Here are two new videos by Zero Defex for songs from our forthcoming album “Caught in a Reflection.” The album will be available on CD at our shows at:
May 26, 2012
Now That’s Class
1213 Detroit Avenue Cleveland, OH 44102
with Killer of Sheep, Gun Parole and Dead Federation
a record release party for the album by Cleveland punk legends The Guns
June 8, 2012
Old Haunt’s Tavern
1527 E. Market St.
Akron, OH
with The Vulcanizers
ARMAGEDDON
This video features dancers Cherry, Nina Fukuzato and Zingara Amore. The song was brought to the band by drummer Mickey “X-Nelson” Hurray and subsequently pounded into shape by us. Rumor has it Mick wrote the tune on piano! A first for Zero Defex! The video was shot in Wadsworth, Ohio at their public access cable facility. I slaved over a hot laptop for hours making all the weird psychedelic effects.
ANYMORE
This song was brought to the group by guitarist Jeff “Ghoul” Hardy who also provided the fine insightful lyrics. Vocalist Jimi Imij mostly edited the video although I got it started. But I didn’t have the guts to cut it up as much as Jimi did. The beginning and ending are from a one-of-a-kind record Jimi found at a thrift shop. It was recorded at a school in West Virginia sometime in the 1940s.
***
And don’t forget to order your copy of Hardcore Zen Strikes Again from Amazon today! Order six! They’re low in polyunsaturated fat!
I pity the fool who don’t get enlightened!
1
may brad have all the money he needs.
"I pity the fool who don't get enlightened"- Warner-san, Bradley
Perhaps we should add a disclaimer, so:
"I pity the fool who don't get enlightened, or who don't become once-returner"
as it appears not all sentient beings will get enlightened this time around (per the big daddy Gautama the Buddha hisself). Now tell me this, if we had never had Gautama the Buddha, would we be talking about enlightenment? Would we be talking about walking on the earth in accord with the Great Spirit, instead, and consuming psychotropic plants? does everyone see that there is no more of being so-and-so in these cultures, without gurus, maybe just with a healer leading the ceremony?
I enjoyed the two Zero Defex songs. Nice to feel the blast, thanks.
Koan: When a Zen teacher has a mid life crisis, and there is no one to hear it, does s/he make a sound?
I think I recognize the lead singer's dance moves from his older videos here and here.
yes…
Brad:
Zazen seems to have helped you chill on the bass…
.
.
.
.
the sound of Megiddo clapping…
.
.
.
.
Armegeddon happened long, long ago.
the babel is a Mosaic of 1/2 truths, 1/4 truths, 1/8 truths, 1/16 truths, 1/32 truths, 1/64 truths, 1/128 truths, 1/256 truths but NOTHING to the left of the decimal point.
Mark asked: "Now tell me this, if we had never had Gautama the Buddha, would we be talking about enlightenment?"
If some nineteenth century European Buddhologists hadn't chosen "enlightenment" as a translation of bodhi and related terms, then we wouldn't be talking about enlightenment. We might instead be talking about "wisdom" or "understanding" – which, IMO, would have saved us a lot of fuss and bother.
Manson is a mess…
at least he didn't punch his lawyer
Hey Brad, I like your new t-shirt with the "strikes again" logo.
But …
If you want my bucks …
Could you make one with a SMALLER logo. Understated. On the back. Right smack dab on the spine between my shoulder blades?
That way, when I get hit by a stick during sesshin, my teacher gets a tongue sticking out at him.
😛
Thx.
Mr. T would make an awesome Zen teacher.
SIT DOWN, AND DON'T GIMME ANY BACKTALK SUCKA!
Whoops, forgot the double negative
SIT DOWN AND DON'T GIMME NO BACKTALK, SUCKA!
SIT DOWN, AND QUIT YO JIBBA JABBA, FOOL!
Brad, do you teach in your new book how to be 50 years old and look like 25? Painting the hair to seem younger is not hardcore…
It's good to be aware of how language is used and interpretted across sects, particularly the Soto and Rinzai sects.
