My name is Brad and I subscribe to Deepak Chopra’s Twitter feed.
Hi Brad!
I don’t even really “get” Twitter. I’m not sure just what you’re supposed to do with it. The best stuff I’ve seen there has been funny one-liners like Shit My Dad Says or my friend Precious Veal. She’s a hoot!
A lot of “spiritual” type guys are on Twitter these days throwing out little sound bytes of spirituality. But I doubt there’s anything truly worthwhile in the realm of spiritual practice that can be reduced to 140 characters.
Of course, having said that I also have to mention that there is a tradition in Zen of so-called “turning words.” These are short phrases that, when heard by just the right person at just the right time, have a profound effect. One such phrase that often gets quoted is, “From birth to death it’s just like this.” A lot of the koans end with “turning words.” For me, hearing the phrase “form is emptiness, emptiness is form” really blew my head right off when I was about 18 years old.
But I seriously doubt that a Twitter feed is the best way to disseminate “turning words.” It’s not like those ancient Zen guys subscribed to a service that would sling random “turning words” at them from multiple sources of varying quality at a rate of four to six an hour popping up on their cell phones among fart jokes from drive time DJs and news about Paris Hilton’s latest Brazilian wax job. It was a different sort of thing altogether.
I’ve responded to a couple of Deepak’s tweets already. But one came up last night that I think really needs to be addressed in detail.
Right at the outset I want to emphasize that this is not about the man Mr. Deepak Chopra himself. It’s about what he tweeted. It’s not even about everything he tweets. It’s about this one specific tweet. I don’t know enough about Mr. Chopra to criticize him as a human being or even as a brand. I know he’s got a comic book series and a bunch of TV shows and even a video game. As dubious as the spiritual applications of these things seem to me, I’m not even all that fussed about them. If someone wanted to make a graphic novel or a video game out of Hardcore Zen, I’d probably do it. So this isn’t about that.
It’s about what Mr. Chopra says in his tweet. And what he says is this:
When you reach pure awareness you will have no problems, therefore there will be no need for solutions.
Let’s analyze that for a minute.
When (in the future, not now) you (who exist now and will continue to exist in the future) reach (whatever you imagine to be) pure awareness you (who exist now and will continue to exist in the future) will have (in the future) no problems (for your self), therefore there will be (in the future, not now) no need for (you to have) solutions (and won’t that be wonderful, over there, past that hill, just out of sight, let me sell you a way to get there).
If it were only Deepak Chopra who believed this, it wouldn’t really matter much. But this is how pretty much everyone approaches meditation practice and it’s why meditation practice seems to fail those people. It is certainly how I myself thought of practice for a very long time. I wanted something for myself. I might have even thought of what I wanted to get in terms of “pure awareness.” I read enough shitty books that used shitty phrases like that.
There is no pure awareness for you.
That might sound harsh. But really it’s not. What you are can never enter that place. Because you are the subject that sees things in terms of objects. Joshu Sasaki put it like this in his book Buddha is the Center of Gravity; “The God that is standing in front of you as an object says, ‘I am your God.’ But he is not. Even if that God has great power, he is not the real God.”
Pure awareness, whatever that is, or God (my preferred term), cannot be the object of you, cannot be the possession of you, it isn’t in your future, it isn’t something you can ever possibly reach. It will not solve all of your problems. It couldn’t even if it wanted to. It’s a fantastic dream that can never come true.
This doesn’t mean everything is bleak and horrible and hopeless. It just means that approaching it in terms of you and the things you want to get cannot possibly work. It can’t work precisely because thinking of things in terms of you and what you want to get is exactly the thing that blocks it.
The attitude expressed in Mr. Chopra’s tweet sits right at the very epicenter of where things have gone wrong for mankind. It is the source of all of our troubles. The solution to what’s wrong in the world is not some distant dream of pure awareness. It’s the understanding that what exists right now is pure awareness, is God, whether you know it or not. We, who seek to know it and possess it, are the very thing that makes it so hard to understand that.
