Alan Watts

His zen isn't orthodox, and if anything he uses it as an extension to daoism.

His daoism is pretty much on point though and he's a blast to read if you pick up the right book.

>>9968641
He lived by his philosophy and had a personal interpretation on zen Buddhism and daoism (never had any teacher with training in both religions). He deliberately chose to drink incredible amounts of alcohol to reach a zen like state of being.
The guy can't get any more chill

>>9968732
dide he really drink?! I didn't know this.

>>9968720
This. People forget Watts wasn't trying to be didactic or pass off as an authority, and that he dealed with things very much outside Zen, including Hinduism, Christianity and cybernetics. His position in the end is more to the side of Daoism, which fits his childhood dream of being a Chinese villain.

>>9969277
>...Anonymous
>09/02/17(Sat)03:33:01 No.9969277
>charlatan whose work has the sole purpose to pander to bored middle class people


I get this feeling when listening and seeing some of his audio on YouTube.

But then I have come across some insightful and interesting thoughts.

For example life not being a journey, but being a dance or music. Since hearing that analogy I have been a lot more relaxed and fulfilled in my day to day activities.

>>9968641

The genuinely wise neighbor kid across the street really liked him. This kid was one of the least pseud people that I have ever known. He was always better-read than me at our respective life-stages (he was four years older) and actually did know about Plato and western philosophy in general, in addition to his college speciality, East Asian studies (he visited Taiwan for a time and I think spent time on mainland China). We both really liked Final Fantasy VI and other Square games, and we had an old practice of talking about these games and philosophy in a general way. We would sit on or around his house stoop often and I think he actually knew things about Nietzsche when I had only 2001-tier memes.

He (my old friend) really is a very smart man and so it stings my pride a bit by proxy, that /lit/ looks down on this Alan Watts.

My life improved significantly after reading The Wisdom of Insecurity. That was many years ago, and though my interest in Eastern philosophy has since waned, I'm still very grateful to him.

>>9969262
He was an alcoholic - it's well known and acknowledged by his family.

My favorite quote of his: 'I'm not a drunk; I drink in an enlightened way'.

Apparently he had some issues with regards to himself when sober, and drinking allowed him to chill out.

>>9969964
Worry not. A lot of people here don't look down on Alan Watts.

>>9969262
Yes, so did his wife. He actually died from alcoholism.

>>9969943

He wouldn't mind being called a charlatan.
He's a bit of a trickster and he owns up to it.

He really harps on the deceitful master, who leads his disciples down the wrong path in order to teach them the right way.

>>9968641
A good read for a westerner to get into eastern religion and philosophy, but I don't see him as a philosopher as much as a preacher.

His voice sounds dank over a hip hop beat though.

>>9970932
I listened(and watched) to all his lectures available on thepiratebay.
Somwhere he points this out exactly, what you say.
There is also (I believe it's called 'on being god') where he says he's god and people in the audience ask him questions: very funny, witty and somehow down to earth.
His meditation lessons are pretty chill, where he goes "allah akbar" and Hara Krishna .
His criticism on the Zen-school and Priest system on Japan makes him very good to realize even tough it all sounds dank there is a darker side to the religion when it's put into a dogmatic system.

>>9968641
Listen (i've only read the Taboo of knowing who you are) it all, because sometimes he sounds like preaching but a track or two later he burns it down (Generally speaking).

>He was a theologian, he compares Christianity to eastern Religion/philosophies. He dislikes Philosophy as an academia thingy, it's not about reading books (tough it can come in handy) but about exploring while being honest with yourself about the truths you might stumble upon. He calls himself not a guru, but a mystical entertainer who likes to talk and made his living out of it, and is open about this very 'fact'.

>>9968720
Do you have any specific book recs?

I've been listening to his stuff for a while but havent read a word.

>>9972196
Not him but
His lectures are like his books like a lecture in academia relates to a book.
>only read the Taboo of knowing who you are

His philosophy is a trap if you get into it. For example he says that people eat the menu not the food. If you take this seriously then you are always trying to actually experience, not experience an experience but be the experience. You try not to see what you think you see but really just see it. Then he will go on about how trying is not the right attitude. He'll talk about children in class or a lumberjack trying to chop at a mind reading rabbit. The point being just to let the experience happen. Be in the now.

