{"id":15263,"date":"2019-12-03T15:45:31","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T20:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/?p=15263"},"modified":"2019-12-03T15:45:31","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T20:45:31","slug":"zen-enlightenment-giveaway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/?p=15263","title":{"rendered":"Zen & Enlightenment & Giveaway"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve been a reader of The Magical Buffet for just about any length of time, you know I love me some Brad Warner. I\u2019ve featured nearly every book he has written on my site. So, believe me when I tell you that this may be my FAVORITE Warner book. This is the book I\u2019ve been waiting for and Warner has been putting off writing. Welcome to your Zen Buddhism 101 book with cool professor Warner. In order to pull it off, Warner needed a framing device to make it work for him. He did it in the form of letters to his childhood friend Marky, who passed away shortly before work on the book began. I\u2019m generally not a fan of the letters format, but Warner\u2019s conversational writing works perfectly with it, and honestly, whatever it took for him to finally give me my grand overview of Zen Buddhism is okay with me.
\nHere’s a 5 minute video where Warner discusses the book:<\/p>\n

<\/iframe><\/p>\nAnd New World Library was kind enough to provide an excerpt to share as well\u2026. \nBy Brad Warner<\/p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/zen-cover-194x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"194\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-15273\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/zen-cover-194x300.jpg 194w, https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/zen-cover.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 194px) 100vw, 194px\" \/>Through sheer dumb luck I happened to encounter Zen Buddhism when I was a teenager. I didn\u2019t go looking for it. It was just there at exactly the time I needed it to be.<\/p>\nI don\u2019t believe in Buddhism either, by the way. It\u2019s not like I heard their fairy tales and figured they were better than anybody else\u2019s stories. The Buddhists have fairy tales too. The difference is that nobody cares if you believe them. They don\u2019t care whether you believe their stories because the very idea of a you<\/em> who can believe in stories is something they also call into question.<\/p>\nEven so, I\u2019m not all that interested in Buddhism. I\u2019m much more interested in what is true. What I like about Buddhism is that the Buddhists are also interested in what is true. At least, most of them are.<\/p>\nI\u2019m not sure if Zen Buddhism would have helped you or not, Marky. I never tried to sell it to you. You knew I was into it, but you never asked.<\/p>\nI never liked people who tried to sell me their religions. I know you didn\u2019t either, so I wasn\u2019t gonna do that to you. No one ever tried to sell me Zen Buddhism. If they had, I would have regarded them as people who were too insecure to believe in something unless a bunch of other people believed it too. I have no time for that.<\/p>\nBut nowadays I\u2019m a minor spiritual celebrity. I\u2019m not as big as Deepak, but I\u2019m big enough to make a living at it. Which was always a source of embarrassment whenever I interacted with you and still embarrasses me when I\u2019m around friends who, like you, knew me long before I started doing what I do now.<\/p>\nI see spiritual celebrities as charlatans, as people who make their living selling empty promises that they themselves don\u2019t even believe. I swear that\u2019s not what I do. But I don\u2019t have anything against anyone who assumes the worst about me in that regard. Because that\u2019s probably what I\u2019d assume about me if I wasn\u2019t me.<\/p>\nSpiritual celebs play the same stupid games as regular celebs. They, or maybe I should say we, validate each other the same way cheap nightclub singers do when they get on TV talk shows.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s like there\u2019s a little Enlightened Beings Club. Here\u2019s how it works. Some guy says he\u2019s got enlightenment. He has a story to back him up about the wonderful day when he finally understood everything about everything. Another guy, his teacher, certified him as a member of the Enlightened Beings Club. And now he\u2019s ready to help you learn to be just like him. <\/p>\nYou go to the enlightened guy, and he trains you to imitate the things he says. Or if he\u2019s real clever he teaches you how to rephrase his schtick in your own words. If your imitation meets his criteria, he gives you his seal of approval, and off you go. The industry is self-perpetuating. It\u2019s in your teacher\u2019s best interests to support your claims of enlightenment since you, in turn, are expected to support his. Without such support, the whole thing falls to pieces.