That philosophy worked for Bruce Lee with martial arts. He took a little of this and a little of that and made a style that made him famous. That’s pretty much what Alan Watts did too.
Name all the major religions Alan Watts took material from.
Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity. (Really not much from Juadaism, just the Yetzer Hara which is the evil inclination or what he calls the element of irreducible rascality.) Nothing on Islam that I’ve ever heard from him.
He said Buddhism is Hinduism stripped for export.
He surmised 4 models of the universe:
- Ceramic Model
- Fully Automatic Model
- Organic Model
- Dramatic Model
In the West, the ceramic model came first. That’s the potter working the clay. Then in the late 1800s, early 1900s that idea fell out of favor in light of scientific and astronomical discoveries, so they booted God out and kept the rest of the model (fundamental matter is lifeless “clay” that somehow forms itself into life automatically). He asserts that even people who say they believe in God don’t really believe because if they really believed they’d be shouting in the streets, but even the Jehovah’s Witnesses are polite when they come to the door. So, nobody ‘really’ believes in the God of the bible, but they think they ought to believe.
In the East, the dramatic model came first, then the same thing happened: they booted the Brahman out and kept the rest of it, which is the organic model.
If anyone can think of other models, that would be great! Plausible models! Not pink unicorns sprinkling pixie dust and the like 
Who booted God out? Certainly not all Christians or theists.
Is he really arguing that nobody believes in God? I can’t see any basis for that and what’s the fleshed out shouting in the streets argument?
Again who is they they?
Popular culture.
Yes he says people think they ought to believe, but they don’t really believe. He says if you honestly believed eternal damnation were a danger, you’d be going mad in the streets. I’ll see if I can find the video and cue it up.
Pop culture. It’s like an erosion of purity; decadence maybe. I don’t believe any of the religions are true to their own teachings.
FWD to 8:00 for the “people screaming in the streets part”
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfNbmwiTIlE[/youtube]
Serendipper wrote:
Luke 12.48
But there are many theists. And popular culture includes pagan and pantheist and New Age ideas of God.r
There is some truth to that, i would guess and things like that used to drive me mad when I was a kid in a not religious household, but then no one believes in science either by that argument. One, all the matter in our bodies gets replaced in whatever number of years it is - that alone should drive any materialist mad. Real contact with other is illusory - given the filters of perception, reconstruction of perception inside the brain from transmitted information type theories of perceiving in science, with all of us ‘really’ suffering a kind of locked in syndrome, being alone, never having real contact with others - and certainly the upcoming eternal nonexistence threat that science indicates should drive them mad, but does not, and the lack of evidence, in scientific terms, of Good and Evil, putting us in a moral free world - should send some others into street screaming. I mean, anyone believing in science, doesn’t really believe in it, by Watt’s model, because they should all be screaming in the streets. And the same would hold for Buddhism. A few mystics in each system have faced their ego deaths and since Watts himself was never that disciplined, he never engaged in the kind of long term practices that are considered necessary in buddhism to clear out ego clinging and the rest, he ain’t one of those mystic. But let’s say he did, through some intuitive non-disciplined method arrive at enlightenment- when did he run around screaming in the streets? He never had that phase, he never believed anything really, then. So how would he know what people would do if they did believe? I think that damns his argument. He is claiming to know what people would do, other people, all of them, if they really believed in Hell, but he never experienced this himself in his Christian phase or in any other phase in relation to the frightening implications of other belief systems.
ALL the major current belief systems collapse under that kind of argument. None of would have real believers. Shamanistic, indigenous ones need not if they have afterlife/reincarnation schemes. I think there is some truth in this. I think people believe in ways that they do not realize, and lack belief or avoid noticing, in ways they do not realize. But I don’t think it is useful on the whole since many religions consider the religion itself as offering a way to move towards profound belief from more scattered versions, and this process generally includes some kind of dark night of the soul - a parallel to the screaming in the streets. People tend to think of belief in binary terms, so they deserve Watts’ judging their beliefs in binary terms. But it’s a bad way to look at beliefs so his error is still an error and a judgment he does not have the experience to justify. Only those who have screamed in the streets and move on to something else get to, and he is not one of them.
