This was my first Brad Warner book. I will admit that the title caught my eye when it comes to the reason why I picked it up. I am glad I picked it up. Warner does two things in this book. One, it is a travelogue for a punk bands reunion in Cleveland; Warner was a member of the band Zero Defects. Two, he is writing a commentary on an ancient Buddhist text by a man named Dogen. In between those two things, he provides insights, comments, and lessons on Zen Buddhism practice and beliefs. Warner writes in a plain, direct style with a tone that is not the usual guru tone. He expounds on all sorts of topics from religion to death to sex and managing your anger. For me, it was a good book to read as it gave me some things to think about. I probably need to read it again to get some things or understand them better. Nice thing also is that you do not have to be Buddhist to appreciate and enjoy the book. The book inspires readers and teachers them. Overall, it is one I recommend. ( )

In 2003, Brad Warner blew the top off the Buddhist book world with his irreverent autobiography/manifesto, Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies, and the Truth about Reality. Now in his second book, Sit Down and Shut Up, Brad tackles one of the great works of Zen literature, the Shobogenzo, by thirteenth-century Zen master Dogen.

Interpretación de Shobogenzo y el caso práctico del reencuentro con su mítica banda de punk y otras aventuras como personaje famoso de Los Angeles. Repito, interpretación y explicación de las ideas fundamentales de Budísmo Zen de forma ligera occidental y contemporanea. "Enlightenment is for sissies!" ( )

Following his stellar Hardcore Zen, this book was a bit of a let down. Following the same format as his first book, Warner mixes personal history, punk rock, and zen buddhism in an eminently readable way. The problem is, little is new here. ( )

True to his irreverent punk background, Warner wastes no time in getting to joking about the Left Dharma Eye before the reader can. This is a good follow up to Hardcore Zen, with Warner’s take on the Buddhist perspective on numerous big philosophical issues.

Warner keeps up the level of clarity from his first book. He does a good job of bringing metaphors that were current a thousand years ago into the present day, and can dig right into linguistic subtleties like kanji choice in a Japanese source text that would be easy to miss in a translation. He gets into some more esoteric perspectives, some of which I didn’t really get— for example, he explained the twelve folds of the Twelvefold Chain well, but utterly lost me on the supposed “therefore” connections between them, and it looks like I’m missing something about the no-ego-all-is-one viewpoint. I suspect this will be worth a re-read after I do more zazen. (A lot more zazen.) ( )