A couple of blogs ago Broken Yogi made a comment that, “Brad is mixing categories. I can’t pole vault 18 feet like a top Olympic athlete, but I doubt that athlete would call me physically ill because I can’t do that… Likewise, I’m not enlightened, but I’m not spiritually lame either.”
In response I said something like, “Enlightenment (I hate that word) isn’t like pole vaulting 18 feet. It’s more like walking to the bathroom, if we were to continue that analogy. Most people, instead of walking to the bathroom, which (let’s say) just happens to be 18 feet away instead try to pole vault to the bathroom. And they can’t do it because the ceiling is too low. Yet they try anyway and keep injuring themselves. The pole keeps breaking, they keep hitting their heads, they keep beating themselves up over not being able to do it, and they still have to pee. The only thing an enlightened person (I hate that term) does differently is that she walks straight to the bathroom, does her business and then goes back to bed.”
Enlightenment or pure awareness or God or whatever isn’t some complicated thing we have to chase after far, far away. It’s the chasing itself that gets in our way. We wear ourselves out running in circles to try to arrive at the place we already are.
When you become a critic of some of the biggest names in the biz, you get held to a very high standard.
The biggest names are not the deepest thinkers. Sort of like criticizing Romney/Obama. Go to it, if it makes you happy and gives you a jumping off point for something you're trying to say. I've done the same thing to Brad on my cheezy blog. Haven't heard anyone hold me up to Brad's high standard.
This Brad is a good boy / bad boy is getting kind of tedious. I never thought of him as anything but a regular guy trying to scratch out a living by writing on Zen. Sort of like van der Wettering and maybe Brad will make some bucks by writing detective novels too. Good for him if he makes a buck and great if he attracts some new blood into the prematurely senile world of American Zen.
To spell it all out, the problem with Chopra's pure awareness tweet is that it's dualistic. I give him a pass on this because every saying that tells you to get your ass in gear and go from point A to point B is dualistic. And the whole of practice depends on telling students this. But the teacher should be smart enough to know this is only one side of the truth and you're already there is the other side. Don't know if Chopra understands this or not.
"People will look back at us in the early 21st century and marvel
at the fact that almost the entire world was what they will call
"mentally ill."
I wonder.. Humans are built to bully and kill the weak. It's ugly on one level but beautiful on another. Mentally ill or mentally healthy are just labels. It's survival of the fittest when push comes to shove people. I don't like it much but then again I am often accused of being an idealist.
Being watched by zazen, cursed by zazen, blocked by zazen, dragged around by zazen, every day crying tears of blood – isn't that the happiest form of life you can imagine?
Zazen is unsatisfying. It's fucked up!
I would like Brad to succeed. I don't really know what Brad's success would look like, but I would guess it would include more people learning to relate to where they are through zazen.
In Brad's case, success will also depend on his ability to continue the tradition he has embraced. If he sees himself as a teacher in the lineage of Gudo Nishijima, then he has to continue that lineage to succeed (to whatever extent he is able).
Although I would like to see Brad succeed, I would also like to see a day when the heart of the teaching can be passed from person to person very readily without regard for lineage, as though it were some kind of algebra or geometry that has emerged from the secret society of the past into a very public present (throw fruits and vegetables, here).
In my mind's eye I see the pendants around the necks of the dancers from West Africa that performed here last night- wonder why.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Blogger Mark Foote said…
"I would like Brad to succeed."
I think he already has. But I also have best wishes for his future success.
As Les Kaye introduced Buddhism to my generation with "Zen at Work," so too has brad introduced Buddhism to a newer, younger generation through his trilogy of "Hardcore," "Sit Down," and "Wrapped in Chocolate."
I know quite a few in the old guard who have high regards for Brad – even if some in the profane world think he is the 'bad boy of Buddhism.'
Deepak doesn't get to pure
awareness. Pure awareness gets to
pure awareness. The personality
and body are parts in a play.