But that’s quite different from saying that no one really believes. Most people in those religions have some kind of conception of a deity and believe in it. Belief is not binary. They believe to various degrees in various contexts, have doubts and likely their beliefs mix paradigms in ways they may not want to notice, but that sums up everyone on earth including atheists, or even realists, in fact any belief group, including trivial beliefs.
40 Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not.
41 Then Peter said unto him, Lord, speakest thou this parable unto us, or even to all?
42 And the Lord said, Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his lord shall make ruler over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season?
43 Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.
44 Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath.
45 But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken;
46 The lord of that servant will come in a day when he looketh not for him, and at an hour when he is not aware, and will cut him in sunder, and will appoint him his portion with the unbelievers.
47 And that servant, which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.
48 But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.
It seems to imply what you said, but why do you believe it is true? No one can do the will of God; that’s why Jesus died on the cross. So it’s no longer about being a good steward, but having faith. So how do we have faith?
Romans 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
So we hear the word of God and either believe or we don’t. So it’s a function of how we’re put together.
Romans 9
11 (For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)
12 It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.
13 As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.
14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.
15 For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
16 So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.
17 For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.
18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?
There it is plain as day: God makes people to split hell wide open. So where is the choice? The freewill?
Isaiah 45
5 I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else.
7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
Matthew 13
[i]13 The same day went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side.
2 And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.
3 And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
4 And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
5 Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth:
6 And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
8 But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
9 Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.[/i]
Here it seems to all be about chance: did god, by chance, make you good or evil? No freewill.
“Predestination” and “election” is mentioned a lot, along with allegories.
So there is no choice involved. You preach to call the sheep forth. You don’t convert goats to sheep; just call the sheep. Goats are goats and sheep are sheep. Wheat is wheat and tares are burned.
If there is no choice, then how does one effectively practice the religion? If you’re chosen, they yay! You’re done; nothing else to do. If you’re not chosen, then what can you do? Can you make yourself believe if you don’t believe?
And on top of that:
Ephesians 2
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
That boasting part is important. It cannot be about anything you do or else you could brag about it, be self-righteous and arrogant.
Matthew 7
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
The common element between Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism is pride, ego, arrogance, conceit: that is the sin.
The sin of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not suddenly becoming aware of the difference between good and evil, but arrogantly presuming you could tell the difference. Because now you’re on a righteous crusade for good and a fight against evil and THAT is evil, if anything is.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Alan said “Nothing can be more egotistical than true repentance.” From studying all the religions it occurred to him that faith is letting go of all concepts of god and not clinging to anything. Any idea you think you have of god is a “graven image” to cling to in absence of faith.
Prevailing pop culture.
You grew up in an atheist family? My mom is fundamentalist and dad is… idk… nothing I guess: a non-practicing catholic, technically.
Add to that the atoms popping in and out of existence from earth to Mars and essentially being pixels of energy densities within an energy field (gluon field, Higgs field, et al).
Oh I see what you’re saying: the science types would be going bonkers trying to justify their own beliefs. But Alan’s point was if one really believed other people were going to hell, they’d react as if they just saw a person about to fall off a cliff: abandon everything and run towards them in order to save them before it’s too late. The Jehovah’s Witnesses are even too polite to really be said to believe.
How do you know?
However, Watts did have his supporters in the Zen community, including Shunryu Suzuki, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. As David Chadwick recounted in his biography of Suzuki, Crooked Cucumber: the Life and Zen Teaching of Shunryu Suzuki, when a student of Suzuki’s disparaged Watts by saying “we used to think he was profound until we found the real thing”, Suzuki fumed with a sudden intensity, saying, “You completely miss the point about Alan Watts! You should notice what he has done. He is a great bodhisattva.”[46] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watt … nd_critics
Maybe he realized that even he himself never really believed. I mean, if you believed someone was about to lean too far and fall off a cliff, would you react casually?
Harold Camping used to tell the story of the Ninevites who put on sack cloth and sat in ashes until their city was spared destruction. He used that as example of how to change God’s mind about your own salvation. How many people go to such extremes? Most people just go to church and that’s it.