It's less about what the words actually say (such as 'kensho', which means something like 'seeing your original/absolute nature') but what they are taken to mean by 'that other crowd' (e.g. 'kensho' is uncomfortable for the Soto crowd generally speaking as it is often taken to suggest a sudden all-in 'enlightenment', which is an idea that the Soto zazen-as-the-thang boyz are not really comfortable with, even though that is not really what the word means within Rinzai practices… neither the terms 'kensho' or 'satori' are intended to equate with 'anuttara samyak sambodhi', for example, which is really meant to indicate the perfection of Buddhist practice).
I think there's that element of 'awakening' in bodhi that's worth acknowledging, 108.
Regards,
Harry.
*SHOOTS LIQUID SHIT OUT OF ASSHOLE IN THE GENERAL DIRECTION OF JIMI IMIJ*
I don't see this as a doctrinal Soto v Rinzai dispute, Harry – at least it isn't for me. "Enlightenment," with its (I think) unavoidable associations of breaking through to a different state of being/awareness, a state of all-knowing truth and wisdom, isn't what I believe the Buddha was talking about, not what the great Zen teachers were talking about. I don't think the word is helpful. It wasn't helpful for me, who for decades imagined it to be something very rare, special and mysterious.
Stephen B puts it well:
"… his [Buddha's] awakening is not about some privileged state of mind or the unconditioned state but rather about a complex of truths. He awakens to a way of understanding the world and then a way of behaving in the world…So the Buddha is presenting awakening not as a single mystical experience that may come upon us at some meditation, some private moment of transcendence, but rather as a new engagement with life…"
– “Suspending Belief”, Inquiring Mind, vol. 27 no. 1.
Sure, "awakening" works as a more literal translation of a word (bodhi) that derives from the root budh, but – in context, as I read it – bodhi is not the kind of mysterious awakening from a dream that reveals a completely new world. It's the kind of awakening that naturally follows from understanding, experience and reflection.
And the idea of different flavours, varieties and levels of (enlightenment) – from kensho all the way up to anuttara-samyak-sambodhi strikes me as pretty unreal/useless, too.
Hi 108,
Don't fret, it was just a general reflection on terms that was sparked off by your objection to the term 'enlightenment'.
I don't have much of a problem with the term 'enlightenment', if people don't go loosing their heads over it. Terms such as 'realisation', 'awakening' and such may be just as prone to human excesses in that regard tho.
Not being a person of 'anuttara samyak sambodhi' I think I'll reserve my judgement as to what the nature of perfected 'bodhi' is… and I'm not about to take Steven B's word for it either.
Regards,
Harry.
The sequence of comments on this blog is superlative.
Flaccid mind, let me speak to the flaccid mind.
Don't fret…
Ok.
…it was just a general reflection on terms that was sparked off by your objection to the term 'enlightenment'.
Yes, I know.
…I'll reserve my judgement as to what the nature of perfected 'bodhi' is…
Until you get it or meet someone who has? Give us a shout when that happens and I'll take it all back, H 🙂
Hee hee, 'Buddhism Within Beliefs'?
Regards,
H.
hey hey hey!
I did have a moment where I lost some illusion of "mine is the doer" with regard to this consciousness-informed body. All of a sudden.
I did not start speaking Japanese, I wasn't able to sit the lotus any better, and I was fortunate to get a job afterward; my bosses and friends complained that sometimes I seemed to be standing still when I should be engaged and moving.
All I wanted to do was find the words to explain my experience. The folks I thought might be interested were not interested; folks at the Zen centers were mostly into learning Japanese language and customs, gracefully sitting and walking for long periods, and achieving their goal of receiving and transmitting the teaching.
The only Zen teacher I ever heard speak to my experience directly was Kobun, and he offered no explanation. However, I now think that with lightening on the roof and the help of Bela Lugosi's madcap gesture, this consciousness-informed body will walk again, and the world will bring torches to my door!
Mark,
All the traditional step-by-step guides to your immanent (in several or more lifetimes?) realisation are about bringing it to the streets (or the market place, as is the traditional 'streets').
The '5 ranks' and the 'ox herding pictures' are sort of… annoying… in a way, but at least they indicate that it's about being in the world, not disappearing up our enlightened holes in a mint smelling puff of blue smoke… entertaining as that would be.