I still think it's a simple word play in which 'pure awareness' points to nirvana.
Therefore, one should know the Perfection of Wisdom is the great mantra, is the unequaled mantra, the destroyer of suffering.
"Gate Gate Paragate Para Sam gate Bodhi svaha"
43 characters < 140. pwned :P in all seriousness i really appreciated this post though, thanks Brad.
Time to give up the bad habit of reading and posting on this comments section.
The quote below (from Koun Franz's excellent new blog), kept coming back to me while reading the last two comments sections.
http://nyoho.com/2012/05/12/bowing-at-the-scene-of-the-crime
However, the gap between our projections about Buddha and his actual humanity mirrors perfectly the gap we ourselves feel between who I am and the immeasurable scope of who I might be. It is no exaggeration to say that reconciling this perceived gap is the singular aim of Buddhist practice. It is a koan — a question we confront and which confronts us — and rather than avoid it, we are charged with facing it head on.
I've bookmarked Koun Franz's blog for the same reason I keep coming back to Brad's blog. I really appreciate good writing.
The touch, phrasing and resonances of the language – that which shines through – can become obscured by how we reflect and fashion our own limited, and often loaded, concerns into the piece. This includes our assumptions about what good writing should look, sound and feel like.
(Acknowledging that I'm as liable to be as limited as the next fucked up, twisted skin-bag can be another form of limiting self-deception, and probably the saddest and stupidest kind of sloganizing I can think of at the moment. I'll stop here with this, 'lest' I irritate myself too much with what I'm 'only concerned' about, my own red herrings.)
I appreciate how much effort, practice and courage goes in to such writing.
It's like the clothes we end up wearing in various situations – but having to make them too.
What shines through has been as much the message for me – and for one other person I know in the real world as well.
Thank you Brad.
Hi Soft Troll,
I think you'll find some excellent writing is the result of the writer's very limited concerns.
I think Brad's limited concerns of promoting himself are becoming (for me, and others) too apparent and hackneyed in his otherwise refreshing writing. And besides, Brad is at his best, his most creative, and his most instructive, when he turns the light on himself as opposed titlting at the windmills of new age tomfoolery IMO.
Maybe the reader is not always exclusively to 'blame' for concerns arising in writing.
Regards,
Harry.
Christians had the inquisition, Buddhists have the Twitter-war :D.
Harry,
I think you'll find some excellent writing is the result of the writer's very limited concerns .
An obvious and largely redundant point. A reductive, self-limiting attitude to reading a text is always that, regardless of what seems to be the 'limited concerns' or stylistic limitations of a writer.
Maybe the reader is not always exclusively to 'blame' for concerns arising in writing.*
Tell that to whatever straw man did indeed suggest that readers are 'exclusively to 'blame''.
* A good example there of how one can be creatively reductive in pursuing one's narrow 'concerns', while in the same stroke appearing to widen the scope of the debate, straighten up the discourse.
And as for the gooey bit in the middle…
I think Brad's limited concerns of promoting himself[…] hackneyed […] turns the light on himself as opposed tilting at the windmills of new age tomfoolery IMO.
…I've never been convinced by the main thrust of much of your analysis and less so by your presentation of it (see creatively reductive). So much for IMOs.
But as this is the the last time I'll take a nibble and spew a gobble:
Have your posts not been banging the same drum in the same fashion for a good while now? It seems many of us have. Quite simply, your posts read to me like advice to the self via a bit of Brad baiting, controversy stirring, or Dogen lessons for the the Zen impaired. Which doesn't mean there isn't some value in them.
I'm sure you've read Koun's piece in Wild Fox Zen about standing in one's position.
I think it's all too easy to write oneself into the mirage of it, and in doing so encourage others to follow suit.
These are my impressions. I don't particularly like them, and I'm sure you have experienced the sort of dissonance faffing around in such things creates. Within, without.
