NEWS: Sex, Spirituality and Urban Living, a Conversation with Brad Warner

CULTURE: Sex, Spirituality and Urban Living, a Conversation with Brad Warner

The Dalai Lama recently said, "Sexual pressure, sexual desire, actually I think is short period satisfaction and often, that leads to more complication.” He says that celibacy, ultimately, brings a better life with “more freedom” and less ups and downs.

I found this interesting and wanted to ponder it further and engage in discussion with my friend, Brad Warner. Brad is sometimes referred to as a Buddhist teacher and people often ask me if I ask Brad about Buddhist shit. Mostly I don’t. We normally eat burritos and talk about how much sex we are or are not having, but since I’m a curious kitten and this topic was fresh in my mind I decided to ask him what his thoughts were.

Who am I to disagree with the Dalai Lama? Hence, I looked within myself to figure out where my feelings lay on the subject. And then asked Brad for his.

I definitely see what the Dalai Lama’s saying. I have several journals full of romantic anguish that would depress a holocaust survivor. I can understand how a life without the distractions of all that might be could ultimately more desirable, and for a while I sat with that.

I realized that when I reach for my journal it’s often to get the feelings out that might bore my friends, since its pages contain more angst than can be hammered out with a night’s drinking.

While at times life is taxing, I’m usually living in the land of the blissfully content. I’ve had my heart broken but I’ve also experienced true intimacy and found out what love is. I’ve bonded myself to several individuals for life through our relational and lustful encounters -- and I wouldn’t miss that for the world.

Maybe I’m just an intensity junky, but what goes up, must come down and isn’t it better to engage in a rich life experience, when it comes to this stuff anyway, than to abstain from romantic relationships entirely? That’s what I think I think, but I wanted to clarify my position and see what Brad’s thoughts are.

Aspen: Do you agree that sex and dating ultimately cause suffering and attachment?

Brad: Sure. But just about anything you do causes suffering and attachment. Any kind of personal interaction leads to suffering and attachment. When monks leave family life behind they just form new attachments in the monastery. It’s impossible to really live free of human attachment, except for maybe a few people who live in the mountains, but in general, yes.

Aspen: Isn’t it more important to have a well-rounded human existence with interpersonal relationships than it is to try to avoid suffering?

Brad: People think that because I’m a Buddhist teacher I’m an advocate of not having these human attachments, but it’s next to impossible to actually do so.

Aspen: So then maybe a better goal would be to learn to deal with your suffering...

Brad: Yeah. I come across as sounding kind of boring in that way, because really the best way to be free from suffering, as much as possible, would be a marriage or a monogamous relationship, or these kinds of boring things. When I go on SuicideGirls and I start reading that people are into polyamory. It’s a nice fantasy but it normally doesn’t really work.

[Brad is surprised I don’t know what that is and explains its an extended polyamorous family, and alternative lifestyle. According to Wiki, it’s having more than one intimate relationship with the consent of everyone involved. Brad picks up a guitar and starts to strum it. He and I discuss the fact that we’re both suffering right now as I write this.]

Aspen: Even the dog is suffering.

Brad: Really? Even the dog?

Aspen: Yes. She wants you to give her as much attention as you are giving that guitar right now. What are you suffering about?

Brad: Cookies.

Aspen: Do you think there is suffering even when we’re in love and the sex is mutually agreeable and both participants are laying around afterwards all dreamy?

Brad: If you really looked closely you could see some.

Aspen: How would searching for suffering serve me?

Brad: Suffering is always a matter of comparing what you have now with what you think it ought to be. I’m not saying you should look for it, I’m just saying it’s there.

Aspen: Do you think that all of us in this urban experience have pressure from society to have an enhanced sexual desire?

Brad: Yes. There is a great push in the advertising community and incentive to promote the idea of sex, because sex sells. In our media saturated culture, you are constantly being told various things about sex. Most of the people who are telling you don’t have a clue. They are presenting fantasies or something that isn’t real…like the Playboy mansion. This is the life the Buddha lived before he left the palace to embark on his own spiritual journey.