Regards,
Harry.
"enlightenment" as a translation of bodhi…
Buddha – Sanskrit buddha errantly translated 'enlightened,' it is actually derived from budh meaning 'awake, perceive.'
I perceive the dawn…
I am waking up.
I perceive the coffee…
I smell the roasting beans…
I eat the burrito, I pass the beans…
I perceive an elevator…
I awake to an avenue of of escape with the opening of the elevator doors…
I fart, therefore I am…
farting.
Get real, stay real, reel in a radioactive tuna fish (and not an Xtian).
holy mackerel, the anchovies on my combo pizza are glowing!
http://www.beyondnuclear.org/home/2012/1/17/fish-eaters-threatened-by-fukushima-radiation.html
Lightning struck the collectors on the roof of the castle, as the band (Zero Defex) began to play, and down in the cellar a mint smelling puff of blue smoke emerged from the lack of disturbances that was there on the gurney; yes, for whatever was there was empty of disturbances, also its perceptions were empty, for they had all disappeared up the holes that inevitably had appeared in the ceiling, being struck as it was by lightning. Nevertheless the good doctor knew that soon, the disturbance that remained connected with the six sense fields, as well as those perceptions connected to the six sense fields, would be sufficient for whatever was on that gurney to rise, and the terror of the villagers for an instant seemed his own as he realized his torch was extinguished, blown out, and the shape on the gurney was moving…
tune in again for another searing episode of "when the clock strikes", or "waste not, want not", brought to you by Amalgamated Elements, where "that being, this is" is yours for the asking, or at least never returning!
"May I be healthy, happy and free from suffering…"
"May Brad Warner be healthy, happy and free from suffering…"
"May all the other dumb-ass blog posters be healthy, happy and free from suffering…"
7pm Tuesday May 22
79036 Wilshire Blvd
Beverly Hills, CA
Watched the videos. 0DFX has totally sold out what it means to — I'm kidding, you guys rocked. Way to, uh, keep it real.
Enlightened = Illuminatus
I don't paint my hair. There are little strands of grey here and there. You just have to look close to find them. I was riding in a tow truck yesterday with a guy who said, "Don't worry, you're young" when I told him my books weren't making me any money. Turns out he was 8 years younger than I am.
If I knew the secret to this, I'd be rich. When I was younger it was a pain in the ass. People thought my driver's license was fake. I got treated like a teenager well into my 30s.
I feel there may be some Zen connection, although I don't know what it is. Nishijima Roshi looked like he was 60 when I met him. He was actually almost 90.
I like Batchelor's definition of "enlightenment." There is too much attention paid to the moments of so-called "kensho" that people sometimes experience. I think these moments can have great value. But you can have them and still behave like an asshole.
In fact, you can behave even more like an asshole in some cases. I have a theory that some people have these experiences. They realize that in the whole universe there is only one being. And they mistakenly identify that one being as their personal self. They then decide they can do whatever they want to whoever they want because they're only ripping off, or fucking, or being a shithead, or whatever to themselves.
I think this because I found myself going through these same sorts of thought patterns after some of my own experiences. Luckily I had a teacher who I trusted who put me off of that. But it would have been very easy for me, at that point, to decide I knew better than my teacher. After all, I now knew everything!
This comment has been removed by the author.
Brad,
I think any Rinzai teacher worth his/ her salt would heartily agree with your criticism of how 'kensho' can be misinterpretted/ misused. Rinzai zen has developed protocols and methods to address just that. Pity Soto zen is a bit wanting in that regard, especially when it's message is misinterpretted/misrepresented so as to say 'just sit zazen on your own and you are enlightened' or whatever. I rather think that situation is more precarious than a tested syllabus which is overseen by a teacher so as to avoid such mistakes.
Regards,
Harry.
Hang it up you old farts!!! … ,,, jk keep up the the good work if you tour to Denver I'll be wanting to be there but not sure of ill be busy.. good stuff. I probably won't illegally download your cd either
I'm ready to mosh to this!!!
I will continue to pay attention to it. welcome to my website, buy you like.
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