets included in the most ordinary forms of daily activity, changing everything slightly and profoundly, and tearing the matter, a poor player of creation, any creation, not just artistic creation, out of our hands.
Life’s but a walking shadow to install it on some monstrous, near peak, too close to ignore, too far for one to intervene? Out, out, brief candle! The way to dusty death, this otherness, this “Not-being-us” is all there is to look at and all our yesterdays have lighted fools in the mirror, though no one can say, to the last syllable of recorded time, how it came to be this way.
There would have been a time for such a word. A ship flying unknown colors creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow. She should have died hereafter, has entered the harbor.
An empty cushion holds the kapok
Walking along, it rides the troll
The kapok crosses a wooden bridge
The bridge is boring, the troll is gone
Sounds good! Do you suppose the author wrote that? No matter, this is one I will buy and hope it lives up to the hype.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQhTpgicdx4
That’s a great title and monster book cover. Look forward to reading it.
http://imgur.com/1T5KnXb
“I can’t apologize for being a monster. That’s what I am. That and the whole universe, in zen reality, of course.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjvE7fV_huY
The foaming breakers of the void filling the sky, heart breakers? Buddhas and Bodhisattvas right where I stand- life takers?
Anger City Zen Center