Aspen: So you are saying the Buddha is like Hugh Heffner?

Brad: Yes. He was like Hugh until his early 30s. There are all kinds of stories about him having hotties at his disposal and he saw that that was not an end to suffering…to keep coming back to that word.

[Brad then plays with the dog and tells me since she’s fixed she’s not suffering.]

Aspen: How do you feel about love?

Brad: Oh….um…..love….love stinks. Remember that song? Love is a funny thing. In Christianity, it’s all about love and Buddhism tends to value the word compassion a lot more so…Then there’s the agape love. There is something called love that you could say holds the whole universe together, an interconnectedness. Love in the emotional sense tends to be problematic.

Aspen: Does it always involve attachment? There is often a fine line between intimacy and co-dependency. It causes an extraordinary amount of pain in the world. If you don’t love someone, they can’t hurt you.

Brad: Yeah, I’m sort of thinking about my own life and this marriage that’s ending. Its also culturally bound. I tend to be kind of cold.

Aspen: Yeah, I can see that.

Brad: I’m not really Mr. Cuddly. I’m not a “Mr. I-love-you-all-the-time” kind of person, so when you say love it means different things to different people.

Aspen: Yes, but I asked you.

Brad: I don’t think too much about love.

Aspen: Don’t you think too much about everything?

Brad: Yeah. Um…..I don’t have any great deep thoughts related to the word love.

Aspen: What about the word burrito?

Brad: I have a lot more associations with the word burrito because I had a good one in San Fran with Soyrizo. What do you think about love?

Aspen: I think its something people chase like food and when people don’t, its just so they don’t get hurt.

Brad: I think men and women think different things about love. Men say “I love you” in the heat of the moment without really understanding what that means to the woman. I’ve never gone out searching for lots of sex. It’s mostly not worth the trouble. That’s what the internet is for.

Aspen: Why? Because it’s often less fulfilling than you would like?

Brad: Yes and it often has to do with your upbringing. My parents stayed together until my mom died, so it’s just not something you go and do. I have the same sort of urges of any man….I sound very confused and weird….

Aspen: I see how the roller-coaster inherently caused by dating would go against the typical Buddhist path of staying even-keeled. How can one keep a steady mind if they want to experience a healthy dating life while keeping steady on their spiritual path?

Brad: You’re probably not going to and it’s a tradeoff.

Aspen: Well when the endorphins kick in, you’re too high to stare at the wall and when you do you just think about sex.

Brad: When you are in that state you cant really think clearly.

Aspen: Why would you ever want to avoid that experience entirely?

Brad: Well its standard in Buddhist practice to avoid states of bliss because bliss is the other side of terror. So that’s why you’d want to avoid that terrific state because it always has a backside to it. This is why the long term relationship is better….if you get through that bliss state you can get through the flip side and then settle in a place that is neither one of those.

Aspen: Awesome. I dig. Do you think people turn to spiritual journey when they are looking for love, or after they have it?

Brad: Both. I think often people get into these spiritual groups because they are looking for a love experience but that’s also why people join cults…because they feel they are loved by the cult and that can create a kind of drive toward looking for that.

Aspen: Does urban living affect one’s spirituality?

Brad: Yes it does but then so does rural living. These days it might be equal because of the internet and everything. I’ve spent time in Tassajara [an SF Buddhist mountain retreat] where no technology is allowed and its very isolated. I was talking to a guy I know who spends a lot of time there and also a lot in San Francisco and he was saying he thinks that we get acclimated to the sounds of the city and you are actually primed to react to that and it’s in your nature to be alert to sounds that might hurt you so he was thinking that based on his two experiences that we are expending energy to shut out all of these sounds. So like a billboard that flashes something to you, it is causing a response and all of that is taking a toll.

Aspen: So you think that people seek refuge from the stimuli?