Alan believed we are all characters in a play performed by the Brahman type ground of being. There is no reason to scream in the streets with that view. He says the Hindu would applaud the Christian for his performance. For here god was totally taken-in by his own role and has convinced himself of the most impossible dilemma: eternal life vs eternal damnation and it must be decided in this life. Bravo!
Yup, me too.
Well, whatever Watts is or isn’t is irrelevant to what he teaches. Who cares what he does; does he speak truth or does he not?
Right. But this is a different note in the tune. It’s an illustration of how Hinduism got perverted into Buddhism and how the Ceramic model perverted into the automatic model. And how religions tend to pervert as time goes on anyway. It’s no longer about fervency of belief, but perversion of belief.
Yeah, there’s truth to that.
As I said, even if Watts through his chaotic approach did achieve enlightenment, he never had the screaming in the streets phase. I don’t think he was enlightened - my sense from his own writings and also from seeing him live back then - but that doesn’t really matter. I don’t think he ever believed any particular paradigm - iow he was typically modern, just much smarter than most, much more open than most, but still a mishmash of paradigms. I don’t think that gives him the experience to look at true believers in one paradigm - of which there are quite a few - and decide that they would really be screaming in the streets - which many of them do, hell some of them strap bombs on themselves which trumps the commitment of screamers, and others devote whole lives to helping the poor and others do go door to door and look very sad and empathetic and mean it, however annoying they are.
Sure, some people and experts thought Watts was enlightened. Other experts thought not. Compared to some of the masters I met, he seemed much more a very open, very smart modern Westerner. I don’t think people like that with their mixed paradigms know what it is like to have a dark night of the soul. Further, he had No buzz around him. There is magic around some of those Eastern masters. I mean real magic. This doesn’t mean I like their magic, but I respect it. I don’t like, for example, Buddism. I think it is anti-life, for example in the way it wants us to detach emotions from bodily expression. I have sympathy for their (generally unacknowledged) fears there, but I choose life, being pagan/pantheist myself.
And if the screaming in the streets test is going to be applied, we have to apply it everywhere, and then no one believes anything, at least if belief is binary as the model seems to presume. To scream in the streets, further, you have to be in touch with your emotions on a deep level. British Culture, Christianity, Buddhism - the strongest influences on Watts’ personality ALL stifle the full range of emotions and I never heard him criticize them in terms of that. He accepted judgments of emotions from his main sources and presented that ‘accepting’ of emotions/thoughts in some watery flow conception of enlightenment or mystic being. Once you prioritize that, facing your own running around screaming and getting through it is off the table. Christianity allows more space for emotions, but in very restricted ways. I mean, even Heaven should make one terrified. Eternally happy. One billion years of being happy, then another, then another…If that doesn’t concern you radically at some point, you are disconnected. Let alone getting angry at God or the judgement of fear, desire and sex in Christianty and it’s just another straight jacket.
I found Watts inspiring at first since he was accessible and gave me a Westerner’s way into the East. But since it took what I would call real masters to let me know once and for all that Buddhism and Hinduism were not for me, that there was a hatred of the full human in both of those traditions also, and I went to them to get away from the deathlove in Christianity, Watts seems more a dilettante to me. The positive thing was, they showed me miracles, so I knew that science had not tracked very important phenomena, yet at least. They did it regularly. I have experienced so many anomalies on my own, but those masters could do it on call, and that was good to see.
What do you consider enlightenment? If two people are enlightened, will they believe the same thing? And so what is that thing? What is the right way? It seems that someone would have to know the right way before he could determine if someone else knows it.
Alan said:
[i]If you ask for spiritual instruction, you are confusing yourself. Because you are looking outside for what you are asking for… as if someone else could give it to you… as if you didn’t have it.
If you ask me for enlightenment, how can you ask me for enlightenment? If you don’t know what it is, how do you know you want it? Any concept you have of it will be simply a way of trying to perpetuate the situation you’re already in. If you think you know what you’re going out for, all you’re doing is seeking the past… what you already know… what you already experienced. Therefore, that’s not it, is it? Because you say you’re looking for something quite new. But what’s your conception of something new? You can only think about it in terms of something old. [/i]
You saw him live? I never knew he existed until about a year ago and I wondered how that was possible. Maybe you’re more discerning than I, but he’s so far over my head that I had to listen to a presentation 30 times before I was finally able to take it all in. Of course, I was starting from zero understanding of Eastern philosophy. Usually I can listen to someone for a while and then like George Carlin said, “Well he’s fairly intelligent… ah, he’s full of shit!” That hasn’t happened with Alan yet.
