Religious Experiences

[@TukenNuken]

So, you're saying... I should drop a bowling ball on my foot to get enlightened? Yeah, I think that's what you were saying... Thanks Sensei!

[@bradwarner119]

Yes. And I will sell you a bowling ball.

[@TukenNuken]

Sounds kind of fishy... No, you can't fool me! I'll use my own bowling ball.

[@Kafei]

If you encounter the bowling ball in the middle of the road, pick it up and smash it on your foot!

[@ldydyk]

I spent my youth trying to have religious experiences through the Doors of Perception as Aldous Huxley explained in his famous work. I followed the lives of great Christian Saints. When I finally came to Zen, I was humbled. My interest in Zen/Religious Experiences diminished the more I practiced Zen. For one thing, as you say so well, there was no place to keep such moments that would be gone as quickly as they came. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life trying to define an infinitesimal moment. I like what you said about Charles Manson. Disturbed individuals can reach out into the unknown and see truth. (See R.D. Laing's Politics of Experience.) However, not to have a context beyond their own brains leaves them helpless in understanding their experience. Zen teachers who use some experiences to get the adoration of followers are offensive. Something that is less than a second in our time frame should not dominate someone's life. On top of that, most people who seek such enlightenment wouldn't want it if they knew what it meant without the comfort of Zen wisdom. We are here in this world. This is where we live and die.

[@genem7451]

Saw your comment today--finally getting around to this talk. Very fine. It's all about how we live in this world, isn't it? You might like Joko Beck's book, Nothing Special.

[@Octoberfurst]

I have had only one truly religious experience like you one you described. To make a long story short I had gone for a walk in the park and sat down on a bench to do a bit of meditation. It was a beautiful day and no one was around so I sat on the bench and stared with my eyes half open at a grove of trees across from me. After sitting there for awhile I started getting this feeling of total peace and the next thing I knew I felt like I was a part of everything around me---the trees, the birds, etc. Words can't ever really explain what I felt but it was very mind-blowing. It was just a glorious sense of oneness. I felt like time didn't exist and that my senses had become greatly enhanced. Everything seemed wonderful and good and I felt like I could stay there forever. Eventually the feeling passed and I realized I had been sitting there for several hours! (It honestly felt like I had only been there about 30 minutes.) Mind you, I was not using any drugs nor had I been drinking. It was just an incredible spiritual experience. That was several years ago and I have never been able to duplicate it since. I would love to experience that again but I realized that I can't make it happen. Maybe that was my one and only time the universe decided to open up to me. Who knows? But I thought I would share it with you.

[@rayellewilliamson4379]

I had a similar experience... about 6 years ago. I chased it for a couple of more years and then found it led me down a path that was scary and strange and I even remember reading one of your books along with some other books contributing to my practice during this time with an old partner... who ended up being scary and strange and I basically thought the whole thing was insane (the initial spiritual experience and the "scary and strange" events that followed it) and that I was indeed insane. Years have past. I don't feel so anxious anymore. And I must say it's refreshing to listen to you now and put a face to a name I haven't heard of in years and listen to YOUR experience. ^__^

[@DavidFerguson62]

Universal timelessness? Thanks for the Robyn Hitchcock recommendations. I'm not real familiar with his music but I just watched his new video 'Raymond and the Wires' and liked it very much.

[@madronmoss1066]

This felt familiar to me and it's constructive and reassuring to hear.For me, it was the intellect that stopped me running away with it. And the anti-epileptic medication. I've had far too many "experiences" that I'm pissed off by then and I've found them unhelpful in getting on with my everyday life. Thanks for sharing.

[@mattrkelly]

That sounds like Gempo Roshi... the guy who didn't want to leave the formless. "There aren't any washrooms of restaurants there!" -Sasaki Roshi

[@bradwarner119]

Well I wasn't talking about Gempo...

[@berrycrawford5579]

My guess is adyashanti

[@garad123456]

What does that quote by sasaki roshi mean?

[@henryfrummer8082]

Hi Brad, Liked the video and description of your experience. Perhaps we never get to live in the moment but only the memory of the moment. I have hung out at GGF for many years and have had one degrees of separation with you having friends who are a fan etc. I have also been going into SQ for many years and so that was another degree. But I digress. I have spent many countless hours in the GGF dining room listening to people's religious experiences and yours is surprisingly common as a class that people talk about. SFZC in general is not interested in experiences. I think that they are vital for the path. I think perhaps any religious path. My experience following basic yogacara instructions was cessation. This is rarer and sometimes unrecognizable. Like near miss on the freeway. What was that! But when I had mine first major one, it was the moment when all doubt went away. No matter how weird Buddhism can get I now see that it is oddly literal. We do disagree on many things except for who should make cheese, the cheesemakers of course. I am also very sorry that rebirth is not part of your practice. I like most Zen students cared nothing for it. But reading the Pali Canon one day, I had an intellectual religious experience. Suddenly I saw how it fit into the teachings. Karma etc. Many etcs. Perhaps a vital part. Most of Buddhism is beyond the physical world and so science (I am a former chemist.) has really nothing to say about it. Blah blah blah. Henry

[@HardcoreZen]

Thanks Henry. Re-birth is one of those areas that it's so hard to talk about, one might be better off not talking about it at all! My teacher used to deny it vehemently in public, but in private his attitude was much less harsh. I tend to be that way too.