Brad: Oh yeah. More often what I see people doing is searching for stimulus. I find myself doing this, like when you surf the internet, people are spending hours on the internet looking for stimulation. The worst thing I do I go on YouTube looking for old bands. It causes a reaction so sometimes people want to be away from that. And what’s really important is to find a way for people to live in that environment. This will gradually change the environment itself but it will take time. The economy is a reaction to over stimulation and we’ve put ourselves in an economic recession to avoid stimulus. When you go around you see blank billboards and you didn’t see that in Los Angeles two years ago. When things go too far it’s over consumption and we sort of recognize that we are over consuming, but we don’t know how to do it in a comfortable way, so you have all these very deep unconscious reactions…

[I’m yawning and he says doing zazen makes him fall asleep too easily.]

Aspen: Do you think those in urban society are more promiscuous than in rural areas?

Brad: Not necessarily. I think were more open about it. Christians are more promiscuous but they hide it well. Like Sarah Palin and her pregnant daughter. Maybe were a little bit more in this kind of a society but…..it’s a common idea to idealize rural life. That it’s free of temptation….but sometimes in a rural society sometimes all there is to do is fuck.

Promiscuity always seems to lead to misery but people seem to mask it because they’re going to have more orgasms. Well the orgasm lasts a minute but you’ve invested a week into getting a minute long orgasm. You’ve invested a week of miserable hunting and pursuit and you cant help but get tangled into peoples lives.

Aspen: Does zazen affect your sex life?

Brad: There are two ways it affects your sex life. The sort of net result of doing zazen is that your life is more balanced so you start to pay attention to everything. When you start noticing everything, sex is just one of the things that happens. It doesn’t become less exciting, and it can become more stimulating because you’re more present. When everything becomes extraordinary, sex becomes less of a contrast to the rest of your life.

Aspen: Do you have anything specific to say about LA and sex and spirituality?

Brad: Los Angeles is a funny city when you talk about sex and spirituality because the entertainment industry is based here. A large portion of the population is involved in the entertainment Industry. In the ‘60s there was a huge spiritual movement here and it’s always struck me as being flaky. The actors have too much time on their hands -- that’s sort of a caricature but I think its very true. The entertainment industry is based on sex. Everyone needs to look sexy and everyone is better looking in LA.

Aspen: Everyone is very focused on grooming here.

Brad: When I go back to Knoxville everyone is a lot fatter. They seem healthier here. In LA the emphasis is always on getting something from it, like being in the spiritual community is good networking. Like scientology and this weird thing where they get together and yell at you but when spirituality is done for a gaining ideal then you’re just back into the same trap of anything where you’re trying to gain something like enlightenment or peace of mind.

Aspen: Meaning you aren’t content.

Brad: Well that’s part of it but the Zen focus tends to be on seeing what you really are now without trying to alter it deliberately. And it changes as you see it whereas other spiritual practices focus on….well I want to be this and how am I going to get to be this person I want to be.

Aspen: Well right now I’m a mess, Brad.

Brad: Well then that is very helpful because what you want to be is an idea created by that mess so it’s not a sound starting point. If this messiness creates an idea of what it wants to be then the idea is fundamentally flawed so its better to look at the mess and if you keep looking at it, it sort of gradually sort of fixes itself. But I don’t think there is any other way to do it.

Aspen: Well if you are looking at yourself where you are now, then why do zazen?

Brad: Because it’s the best way.

Aspen: According to whom? You?

Brad: Well yeah. Because you’re sitting still and a blank wall doesn’t lie to you it just kind of presents. It’s kind of an amazing thing how that wall will present to you everything that you are.

Aspen: Usually it just presents my grocery list and the calls I need to return.

Brad: Yeah that too. At least you remember.


Brad Warner is currently on a book tour to spread the gospel about his latest spiritual guide, Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate.

great interview, thank you.

Really enjoyed this! Would love to see more interviews/conversations along these lines.

This is a thoughtful, really great piece. Thanks for writing!

This is great... I want to read more from you!

Agreed. It depresses me when people have such low expectations of their own gender.