Well like I said, he believed this life is just an act, a show, a play. He said not to take it seriously. He was careful to differentiate between “serious” and “sincere”. So if he were 100% convinced of his own convictions, why would he run in the streets? I mean, if he truly believed life is just an act, then he’d stay drunk all the time and blabber for money, which is what he did.
Alan called the magic “psychotechnics”.
Listen to the 1st few minutes of this or start at 2:00.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbO0t3srgE4[/youtube]
You had that impression too? I’ve been arguing that for the last few days. theabsolute.net/phpBB/viewtopic. … 00#p159257
I’ve gone round and round with this philosophy and it always takes me to the same place: nonexistence. How can you have an oceanic feeling and also feel existence? The two are contradictory. It seems the only escape from suffering is to end living.
Alan said “when you identify with the universe and the grim reaper comes, there is no one there to kill.” Obviously, because you’re already dead. Buddhism seems to be the practicing of dying. Alan also said “If you can’t let go in life, it happens automatically in death, so you’ve nothing to worry about haha.” That’s what all this is about: how to die. Death is the 100% realization of oneness with the universe; the ultimate letting-go. Buddhists can practice letting go in meditation and achieve X% realization of oneness with the universe, but they come back to reality which means X<100.
What is that specifically?
I suspect it’s binary to degrees since some believe more strongly in god or not-god than others, but very few are 100% convinced of either. My favorite type of person is someone who kinda sorta thinks something is out there, but they don’t do anything about it lol. It’s the pious ones who are the problem.
No he’s not very emotional. My friend can’t stand the fact that Alan is so monotone and I never really noticed it until he said that. So I’m listening one day and thinking to myself why I would speak in one way vs the other when it dawned on me that the only reason to animate my voice would be to fervently try to compel someone to buy what I’m selling. It’s an appeal to emotion tactic and indicative of intent to persuade. So, I think the monotone is saying “take it or leave it” while those who resort to such seductive vernacular strategies are probably up to something.
Christianity is all about emotions. Watch some RW Schambach sometime 
youtube.com/watch?v=Rq6BFARt14M
He has nothing to sell. Geese flying over a lake do not intend to cast their reflection and the lake has no mind to retain it.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YgEhvZDZVg[/youtube]
“Live every day like your hair was on fire.”
I am not sure there is a right way, but enlightenment, which includes detachment from one’s emotions and desires and the disengagement from direct physical expression of these, for example, is not right for me. Those last two words are key.
Maybe you and I want different things. In any case I hit Watts early in learning about Eastern practices and then late a second time. By the second time I had a lot of experience of Eastern religions.
Yeah, that’s part of what I don’t like about him/Eastern approaches. And it’s not like I don’t like humor and play.
Detachment will certainly skip that, sure.
Yes, there is tremendous judgement of magic in Eastern approaches. They fear it feeds the ego. You’ll notice how Buddism is presented as accepting, but underneath there is a lot of judgment of some things. In practice there is huge judgment of emotions, especially if they are expressed. You are taught to just observe them, as if disengaging emotions from expression was not a form of judgment and dualistic thinking. You can also see the judgments carried out in Buddhist communities. Watch them cut what they on the surface call a monism into halves.
There are assumptions in there they take as true I do not.
Pagan/pantheist? Everything is alive is pantheist, pagan means I think there are a lot of conscious forces/entities beyond those so far tracked by science.
Are you pious about that?