It's easy to parse myself into righteousness, even while I'm cunningly aware of many of my own limitations. But who can claim not to keep missing that nagging stupidity taken up by one's own, ever augmenting, intellectual habits. I'm in the mood for some real spring cleaning.
Saying goodbye to this comments section is one of those small things I'm going to do (I can hear the fool knocking already, or is it mocking?)
Now cracks a noble heart.Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
And thanks again Brad.
Mocking, the fool is most definitely mocking 🙂
Welcome back!
Spoken like a true Good little Buddhist chicken shit, Soft Troll.
The 'Soft' bit is very apt, at least. Cough up that little 'harry' shaped fur ball like a big boy/girl now.
You couldn't troll yourself in a kalpa of sincere effort of reading good literature.
Happy running, Oh, mighty troll.
Regards,
Harry.
I suppose as you get a larger and larger audience that you are hoping to influence in some (positive) way, your message must become more and more generic and cliche' to be appreciated by most. Deepak's tweet in specific analysis largely falls apart. As a generality it is pleasant and may cause some stopping and beneficial reflecting in the general populace.
I think Brad aspires to be a successful (living-earning) writer using Buddhism as the topic. My impression is that he is shunning forming individual relationships with 'students' (because it takes a lot of energy and focus) in favor of being more popular. He seems to be rather ironically a studentless teacher. It is cautionary that as he works to reach more people, his message might mean less to a specific person.
Like Zuigan (jp?) Brad is really calling to himself “Don’t be deceived by others, any day or any time!”
I'll wager someone has already said "all criticism is self-criticism"
"all criticism is self-criticism"
Lauren,
I think there is an awful, a terrible, amount of truth in that… the sort of shadowy truth we are not keen to see. The sort of truth we might bring our whole incredibly tangled and inverted intellegences and protective mechanisms and self beliefs to bear on so as to avoid.
I wonder what sort of effort is required so as to be able to realise such truths?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OggjRZaOU74
Regards,
Harry.
Harry,
Sweet song. The iron ball caught in my throat glowed warm and was cooled again by tears.
Thanks for that Harry. It was lovely.
CAPTCHA : itilla terchil : I kid you not
Well Harry brings up the point again and again and it's a good point for us all to look at ourselves.
Only we can truly know if we do the real turning of the light on ourselves and our own cherished beliefs.
Since the subject of this blog often seems to be about being sincere or authentic in this practice, it makes sense that much of the comments section becomes argumentation about what that really entails.
For myself it's meant trying to bring moment-to-moment awareness to bear in my life. I've often fallen stunningly short in that department, and my comments here are sometimes testament to that failure.
But self-flagellation is just another red herring I throw at myself, just another way to avoid this next moment which is truly fresh and truly here this very second.
Can I do something new, something fresh, can I take a breath right now and react differently to that same old stimulus?
Or am I just a dancing monkey who does the same jig when a coin is thrown in my little tin bucket?
I want to be more than a dancing monkey. Trying to force Brad to be more than that "dancing monkey" is futile because a) I can never know what he is doing or feeling in this moment and b) even if he does what i want him to do, it doesn't help me even one bit.
It's like trying to get my friend to diet so that I can vicariously prove to myself that this diet works.
If the diet is going to work, it's going to be because I take the disciplined steps to live the lifestyle and make the changes.
My diet is one of relaxing in this moment. If I failed a second ago, there's a new moment right here to present itself and do better. If I succeeded a second ago, it makes no difference now because the instant I become self-congratulatory about what I did last second, I've lost this moment here.
And so it goes for me.
Brad's successes and failures have not a whit to do with my own, however much I'd like that to be the case sometimes. And however temporarily nice it might be to make him my virtual whipping boy for a couple of hours.
That's my best shot at turning the light on myself Harry. What say you? Strike that. It won't matter one bit to me either way.
🙂
Brad:
I know you're an author who writes books related to Zen Buddhism.
Are you a teacher?
Are you a Zen Buddhist teacher?