That is frustrating because how can I be in the now and plan ahead? He says when the phone rings answer the phone. When it's time to go, go. Isn't that what I was doing originally before you told me there was some more intimate way to experience reality? Hell say when the uninitiated looks at mountains he'll see mountains, when the student does he sees illusion, when the sage looks he sees mountains again. So what is the difference? how do I know when I see mountains the right way? If there is no right way and I'm trying to hard or something, then why tell me about your game and say I'm missing something? They say zen is a finger pointing at the moon. That most people see the finger and miss the actual sight. It makes me think we would see the moon better if we didn't have to think about how to see the moon better. If you would take the finger away maybe I could "actually" see it.

>>9973084
a big part of this is getting to the point where you know you can't know. that's what the master and the mountain relates to.

there is a story in the Zhuangzi where a master feels bad about revealing the virtue of the Perfect Man to an intellectual who comes seeking insight. he worries that the man will just be startled and end up more confused, even after a truth is revealed to him.

he relates this to the old Daoist story of the emperor taking a bird into his palace, throwing it the largest parties, offering it the finest foods, and entertaining it with the best musicians, until it dies a few days later.

that of course ultimately refers to the true nature of a thing and what it's nature needs.

what i am getting at is that maybe you are the intellectual in this case. alan watts and all the daoist literature or a quote you see on a fortune cookie can tell you one thing but you might not be ready to listen. or that might be the path to where you see the mountain again. and i like to think that we are the bird only temporarily or else people would be born masters.

it might seem arcane to say that you need to see the mountains as mountains again but i think we all notice that a vast majority of people (including ourselves) simply can't.

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>>9973084
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPVKRMEE2gY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWkn2qLLV8I

>>9973154
Hah that was a really good response. He fails right in it

>>9973151
I truly believe there is little truth to a lot of eastern philosophy; only hope wrapped in vague words. People seek for a sudden moment where they are freed from their inadaquacies. Maybe some fool themselves enough to gain what they lacked anyway, but it is not a stable fix.

There are some gems but the whole enlightenment thing is deceit. This is coming from someone who has had a mystical experience so I'm not saying those don't exist. They just are superficial.

I bought into that stuff for a while but the more I got into it the less I could really understand my perspective on the world. I know for certain this is not a unique case because I have talked to many people into mysticism and not one could clearly explain their beliefs.

>>9973084
You're supposed to finally Give Up!

>>9969964
Reading Alan Watts is the most comfy thing you can do

>>9969971
This, I came across Alan Watts during a really shit stage of my life and am forever grateful tothat book

>>9973352
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9d4x94Bnkw

>>9973154
>>9973375
>>9974115
Okay I watched your videos. So he says the pursuit of Truth is way to realize there is none, and that this is analogous to the fact that you have no ego. When you understand that and carry out its thinking you begin to understand duality.

Isn't that understanding of duality the true nature of the self then? Doesn't that contradict the idea of an ungraspable truth? Even though he says the ego isn't real it still controls me. Maybe I'd love to go and talk to a pretty girl or something but my mind and body limit me because I know the chance of failure.

See this is still just a truth to give people hope. I believe he said when you start the game of zen you can't leave but I beg to differ. I read every Alan watts book, read several books on Buddhism and zen, meditated for an hour every day, and even had a few psychedelics here and there for good measure. Even after being that into the game I still have moved on to other forms of discipline.

I do still hold a lot of positions from that style of thought but I am hesitant to try to live out its lifestyle. It is very annoying to think that you have understood perfectly what he means and by his logic you should have less anxiety and deal with less chatter only to find you are making no progress.

>>9973084
>Isn't that what I was doing originally before you told me there was some more intimate way to experience reality?

Yeah, that's the whole point.

>>9974408
I believe in one of his talks he says failure is an inevitability, so the fact that your scared of failure impedes your ability to learn, not that that is a huge deal, we sometimes refrain from doing things for self preservation, you wouldn't want to be rejected at a bad time in your life.

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>>9974410
So why bother me? Are you supposed to be better once you realize you don't have nothing?
>>9974416
That all is true. My point is just eliminating my "false" ego won't give me the confidence I supposedly might lack with it.

>>9974458
>So why bother me? Are you supposed to be better once you realize you don't have nothing?

It's not that you don't have nothing, it's that you can't change nothing, no matter how hard you try. Once you realize that everything you do is the right thing, you are free. Of course, you will sometimes get depressed, anxious, sad or frustrated, there's no way around that, but you will be able to crack a smile and feel that deep down it's all just a game.

>>9974562
I think that that philosophy of acceptance can further influence your environment/you into doing maybe the wrong thing. You still would have to try and reach for perfection regardless of if you think it is possible or not to attain it.