Not having emotions present in your voice is not the default. You are looking at it as if that facet of being a social mammal is an option to choose. Quite the opposite: It is cultural and religious to opt out. And then second, why should emotional expression be seductive and a strategy. Are babies being strategic? One can certainly perform and perform to be seductive and as a strategy, but that doesn’t mean that if you speak with passion or emotion, you are being manipulative, strategic and seductive. Removing the emotions, or continuing to suppress them after cultural or spiritual training IS DEFINITELY STRATEGIC. Of course hiding emotions for one’s own protection may be wise, but that’s another story. I, as a social mammal, do not choose to be emotional and express my emotions. I can however choose not to. The people who tell me that choice is the loving one or the rational one or the compassionate one bear the onus. I tend to find their vibe rather unpleasant. Why is honesty seen as information based and not also emotion based? I see honest emotional expression as a key part of honesty. We are not computers, relaying truths. We are social creatures and my honesty, at least, includes a full expression of myself. And if it is safe to do so i will as part of loving relations. Of course I may manipulate and so on. But hell that is done to us everyday by people speaking in rational, even tones of voice.
About the emotions in specific contexts, aimed in certain ways. And desires are no nos. Christianity is filled with guilt. Guilt suppresses emotions and is often confused with emotions. Shame is also central to Christianity and this also suppresses emotions. Of course many Christians are inconsistent about how guilt and shame suppress emotions, but the religion is definitely trying to shrink you down, channel and restrict emotions. Compared to Buddhism it can seem emotional, but you get a set of regulations of emotions that is huge and profound. And think about how one would likely react emotionally to a God who made the world this way and the crucifixion, adn then imagine how the various churches would come down on your natural reactions - and in the past kill you rather than simply shame and ostracize you - and you get a taste for how strong the fascism is around emotions. Islam can look emotional also, but shit, leave the grooves to follow your own emotional line, a bam you’ll find out what they really think about the emotional body.
And go near the goslings and Mamma goose will walk towards a much larger entity not speaking in monotone. While Alan Watts is getting off on being less than he could be, basking in the attention of people who put him on a pedestal, while telling people to be like nothing. I’m wary of people basking in the light telling you to be less than you are.
And why should geese attitudes about their reflections be my role model? And then no other aspects of goose being in the world?
These kinds of ‘profound’ images, spoken in graceful, ooh, how profound tones, have, over time, come to really offend me. Talk about seductive language use.
I’m going to split this up into parts to make it easier on everyone.
Part 1 of X
So, there are many ways to get to the same place? Or are there many ways to get to different places? In other words, is enlightenment the same place for everyone?
I think we’re both after truth. For instance, I had listened many times without realizing or taking special notice of the monotone voice and the wisdom derived thereof; it’s like a snake in the woods that I almost stepped on. There are many nuggets contained in his presentations that just aren’t visible the first few times I listen. Perhaps it’s because of where I am in life… my perspective, or perhaps he’s just that deep. I’m not saying I like him as a person, but there is a wealth of wisdom in his words and it seems unlikely that someone could take it all in after only one listening.
So you take life seriously? What does that mean and why? Let’s say you’re a character in a play, then the acts that your character performs does not impact the life of the actor, so it’s not serious although the playing may be sincere. However if you take it seriously, it must mean you do not believe the persona played currently is a role played by the ground of being and you would have to believe you’re a real entity, eternal, and that what you do in this life has eternal consequences. If that is true, then why are you convinced of that?
Part 2 of X
I think you’ve illustrated two things here: that religions become perverted from their fundamental underpinnings (hypocrisy) and that buddhism is essentially suicide since the only way to end suffering is to end existence; if you cut out your tongue to stop the tasting of bitter, you will no longer be able to taste sweet and lack of perception doesn’t equate to any sort of existence that I can imagine.
I used to believe that, but now I’m hung-up on the single entity concept. Perhaps there could be expressions of the ground of being in forms that we haven’t recognized and I suppose that’s an effectively similar belief that we share, though I’m getting the impression that you believe all entities are separate and I’m intrigued as to why.
LOL, well, yeah I suppose maybe.
There really is no way around the ego, I’m afraid… except the buddhist way of nonexistence, blah, nothingness, or maybe a nonopinionated drooling on oneself drugged-out type existence. This is why I prefer the “actor in the play” understanding since we’re permitted to have realized egos as part of the act, which isn’t taken seriously whereas the buddhists seek to end the existence of their character in order to do the impossible: end the ego.