[@ruairi_]

This was really good - but i feel you could say more. Do you think this experience (a) had any meaning? (b) any significance?

[@bradwarner119]

Yes it does. But it's hard to explain.

[@ChasRMartin]

Which might be the most definite thing you can say about it. Reminds me of the Steven Wright line: "You can't have everything. Where would you put it?"

[@ossy43]

Yep, great album, I thought it was going to be punk as 0Dfx. Like it so much that ended up listening the 32 Hitchcock albums Google Play Music has available only to discover Hitchcock 's beginning albums were punk... Sometimes his voice sounds like John Lennon...

[@berrycrawford5579]

The snail without the shell is adyashanti huh? Nice video. I think touching god/bodhi or whatever we want to call it can be very helpful as a guidepost to orient us in our daily mindfulness practice. At least for me, it is indispensable.

[@garad123456]

Why do you think it was adyashanti? I think he seems very mature and sensible, I haven't read anyone say anything bad about him.

[@gdudas]

Dear Brad, with all due respect, that experience you had sounds amazing and legit. Do you ever tried to find an explanation that was based in our world, something like a scientific or psychological explanation...? What could have happenend "in real", I put it in quotation marks, because things that happen in a mind are maybe a different "real" or have a different "reality" ... I don't know if you get this question, but would love to hear from you. Thanks

[@bradwarner119]

What happened "in real?" You mean, if someone had been watching, what would they have seen? I would imagine they'd have seen a weird foreign guy walking across a bridge. Possibly smiling. Possibly stopping for a few minutes at the end of the bridge and looking up at the sky. Then walking the rest of the way to work. I think we are never separate from the entirety of Creation. We never left it. All the elements and what not that were bound together at the moment before the Big Bang, remain just as intimately bound together right at this moment. Sometimes you notice that. A scientific explanation? I don't think science is ready to explain this yet. They haven't gone far enough in that direction to see where it leads and where it ends. Science could not explain it. There isn't an equation for it. Any scientific or psychological explanation that could be offered at this point would be inadequate and nonsensical.

[@gdudas]

Thanks, Brad. I "practice" Zazen for the last 4 years, mostly once a week for 90 minutes in 3 sessions... Our group is very informal, we usually do not have any Zen background. A friend sent me a picture of her Wooden Dummy (Wing Chun) in front of her board of books... I was sneaky and spotted a book called Hardcore Zen in the background. Show me what you read, and I tell you who you are etc ;) I mentioned this book to another friend of mine, and he had the book at home and gave it to me with a warm recommendation (good to have friends ;) ... this is the first time I dipped into the theory/history behind Zen ... I got real headaches reading some of it.... ;) I mean I got physically sick, a bit like nausea ... I do not want to nitpick, but I have to ... There is no "before" before big bang, time is in strong relation to matter and space and was created during the big bang, well that's the current theory anyways ... so scientists have difficulty to talk about what happened "before" ... sometimes (often?) language fails to describe our world. Have you ever heard of The Doppelspalt experiment in particle physics? The double slit experiment. If you shoot a particle through a double slit, two very small lenghty holes, it will behave like a wave, meaning if you have a "film" paper behind the slit, then many thousand electrons will create an interference pattern (like waves would do). A single particle will behave like it is part of a wave. You can create this experiment with e.g. 1000 separate, different labs at different times, each shooting exactly 1 electron through the double slit and if you put the results of the 1000 labs together it is exactly the same interference pattern, like all the electrons are connected somehow... You can do this even with atoms ... The scientists still have difficulties to explain, but they accept it and work with the results ... I find this very fascinating, and somehow ironic reading some buddhist theories about the one-ness ... hmmm anyhow, keep up the good work, and thanks for reading this wall of text)... George

[@ossy43]

You have to listen Beck last album: ハイパースペース is really good..

[@c.s.842]

Impersonal Vastness and nothing holy about it. Then went for a te, some fried eggs, beans and a sausage.

[@bgrobbins]

I have never had any religious experience. I wish that I had a religious experience. But I have never had one. I don't believe that there is such a thing as a religious experience. I do believe that a person can have an unusual mental experience that then is misinterpreted as a religious experience.

[@markbrad123]

Maybe you don't need a shell, just a fortitude of stabilization mind balance leveling that fulcrums into attention ,and cant be disturbed by ignorant tipping space invaders ma-rigpa ?

[@osip7315]

i have had later just as 'mind blowing' experiences, its very much an ongoing thing although some periods like now are rather dry compared to others sometimes things can happen and you have no recollection, but a shift has occurred its interesting how hated the visionary is by buddhism and zen, but that's what dogen was, visionary . . if the experience is authentic it won't lead you astray like charles manson and whoever that teacher (eckhart tolle?) you referred to was, just another of the millions of stupid fakes that life and religion is infested with . . you girlfriend must be good for you, you are more relaxed and personable