>>9974562
I don't think game is the right word. When you die you still are losing your perspective on the world. You can act like your not losing anything because there is nothing to lose but that is just messing with terms.

You can think of the mind having two parts. There is the subject of the mind, as in the thoughts that are being viewed, and there is the viewing part. Because this viewing part necessarily does not have a subject you can not view it. There is nothing to view. That however, does not mean it is equal to nothing. It is still lost in death and it is very much not a piece in a game.

>>9974652
>There is the subject of the mind, as in the thoughts that are being viewed, and there is the viewing part
>It is still lost in death

But that "viewing part", consciousness or whatever you want to call it, is abundant and constantly emerging on Earth and likely the whole universe. How is it lost in death?
Perhaps hundreds of billions of years in future, when all conscious beings are finally gone, this will apply, but not right now.

>>9974783
Good question. I think about this a lot. First I'd like to point out that each "viewing part" is singularly exclusive; you can not hop from your VP to another persons or a trees. I at least have never done it and I know of no case where someone has at least in regular,waking, live consciousness. This is what make your body yours and no one else's.

Just because energy isn't lost doesn't mean it has to stay in the same form. Elements stay in the same form in almost all case but consciousness isn't an element. It is an emerging phenomenon of chemicals and electrical signals as far as we understand today. Even if it is some supra-material essence that has yet to be proven and so far isn't really that needed an assumption to explain reality.

The VP is lost in death the same way one would lose ones eyes. The mechanisms that enable them are broken and the function of them ceases. How could a radio signal continue without the transmitter? I'd also like to clarify that the VP isnt a frequency like a radio wave. I guess in a sense all things are frequencies but I can't pick up an engines frequency and put in a new car.

>>9969964
Whenever you meet someone from Before the Internet who is genuinely wise and well-read by their own initiative, you'll find out they have a much higher tolerance for reading materials because they don't pre-judge and catalog them based on their prestige.

Most people here are assessing Watts without having read him, and knowing him only by reputation and supposition that he's a Western pop spiritualism writer. People who actually read books probably just picked him up in the 70s and judged for themselves whether he was any good, and he actually is.

>>9969975
And why should anyone believe a guy that cant even help himself?

>>9974562
>>9974577

>Once you realize that everything you do is the right thing, you are free. Of course, you will sometimes get depressed, anxious, sad or frustrated, there's no way around that, but you will be able to crack a smile and feel that deep down it's all just a game.

Watts once said some along the lines of happiness and sadness are on a spectrum and that you cant have one without the other, they support each other, which I agreed to believing before hand that happiness and sadness and other opposites give each other meaning.

>I think that that philosophy of acceptance can further influence your environment/you into doing maybe the wrong thing.

Your own moral compass should be enough to tell you whats right and wrong I think.

>You still would have to try and reach for perfection regardless of if you think it is possible or not to attain it.

I'm not sure if perfection is possible, or at least ones interpretation of perfection might be different to another, so I guess that would depend on what you're doing, to reach perfection by your own standards might be possible but to reach perfection by everyone else's probably isn't.

I was at work so i couldn't stick around, this thread is good though.

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>>9974408
You're misunderstanding what it means for the ego te be "false". The ego is "false" in the same way a street sign is false. It's a cultural institution which only works by you reading and working as it were real, by you using it as a point of reference. Truth works like this in the same way. It doesn't mean you can disregard Jupiter being larger than Earth because that's "just" numbers. Rather, you need to see the numbers (and the size differences) don't mean anything without someone to measure them. Similarly you can't just go and apply a ruler at everything that comes your way and said you have the truth of the world. What he means by ungraspable truth is that the experience of life isn't one that can be passed by just commenting on it, but is an acting one, is only realized when you're "with" things, which is something you're constantly with, but is precisely not realized by people precisely because they are submerged in the experience; therefore the middle stage of frustration and isolation.

>Even though he says the ego isn't real it still controls me.
Who's the (you) that controls (you)?

>I am hesitant to try to live out its lifestyle.
What makes you think you already aren't? What makes you think there is a set "way" that he intends you to do things in? Aren't you simply making another idol out of him?

>>9976253
I promise you I understand the idea of a false ego. In Buddhism it is known as samkharakhandha, a mental formation.

The you that's controlling me is whatever parts of my brain coordinate to tie my shoes or not yell in public. It is distinct from you, as in you over there ,because you can not control my brain and make me tie my shoes. Sure I may not actually have free will over what influences my control but I still have control regardless .