Watts said he got out of the ministry because he didn’t want to presume who are the swine to his pearls and he didn’t agree with evangelism, but I suppose that’s just another way of expressing his ego in being proud of his humility. As I said, the really is no way out of the game except death: whatever you believe, you’re going to believe you’re better than the ones who don’t believe it.
He says gurus are condescending to each other, and he said “I can say I don’t put other gurus down; there, that trumps all of them!” There is no way to be better and the reason we want to be better is the reason we are not.
I think the underpinnings were tainted. I think Siddhearta and Jesus meant well, were brilliant, but had judgments, cultural and individual, that created systems that are problematic. On top of this perversions take place, though perhaps, sometimes, improvements also.
That’s my take. Imean,something is alive, but it is after I would have cut out so many parts of myself, I am not interested.
I think there are connections also. Separate and also connected.
Nothing wrong with an ego per se. You are in the best position to take care of you. That a facet of you prioritizes that and takes responsibility for you simply makes sense. One can also merge on occasion, say via intimate contact, and be aware of interconnections much of the time. Houses have walls, so do cells. Both are permeable in different ways. If you have too hard an ego you cannot be intimate, or eliminate the connections or experience of others, or are solipsistic. Just because something is bad if extreme does not mean it’s bad when it’s not.
I don’t think it has to be this way. I have not eliminated to tendency but I think it can happen. Of course it depends on what your beliefs are. Some religions make it part of believing the right thing is being better. but other than that one can see it in terms of personal desires and life history.
I’ve met gurus who do not put others down, so I don’t know what he’s on about here. Not that I was fond of their religions (after engaging with them for various periods of time) but some of these people walk their talks. ‘Better’ is such a charged word. I see nothing wrong with realizing one knows something better (more accurately) than someone else. Experts should know this,for example. They needn’t walk around thinking, say, that everyone understands how to remove a brain tumor as well as I do. Or people who believe cigarettes have no effect on human health are no less competent than me. Better can mean, have more value, which is not necessarily connected to beliefs. I think one can even have pride in what knowledge/beliefs one has attained. Shit, some things I know i had to go to hell and find a way out of to understand and learn were true.
that drawing with the person annoyed by atheists and fundamentalists, well, he may very well be superior to them. imean, it’s a funny comic, but the implication that someone getting annoyed by both groups must be somehow, to some degree, an ass for that, is off to me. You could be smug bastard and say something like that, and focus on it and use it as a false way to feel good about yourself, you could, but it’s not necessarily so.
Part 3 of 3
I see what you’re saying, but I’m not sure because the default IS to convince people of our convictions. We fervently want to bring people around to our way of thinking and default to animated tone to achieve the goal.
I suppose one could strive to not be animated as yet another method of swaying, but people are sometimes calm of their own accord as well.
Oh yes babies are strategic. Their only goal is to convince you that the world revolves around them and they will scream and do anything in their power to bend you to their will.
Yes it does. Why else? I’m being animated now, lol, you just can’t see it So I see within myself that I want you to believe me. Idk why… probably because I want to objectively analyze Watts together with you without your having prior biases that warrant his dismissal.
I could agree that removing emotions is strategic, but what if the emotions weren’t there in the first place to be removed? What if I genuinely don’t care if I convince anyone? In that case, would I be emotional? Would I type in caps if I didn’t care? So then, does Watts desire to convince anyone?
There is an aphorism that states something like “it’s impossible to lie in anger”. Emotions reveal the truth of our own opinions, but do not substantiate the validity of those opinions and that’s an important distinction. For instance, it’s true that you do not admire Watts, but it may not be true that Watts is not admirable.
How is guilt different from emotions?
Maybe it’s one set of emotions against another set (infidel)? Mom is a fundamentalist and I used to be, so I know all about it
Alan isn’t saying be like nothing. He’s saying the nature of things is play; hide and seek; it’s a game not to be taken seriously. See, this is what I was saying about needing to listen intently and multiple times.