I've seen some websites describe you as a Zen Master.
Are you a Zen Master?
What is that?
It would help me to understand how you are connected to Buddhism so I can put your writing in the right context.
Thanks!
happy mothers day
"That's my best shot at turning the light on myself Harry. What say you?"
If you practice sincerely then you're very likely in a better position to judge, Gniz.
Regards,
H.
Great post, Brad!
Brad has gone quiet on this comment section. It's almost like he appears here to get the shit stirred and then bugs out. Like he's not really interested in discussion, but instead interested of getting people to comment here.
@gniz,
My good friend called from Hawaii, he's visiting his mom there. He sounded rested, and when I mentioned it he said he had been sleeping, better than he had in awhile. My friend tends to wake up after about four hours of sleep and stay that way.
I mentioned again my success, that a gentleman in New York was able to follow the location of his mind as it flitted about in his body before sleep, and by staying with the location of his awareness the gentleman fell asleep.
My friend said his mind is like the pinball in the pinball machine as he lies in bed. I said that's it, just stay with that; keep your hands off the flippers, I said. Don't juke the machine too much, avoid the tilt.
You might ask why I think staying with the location of mind has anything to do with the seque from things constructed and thought out to an emptiness of craving, desire, and ignorance wherein only these six senses (conditioned by life and grounded on this body itself) are present. (weird description of enlightenment from MN III 108, Pali Text Society volume 3 pg 151).
In this breath, that's what I was thinking to myself this morning about the ox I rode in on, just like you; recollection already set up when the pleasant object of thought ceases, I recalled that too.
Brad relies on his experience when he teaches, but he trades on the approval of his understanding that he received from his teacher. How could it be otherwise.
Gee, when will people figure out that Brad is through all his writing just explaining what Buddhism is? Gniz, Harry, why is it so interesting for you to jugde whether his intensions are right or wrong? Whatever happens in the worlds, be it a pigeon shit falls on your nose or Mrs Smith says that Buddha is an idiot, it serves as a platform for EXPLAINING what Buddhism is. Brad is just doing that. He has been critical of himself enough, as far as I am concerned, but HE understands Buddhism and teaches Buddhism in a way that is beyond psychoanalysis and personal issues. If you haven't grasped this essential thing about teachign Buddhism, I hope you soon will.
Roman, every time you comment here you reveal your stupidity. Seriously. Go back to your shit blog and lick Brad's ass there, as you have in the past.
NO ONE wants to read it here. (I have received NUMEROUS emails from virtually ALL of the regular commenters here, and they have all, to a person, talked about how little they enjoy your comments here.)
If you guys haven't learned the Buddhist truth yet, why do you keep telling someone like Brad, who has learned what the Buddhist truth is, what he should or should not write, do, how he should make money, whether he should have sex or not, etc. When you guys learn the BUddhist truth, you will tell people what to do, ok? But before that, go to hell. Kisses!
Virtually ALL of the regular commenters here want you to leave, Roman. I have received NUMEROUS emails from them, wherein they state that they'll post otherwise here, but privately harbor a deep dislike for you and your comments.
anonymous, you made me laugh, I so absolutely don't care what your silly opinion is, but thanks for the entertainment
Hi Roman,
What is the Buddhist truth?
…and how could it possibly be 'beyond personal issues'?
The idea that the Buddhist truth is beyond personal issues is pretty much what Brad was criticising Deepnap Chakra about.
Regards,
Harry.
Deepnap Rootchakra and Roman are not wanted here. I have received NUMEROUS emails from the MOST prominent commenters here. It's UNANIMOUS.
I like Roman! He has a nice haircut and looks fun :p
Harry, you have just opened a big can of Buddhist teaching. First, throw everything out all of your mind,then listen to the dharma, then throw out the dharma. Finished. I am not saying Brad is a saint and never makes a mistake, but what ppl keep criticizing is how he explains Buddhism, while wanting to learn from him? Impossible. If you want to learn from him, you have to drop your opinikons how Buddhism should be taught. I hope it makes sense a bit. My teacher is also ONLY a human being, but I would never mix up with what he says about other Buddhist teachers or schools, that's part of his job, not my job.
