There Is No God and He Is Always with You

June 10, 2013
In his new book, Warner (Hardcore Zen) momentarily sets aside his punk weapons of iconoclasm and takes a more respectful, even reverential tone to a perennial question: does God exist? As a practicing Zen Buddhist, his way of considering this question is entangled in oft-misunderstood concepts such as enlightenment. Warner never shies away from such complications; instead, they become grounds where the Western understanding of God and the Buddhist approach to reality and experience meet. For Warner, his practice is “a way to approach and understand God without dealing with religion.” His God is one to be experienced, felt, and intuited, something that lies beneath the surface of reality that is already naturally understood, if only one could “learn to listen to silence, to listen to nothing, and to learn from nothing.” In accompanying the punk Zen priest on such a singular journey through his understanding of God, the reader is asked to partake in meditation with Warner not on the Hebrew, Christian, Islamic, or any other traditional God, but rather One that can be found in daily experience when conceptual thinking has been silenced.

August 1, 2013

Warner (Hardcore Zen) insists that Buddhism is not a godless religion but instead a way to God without religion. By no means would all Buddhists endorse his view, but his arguments--which include rendering our conventions about "God" false--are convincing in their context. Warner writes fluently and informally, and touches gracefully on many aspects of modern culture to enlarge his case. VERDICT A work of mature spirituality for the mature reader of any age; excellent for study groups as well and of interest to as many non-Buddhists as Buddhists.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.