In the words of a Zen poem: The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection; the water has no mind to retain their image. When a mountain stream flows out of a spring beside the road, and a thirsty traveler comes along and drinks deeply, the traveler is welcome. But the mountain stream is not waiting with the intention of refreshing thirsty travelers; it is just bubbling forth, and the travelers are always welcome to help themselves. So in exactly that sense I offer my ideas. Allan Watts
“The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing, it refuses nothing. It receives but does not keep.” - Chung-Tzu
“When you are hungry, eat. When you are tired, sleep. This is Zen.” - Hiakajo Roshi
The point is not to cling to any ideology, but have faith. Faith is not clinging to any idea of god or religion, good and bad, but is walking into the total unknown with confidence. You can’t make a religion from it though.
“Moderation in all things, including moderation” - Mark Twain
I guess I haven’t yet discovered what is your main objection, besides hypocrisy and ego, which is common to humanity.
Watts was telling people the truth, what to value, I mean the goose image over the water thingie. But further that’s not really the point. I don’t think animation or passion or emotions need necessarily or even usually are to convince. If I am talking about death or a relationship or life, the feelings are part of how I respond to those things, they come up during the topic. Are we really saying that Watts took on a monotone to keep himself from trying to convince people. Me, I wouldn’t write a bunch of non-fiction books if I wasn’t trying to get across my sense of the truth in convincing ways. Why write non-fiction? Why not tell some jokes or write plays? His books are filled with prescriptive and ontological assertions and implied assertions.
Sure, but 1) calm people tend not to talking in boring monotones 2) why weed out the emotions if one does not judge them. If you judge them, you are judging a part of your natural flow, which is an odd thing for a neo-Buddhist to do.
Have you been around babies? They don’t express emotions with goals, they express emotions in reaction to feelingfs: like hunger pain, the joy of seeing your face, diaper rash, uncomfortable body positions. Their emotions may function in ways that compel you, the adult who has the goal to fix the problem to act in certain ways, but that is another story. Sure, later kids understand how their emotions affect adults, but not early babies.
Well, what can I say. I experience myself differently for you. I can certainly choose to express things passionately in the hopes of being convincing, but I can express things emotionally also simply because i have emotions connected to what I am talking about. I am sure that sometimes I may not realize that I am acting, adding on emotion, as a kind of force to put pressure on the other person, but it’s no rule. If I tell a friend about a break up and cry, I am not crying to convince them I am a victim or to hate my ex - though I certainly could be manipulative like that if I wanted to. I am crying because I am sad. If I were to talk about spiritual experiences it could also cut both ways or be a combination. If I am suppressing my emotions and talking in a monotone, as a rule, it would mean either I do not trust people and fear them, as a rule, or I judge emotions. And somehow the way you view the expression of emotions as always about power, control, seduction and manipulation is not quite convincing me you don’t have judgments of emotions. Notice how in Eastern religions all is one, all is to be observed, do not judge, everything is the Buddha - but don’t express your emotions, they are bad. The outside is good and can flow as it flows. The inside is, on the other hand, needs to be controlled.
I have emotions all the time when I am not trying to convince people of things. I have them when I am alone. And, again, what the heck is he telling all these profound truths for in books and lectures if he isn’t trying to convince people of things. Why tell us about how perfect the geese are flying over the water and how great the water is, why use a standard religious rhetorical approach, the image, if he is not trying to convince us?
Hey, he was a very smart guy that helped give me access to something I needed to have access to for my own development. I admire many of his qualities, but in the end he did not convince me - get it, lol - with all his books and talks, that his approach was for me. I do not think that emotions validate the opinions, I just think it is human to have them there and unless I am convinced that I should stifle them or develop a style with their absence or suppression, I will continue to have them present. Even when I am calm, I tend to feel satisfied and good and that comes through also.
There is isometric tension between emotions and ideas. The mind is telling us we should feel bad, often about an emotion. I am angry at my dad, but I should honor my mother and father. So my guilt will shut down the feeling and be in tension with it. The fear that I will be punished by God for my feelings and acts also often gets locked into that isometric tension and is not gone through or expressed. I feel bad about myself. I feel anxiety that i am bad, which means I might go to hell, but the tension allows room only for a kind of stifled state.
He was using the geese in a prescriptive way. We should be like them, not interested in our reflection. Not in our egos. He used an image to be convincing, and it is a clever one. It sounds both simple and profound.