Because Alan watts drank fancy Chinese tea and meditated on occasion. The fact that there are similarities between zen schools is enough to say that it is a lifestyle. You can say they are being tricked into believing they are doing it for some truth, and that it isn't really zen, but the whole point of the practice is to ingraine the fundamental ideas; to live in the way that you learn these truths more deeply instead of superficial is what I mean by that lifestyle. I don't meditate anymore, I am a man of little action and all thought, and I stray from the middle path in many ways.

There are definitely ways to live with zen. Let's not forget it is a sect of Buddhism. You can't be a methhead paranoid zen Buddhist. I say this because Zen isn't the school of "everything I do is right". Also having idols is absolutely fine. You could make the point that that creates a negative image of yourself but that is fine. You can use that as fuel to become more like your ideal. Zen shouldn't be interpreted as accepting your inadequate self and forgoing improvement because everything is right anyways.

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>>9977134
>you can not control my brain and make me tie my shoes.
I sort of can actually. As a fellow human being I can coerce you to do more things in the right circumstances than I could some other animal or something inanimate. Many of the struggles people go through are precisely about controlling others, and not only themselves. And this isn't even getting into some things we'll be able to do with technology pretty soon, or into things we already do with culture, or the ego of other lifeforms like ants, and so on.

So no, your ego is not this discrete unit you want it to be for the the sake of your pessimism. Or are you going to tell me you've acted the same way all your life?

>Because Alan watts drank fancy Chinese tea and meditated on occasion.
And there's tons of self-determined Buddhists (something Watts wasn't) who don't. There's a whole subgroup that wants to adapt Buddhism to modern scientific times, which royally pisses off other Buddhists. There's been swordsmen and soldiers, such as Miyamoto Musashi, who have had serious Zen influences.

>The fact that there are similarities between zen schools is enough to say that it is a lifestyle.
Because those people are monks, they specialists. And in Watts's opinion that has it's role in society, but if you're doing it out of some insufficiency and violently dropping the rest of your life then you're simply overdoing it.

>You can say they are being tricked into believing they are doing it for some truth
No, I wouldn't say that.

>to live in the way that you learn these truths more deeply instead of superficial is what I mean by that lifestyle.
Sure, but to begin with, there are degrees. Just because you're not a monk, it doesn't make your interest in "zen" superficial. And even then, being caught up with that life is no different from being caught up with any other lifestyle, which is antithetic to Buddhism. There is such a thing as spiritual materialism.

>Zen shouldn't be interpreted as accepting your inadequate self and forgoing improvement because everything is right anyways.
You can't change by rejecting your inadequate self. How are you going to become adequate if you are inadequate? You can't. It's like trying to have up without down. What you do is take it for what it is and let go of it. Stop trying to force yourself into something you're not. Haven't you had enough? The point he's trying to make is that at some point you will have to let go of control and trust yourself and others. You simply can't be in full control like you want to. But once you understand why that is, you won't need to.

>>9977525
First I'd just like to point out I'm not against zen or Buddhism I just see it misinterpreted so often. I have a friend who believes everything is nothing . Whenever you try to tell him about some scientific study he says he doesn't believe it though science is supposed to be objective truth. He believes there is no good because it is all subjective. He is a nihilist but he thinks he's spiritual.

Now you can coerce me with logic, by exploiting my greed, threaten me, and as you say we can even make things with technology that can control the nervous system. Hell they are able to get really blurry pictures of data in the brain. That is almost like what a lot of traditions would call the higher self or atman. Still I would make the case that I am my brain that controls my nervous system, senses information and has the same memories. If you change these up I am definitely less me. You could go a platonic route and say I am the form of me and as long as I continue that pattern I am me. If suddenly my essence is compromised by someone else's, then I guess I have lost some of my self. Though the self isn't permanent that doesn't make it not real.

You're right on all the points but I'd like to talk about your last one

>You can't change by rejecting your inadequate self. How are you going to become adequate if you are inadequate? You can't. It's like trying to have up without down.

I think you might be mistaken here. How can you be better if you are not worse? That's what I think it should be. If you are adequate and trying to be adequate isn't that more like two ups?

Sure you can't have full control but you can determine your values and try to live by them. You will always be under some spell of logic ideaology ignorance or passion, but you can hopefully use one to check the other.

The thing is personally I am not a good enough person to let myself off the hook. I would waste all my time and overload my pleasure centers until I felt nothing. I know you can still be moderate and responsible with zen, but personally I need an ideal to pursue or else I have no meaning.

