Brad Warner - Letters to a Dead Friend about Zen

Contents

ALSO BY BRAD WARNER

Dont Be a Jerk

Hardcore Zen

It Came from Beyond Zen

Sex, Sin, and Zen

Sit Down and Shut Up

There Is No God and He Is Always with You

Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate

Copyright 2019 by Brad Warner

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Warner, Brad, author.

Title: Letters to a dead friend about Zen / Brad Warner.

Description: Novato, California : New World Library, [2019] | Summary: An introduction to Zen Buddhism for general readers, written as a series of imaginary letters from the author to a deceased friend; covers basic Zen concepts such as rebirth, karma, and mindfulness, while also examining the ethical challenges of living a Buddhist life in the modern world-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019022201 (print) | LCCN 2019981507 (ebook) | ISBN 9781608686018 | ISBN 9781608686025 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Zen Buddhism--Miscellanea. | Religious life--Zen Buddhism--Miscellanea. | Death--Religious aspects--Buddhism--Miscellanea.

Classification: LCC BQ9265.4 .W356 2019 (print) | LCC BQ9265.4 (ebook) | DDC 294.3/927--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019022201

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019981507

First printing, October 2019

ISBN 978-1-60868-601-8

Ebook ISBN 978-1-60868-602-5

Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

10987654321

CONTENTS

DEAR MARKY,

Youre dead now, so I dont know if youll get this letter.

Ive just arrived in Hamburg, Germany, after bouncing around for five hours in the backseat of a Morris Mini up the autobahn from Bonn, where I was speaking to some nerds about Zen. Thats what I do for a living. But you know that. Or you knew that before you died. Do you know anything anymore?

Im sitting in a place called Pizza Pazza at the corner of Julius-strasse and Schulterblatt, a couple of blocks from the place where Im staying while Im in Hamburg. The stocky Mediterranean-looking guy behind the counter was surly but figured out what I meant when I said, Ein slice of funghi, bitte.

Just before I got to the counter, the guy in front of me was arguing with him about something. The guy grabbed a bunch of old magazines from the counter, slammed a coin down, and stalked out. The surly pizza man yelled after him, holding up the coin. The guy with the magazines was gone. The counter guy rolled his eyes and slid my slice into the oven.

The cobblestone streets outside are slick from the all-day clammy drizzle. Next door is the Rote Flora, a theater that first opened in 1888 and has been squatted since 1989. Now it mainly hosts punk-rock shows. Its huge and ancient, all covered with graffiti and old band flyers. Youd have liked it. The few people in Pizza Pazza look like they might have been at some show there earlier tonight. Theres a hipster couple in one corner and a pair of blonde girls behind me talking intently in German about something apparently very important.

Its 9:40 PM, but somehow it feels like the middle of the night. Maybe thats because I just got the news that you died last night... or this morning... or sometime in the very recent past. Ive traveled internationally since I was seven years old, and I can still never work out the time zones. Suffice it to say, dead is dead, no matter what time it happened.

Cancer. Age forty-eight. Jesus.

Im in Hamburg to talk more about Zen to some other people tomorrow night. Maybe Ill get it together by then. But right now I dont want to talk about fucking Zen.

I want to be in Aberdeen, Washington, getting high with you, Marky, on the custom-grown weed your neighbor provided to help with your pain, like we did just a month or so ago when you were still alive. Watching stupid videos. I want to be back in Akron at the Clubhouse twenty-some years ago sitting on the bed with you and Lydia the Tattooed Lady eating Rasiccis Pizza, planning world conquest. Oh, the things we were gonna do.

When I arrived in Hamburg maybe an hour ago, I switched on my laptop and an email popped up from Lydia. She said youd died a few hours earlier. I dont know what time it was back in the States, but Lydia was still up. We reminisced about the days you and I and she all lived in the Clubhouse that dump in Akron where both our bands practiced. I think we both cried. Maybe thatll make you happy to hear. Everybody wants to imagine that people will cry after they die, right?

Im staying in the apartment of a woman named Johanna who runs a tiny little Zen center out of her tiny little apartment. She made one of its two rooms into a zendo, which is what we Zen nerds call our meditation spaces, and thats where Im going to be sleeping. If I can sleep tonight.

After I got the news of your death, I excused myself and went out to wander the streets of the city. I do that a lot when Im on these European tours, drifting alone through strange cities, poking through dusty old record shops, when I can find them. You spent a lot of time in record stores too when you were alive. The record shops were all closed by the time I got to Hamburg, but I didnt know what else to do. Johanna and her roommate Julia were nice people, but I needed to be by myself.

Youre not even the first person I know who died while I was on this tour. The day I arrived in Stockholm, the first stop on this tour, I got a call from my friend Melissa, who told me her brother Jeremy had passed away suddenly a few nights before. He was thirty-six. At least you lived a few years longer than him. Which is something, I guess.

What am I doing with my life? Thats what Im thinking as I sit here with my slice of pizza getting cold while I write this letter youll never get. Im supposed to be some kind of spiritual master. I write books about it, for Gods sake!

People ask me questions all the time as if I have The Answer for them. I have no answer. I have thirty-odd years of looking at my own soul and finding there was nothing there to look at after all. I took a vow to save all beings. I couldnt even save you from being eaten alive by your own guts. And I never told you any of this. Until now, anyway. Now that its too late to tell you anything.

Where are we going? Where do we come from? Why are we here? Does anybody care? I mean, do they? Honestly?