| Gimme Some Truth |
| Dork-Boy and the Godhead |
| Inner Anarchy |
| Making Monster Movies |
| Small and Stupid Dreams |
| If Only . . . |
| Great Heart of Wisdom sutra |
| Enlightenment |
| Gene Simmons |
| World of Demons |
| In My Next Life |
| Zen Master Know-it-All |
| No Sex with Cantaloupes |
| Pod People |
| Pass Me the Ecstasy |
| Eating a Tangerine |
| Hardcore Zen |
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Harcore Zen is a very plain written book. He has a very direct, irreverent attitude. No fluffy platitudes here!
In spite of our many differences, there's one basic thing that I share with the author: a desire to cut through all the crap and focus on reality. Obviously, I like his attitude.
The quote on the right, "And our ordinary, boring, pointless lives are incredibly, amazingly, astoundingly, relentlessly, mercilessly joyful.", sounds really nice. But, when I try to have that attitude on a normal day at work, it just makes me unhappy with my life. I guess I'm a long way from being enlightened!
I prefer the quote, "Life is suffering." It makes my life seem better. Although, the other quote is a nice reminder that there is an underlying reality that's better.
This is a book I'll have to re-read later.
A few quotes I'ld like to save:
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p.92-3
We all have a self-image and we call that self-image "me".
The problem with our self-image is that we don't see it for what it really is: a useful fiction.
The truth comes when you can see that your self-image is just a convenient reference point and nothing more, and that you as you had imagined yourself do not exist.
I'd been searching for enlightenment for all those years without realizing that the "I" who wanted to be enlightened wasn't real.
p.69
Buddhists do not accept the existence of a soul, some unchanging thing that is somehow "the essence" of a person. Instead they see a human being as a composite of five skandhas. The word skandha literally means "heap." Imagine a heap of junk; take away all the individual peices of junk that make up the heap, and the heap is gone. There is no "heap essence" or "heap soul" aside from the pieces of junk on the heap. In Buddhism, the five "heaps" that make up a person are these: form, feelings, perceptions, impulses toward actions (and the actions themselves), and consciousness.
p.95
Solving those philosophical problems DOES mean you've won - but nothing so piddling as the marathon race of life. You've won all creation. It's yours to do with as you please - and you discover what pleases you most is doing the right thing for all creation in moment after moment.
I saved the above quote because I don't understand it. I thought if I looked at it a little longer it might help me understand.
p.96-99
Not a quote, instead his description of his "enlightenment"/"solving the philosophical problems."
p.191
Zen is the complete absence of belief. Zen is the complete lack of authority. Zen tears away every false refuge in which you might hide from the truth and forces you to sit naked before what is real.
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"I'm angry" is wrong. "Right now I am anger" is closer to the truth of the matter.
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People long for big thrills, peak experiences, deep insights.
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But real enlightenment is the most ordinary of the ordinary.
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And our ordinary, boring, pointless lives are incredibly, amazingly, astoundingly, relentlessly, mercilessly joyful.
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