My point was that a mother goose will come at you and honk if you get to close to her babies. HER babies. Anger expressed. So why should they, the geese be my role model only in relation to flying over the water but not when they express emotions and protect what they identify with. And why can’t his emotions bubble out, not to convince, but simply because they are there. His ideas bubble forth, but not his emotions. Ideas fine, emotions bad. And I really don’t know how anyone can read these carefully rhetorical quotes and not think he is trying to convince about who he is, who we should be, the nature of reality and so on. He could have just said. I’m just saying what I think. But he went into some serious rhetorical approachs - that is using tools to convince.
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I can’t see any reason, then, to sit for hours and have some guy hit me with a stick when he doesn’t think my posture is up to snuff. I never have the urge or need to do that. I guess that isn’t zen.
I guess I haven’t yet discovered what is your main objection, besides hypocrisy and ego, which is common to humanity.
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I know I am being kinda a wall here. Might be a bad approach. It seems like we agree about many things, even your sense that Buddhism is anti-life. To me some of the statements here are anti-life. Not yours, but Watts and some of the Zen stuff - Twains quote doesn’t bother me. I feel like Watts has serious judgments of emotions and the ego and desire. That ends up being judgments of me, a social mammal whose being includes those things. He is just bubbling his ideas. I bubble the whole thing. I keep allowing more of this bubbling, call that my path, bubbling the whole thing. I find him to be manipulative of himself, the suppression of parts of himself based on his upbringing in English culture and his later Christian and Buddhist/eastern phases. That this leads him to be manipulative in relation to himself I have, now, years later, only compassion for. Who isn’t affected strongly by culture? But in his role as a proselytizer using rhetoric to seemingly point out the way to be in the world, I react by pushing away. Been there, tried that, not for me. He’s dead so it’s not personal. I feel no urge to hurt him. But the ideas…I want to push them off. One way to look at anger is to see it as wanting to push something back that is damaging. One way to look at fear is to see it as wanting to move back from something damaging. Of course one can be confused and have these emotions in the wrong contexts or with charge from the past or other situations. But my reaction to these ideas is to push them back. If I found myself in a Buddhist Temple, somehow seeming to have made vows and in monks robes, I would be afraid and sneak out. Here we are discussing the ideas and it is interesting to see how I react now. I am not enraged, I am not scared. But a pushing away is definitely there. I am interested in understanding what that is, now again, from an older more experienced position that I was in last time I responded. Partly, I think I see Watts more as doing the best he could given his experiences. Partly, I get what I find off-putting in the style, not just the content, of his communication. It’s not really a good fit for our needs. You just found the guy and haven’t had so much to do with Buddhism. YOu are moving toward it, finding value - which I did back then for example for me some of the spontaneity and love of nature - and here I am long ago having rejected it in the main. Maybe in ten years we will be in very similar places in relation to it. Maybe it will offer you what you really desire and we will simply and clearly disagree and both be content with our chose paths, and in that way be at ease, even in synch around the issues - though likely we would talk about something else. So it’s kind of a bad fit. But I don’t want to function like an asshole in your exploration of Watts. I don’t think I am being an asshole, but I realize I am being blunt and wall-like in relation to his ideas and in some sense the man himself, which may be not only unpleasant, but more important not useful for you. I do think I have presented my reactions fairly clearly and it might be just repeating myself from this point out. We could just meet in other threads around other issues.
Did you miss post 1? This comes back to whether enlightenment is the same place for everyone because once we discover how to get there, how can it be improved upon? So either the elders didn’t know or we haven’t improved it enough yet.
Yup.
How can something be separate and connected?
Well, I suppose whether ego is bad or good, we’re stuck with it lol
Whether it’s true or not doesn’t change the illustration he’s putting up. By saying he doesn’t put anyone down, he’s put everyone down and put himself on top.
“Better” only exists in the context of an imagined goal. I’m better than you because I do X and X is believed to be better than Y. None of that really exists outside of constructs.
Dang, well tell me those things so I don’t have to go to hell and find them for myself lol! No need to reinvent the wheel
Well it’s like your asking me if I’m pious for preferring regular people who don’t practice anything vs pious people. So I’m pious about not liking pious people and that seems about right in the same way fundamentalists are just as annoying as atheists.