Oh, I'll grant you the haircut. However, virtually ALL of the prominent commenters here have emailed me that they want him to LEAVE and never come back, as he is a KNOWN Warner arse-licker.
"If you want to learn from him, you have to drop your opinikons how Buddhism should be taught"
What the FUCK is an "OPINIKONS"? LOL, no wonder virtually EVERY single regular poster here wants you GONE.
Thanks for this post Brad. Really good stuff this time.
I hardly ever come here to read comments or comment myself, but this time I will make an exception. As briefly as possible, I want to state that Brad is not a superman, nor is my teacher, I don't kiss up to them. On the other hand, they MAYBE???? being bit sarcastic) realized something that is worth learning from them. In that respect, they are teachers and we are students. In all other respects, of course, we are perfectly on par with them. You cannot learn Buddhism from someone you don't trust has found the Buddhist truth. I personally dont' surf the net picking at fake teachers. I have no time for that, it is better to go to a site where you can learn something valuable.
Hi Roman,
Brad is not my teacher. I don't see him as a teacher, and he doesn't really present himself as a teacher as the term is understood in zen tradition and practice.
His books are arguably instructive, but writing well about Buddhism never made anyone a Buddhist teacher in the sense of being a 'good counselor' as Dogen put it. I rather think Brad avoids being that sort of teacher.
Brad, if you can drop the notion that he is a teacher (which he pretty much ain't), looks just like some loudmouth on the internet to a lot of people a lot of the time. I think if you reflect on it this position it will not seem unreasonable.
As to your presentation of what Buddhism is… I'm glad it wasn't explained to me that way as formaing aversion to our own thoughts might be a bit precarious for thinking beings.
Regards,
Harry.
Harry just DESTROYED the reviled Roman. I doubt Roman will come back on the internet AT ALL, much less here, for at least six weeks.
Harry, I appreciate your intelligent reaction. At least you are a real human being, unlike some trolls here.
I agree that Brad wriging a blog or books is not a Buddhist teacher exactly. But he explains Buddhism through his blog and books authentically. And as I have met him in person, I could see not only can he explain Buddhism through words, he can do it in person and be a true, real, personal teacher. As for "formaing aversion to our own thoughts might be a bit precarious for thinking beings". Welcome to Buddhism, first the bowl has to be emptied, then the teaching can be accepted. You can freely THINK about this. No problem with thinking. But always drop it when necessary. Which is whenever it is time to DO something.
You're calling me a troll and saying that I'm not a real human being, Roman?
Well fuuuuck youuuuu! How you like them apples, butter tits?
You have 24 hours to apologize to me for those hurtful words or else I'll convene an e-meeting with ALL of the regular commenters here and we will issue a vote of NO confidence in any of your comments, here or elsewhere.
The ball is in your court, communist.
Harry, seriously, I don't get any critical comments at my own blog, I would appreciate your feedback. Brad has enough critical stuff here, I get none on my blog, that's not fair. Criticism or objections are nice for inspiration. I am really serious, you are more than welcome to read my stuff, comment and criticize sincerely.
Hi Roman,
You may find that everyone who contributes here is a human being, regardless of what you think about them.
Regarding the Buddhist truth, you appear simply to be explaining your version of the method for zazen.
What is the teaching as in the 'teaching that can be accepted' when the mind is emptied?
And what is the purpose of this?
In other words, what is the Buddhist truth?
Regards,
Harry.
At least you're supplicating to Harry now.
I better be next on your ass-kissing list!
Harry and I are a team and we don't suffer fools (talking about you here, Roman) lightly.
… I don't know who my faithful sidekick is all of a sudden, but something tells me that on another day I might just as easily be the subject of his affections.