<\/p>\nIf someone comes along and says, \u201cAin\u2019t no such thang,\u201d it threatens the whole system since it is built on extremely shaky ground. Unless people believe in enlightenment, enlightenment cannot exist. The enlightenment they sell is nothing more than the belief in enlightenment. <\/p>\nThis is the same deal with religions. Believing in God is not like believing in the existence of Mount St. Helens or something tangible like that. The difference is that you can question the existence of Mount St. Helens all you want, but it doesn\u2019t go away. But when someone questions the existence of God, the very existence<\/em> of God is threatened, because that sort of God is nothing more than the belief in God.<\/p>\nAnd here\u2019s what\u2019s even weirder. <\/p>\nIt turns out that enlightenment actually is<\/em> real. <\/p>\nGod actually does<\/em> exist. <\/p>\nI don\u2019t know how you feel about my saying that now that you\u2019re dead, Marky. But I know that when you were alive you would have rolled your eyes at me. And I would not have blamed you.<\/p>\nThere are a lot of things I wish I\u2019d talked to you about. But I didn\u2019t. And so I\u2019m writing you this letter. Maybe I\u2019ll write you a bunch of letters. There\u2019s a lot to say. I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s an afterlife and you can somehow read these letters, or if there\u2019s reincarnation and you\u2019re still a baby and can\u2019t read them, or if you just stay dead after you die, in which case you\u2019ll never even know of their existence. Maybe I\u2019ll write about that in another letter.<\/p>\nAll I know is that whether or not you can receive what I\u2019m saying doesn\u2019t change the fact that there are things I want to say. And so I\u2019m going to say them.<\/p>\nBut I\u2019m going to have to say them later because right now there\u2019s nobody else in the Pizza Pazza and the surly guy behind the counter is giving me a funny look. So I\u2019d better scarf down my cold pizza and go.<\/p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/warner-photo-238x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"238\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-15272\" srcset=\"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/warner-photo-238x300.jpg 238w, https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/warner-photo.jpg 323w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 238px) 100vw, 238px\" \/>About Brad Warner:<\/strong> \nBrad Warner is the author of “Letters to a Dead Friend about Zen” and numerous other titles including “It Came from Beyond Zen”, “Don\u2019t Be a Jerk”, and “Hardcore Zen”. A Soto Zen teacher, he is also a punk bassist, filmmaker, and popular blogger who leads workshops and retreats around the world. He lives in Los Angeles where he is the founder and lead teacher of the Angel City Zen Center. Visit him online at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hardcorezen.info\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">www.hardcorezen.info<\/a>. <\/p>\nExcerpted from the book “Letters to a Dead Friend About Zen”. Copyright \u00a92019 by Brad Warner. Printed with permission from New World Library \u2014 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newworldlibrary.com\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">www.newworldlibrary.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.indiebound.org\/book\/9781608686018?aff=MagicalBuffet\">Shop your local indie bookstore<\/a> <---This is an affiliate link to IndieBound, which supports independent bookstores throughout the United States. If you use this link to purchase the book, I will make a small commission at no additional cost to you.\n\n\nBut wait, there\u2019s even MORE! New World Library is going to send one lucky winner a copy of \u201cLetters to a Dead Friend About Zen\u201d! As usual, we\u2019re doing the Rafflecopter thing, so see the widget below! Contest ends 12\/06\/2019 at 11:59pm eastern.\n\n<a class=\"rcptr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rafflecopter.com\/rafl\/display\/607e07b419\/\" rel=\"nofollow\" data-raflid=\"607e07b419\" data-theme=\"classic\" data-template=\"\" id=\"rcwidget_0ht608lr\">a Rafflecopter giveaway<\/a> \n<script src=\"https:\/\/widget-prime.rafflecopter.com\/launch.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s a book review! It’s an excerpt! It’s a giveaway! And it’s all about my favorite Zen author Brad Warner!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,5,11,27],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15263"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}