>>9977525
>>9978510
>The thing is personally I am not a good enough person to let myself off the hook. I would waste all my time and overload my pleasure centers until I felt nothing. I know you can still be moderate and responsible with zen, but personally I need an ideal to pursue or else I have no meaning.

It seems like your guys two approaches, eastern and western in origin, have the same ends but different means.

The Buddhist feels pulled toward pleasure, but merely watches the desires come and go, is permissive of the process in their head: "its okey that these feelings are here, they will pass". Whereas you may label the desires and yourself "bad" in your inner-monologue, and use condemnation to prevent the behavior: "this is bad, I'm a failure if I succumb to hedonism".

It seems like Buddhism could be just as effective (if not more) at meeting your goals with progressively less self-loathing.

>>9980031
You are right that it is essentially the split between occidental and oriental. I think which one works for you would depend on who you are. Potentially either one is way more effective.

Generally in the east you follow the spiritual path later in life. I think it was carl jung who pointed out that in the west the prophet died at 30 or so and never reached old age, whereas in the east most had beards as long as their arms. Hell lao tzu was called the old boy and the legend goes he was born with a beard.

I believe you have to chase desire and experience dukkha before trying to liberate yourself from it. They have statues of lewd women on the path towards Indian temples. The idea is that if they distract you then you should be somewhere else.

>>9980345
That's fair, I just wonder at any sort of endorsement or encouragement of a path that involves resistance, rejection, repression, condemnation, disgust, or anger. Anything that considers these toxic emotions as a feature of its system seems like a--at least partially--toxic system. What worth is a happiness undergirded by abuse?

It reminds me of watership down, where the rabbits had a mostly idyllic environment but at such a cost.

>>9973084
>Hell say when the uninitiated looks at mountains he'll see mountains, when the student does he sees illusion, when the sage looks he sees mountains again. So what is the difference?

Try Hegel. He is way more direct about this experience than the orientalist obscurantists.

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>>9978510
>How can you be better if you are not worse? That's what I think it should be.
We're not disagreeing here. The only difference is in the attitude you take towards these things. Watts himself explains that you should think of bad passions as manure or as the shell of an egg, something to put in the correct place or respectfully discard. And that really makes all the difference, because otherwise you'll be constantly wasting time and energy trying to annihilate these things, when you could put them to better use.

This is one of the mistakes Westerners do regarding Eastern religion. Our main examples of religions are the Abrahamic ones, which conflate the state and spirituality. But it's not the same with these other religions; Buddhism doesn't have an imperative to save everyone in the world for all time. If it fails to help you then it's not much different than a medicine failing to cure you. Taoism has lived along Buddhism and Confucianism for centuries, complementing each other.

One of the reasons why Chan/Zen split up from the rest of Buddhism was that it was becoming too much of an institution. Zen is all about trying to be as basic as possible when it comes to spiritual practice. That's the origin of the mundane and secular, yet irreverent aesthetic that Watts loved about it.

>I would waste all my time and overload my pleasure centers until I felt nothing.
You would. But you're not. What you're talking about is an imagined version of yourself which exists on some other plane of existence. Your "real" you. It's wishful thinking. There's no you without any restraints or self-awareness at the moment.

There's a chapter of the Zhuangzi that's stuck with me. In it too men see an official coming around, all crooked and deformed. Then one asks the other if that man was so naturally. He answers that he must be, because making things uniform is what Man does, while Nature makes them unique.

See now, we're constantly going after the great men, but if we succeed where will that leave us? Obviously you would be what you are, you would be at peace with yourself. We try to root out imperfections and excesses, what's outside the mold, but that's only for the sake of getting rid of the mold. The Buddha is the one that has no teacher, the one that has no guide. That's what we want, so why make yourself feel miserable when you find yourself outside of his example? The truth is that it's a very great relief to have such person above you rather than be them; or so we think. But one of the things Buddhism aims to achieve is give people the solidity of character that lets them stand for themselves in the world. That's the point, to me, to live with dignity. But if you keep beating yourself down, you'll never have it. You don't want to be inconsequential, do you? So start acting like you aren't.

Here's a collection of chapter adscribed to the egoist Yang Zhu, which I've come back to over the years: http://www.sacred-texts.com/tao/ycgp/index.htm

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>>9980604
>Try Hegel. He is way more direct
Now that's something I'd never thought I'd hear.

Where does he talk about it?