Historically I've been resistant to reading Alan Watts. I had / have a bit of an unjustified view of him as esoteric. This is based on second hand opinions. So, in order to form my own opinions I am going to give some of his books a read and try and engage with the text.
Alan Watts does seem a bit a-traditional in terms of Zen Monks — whatever that means. His beliefs and practices seem to expand past just Buddhism. He was influenced by Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism. But, from my standpoint, he seemed most interested in general philosophy and its application to life.
he was a zen monk but later in his life he left formal zen training to become a christian priest 1
He received criticism for his interpretation of Buddhism & Zazen from a number of prolific zen monks ( Philip Kapleau and D. T. Suzuki )
generally he seems to be a pretty contrarian voice in Buddhism / Zen
He held some non-traditional views of Zen / Zazen
I am all for the criticism and iteration of traditional beliefs. No views, traditions should be viewed as static or 'sacred'. Zen for me is a transformative, experienced life approach — so if something isn't working, change it / try something else.
This doesn't mean that alternative views are 'right' but I do support criticism and growth. We're all just looking for what works.
Is there a sensitive secret / taboo that society doesn't tell us as we grow up that is vitally important for people to know but society is sensitive / oppressive around.
this use to be sex but now isn't
religion has become more and more taboo in modern society
reading religious text can be hard and esoteric.
The book tries to talk about religious type knowledge but in a more generic, straight forward fashion.
An interesting question to ask about reality is 'why is it structured this way, way this universe, and why do humans behave the way they do.'
Generally western philosophy has dealt with this question by ignoring it or dismissing it as a silly question.
Many people believe that as a human species have grown technologically but not ethically/ logically, etc.
“We suffer from a hallucination, from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms. Most of us have the sensation that “I myself” is a separate center of feeling and action, living inside and bounded by the physical body—a center which “confronts” an “external” world of people and things, making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange.”
Our speech reflect this illusion
The illusion of being visitors to the universe contradicts our understanding of reality.
“As the ocean 'waves', the universe 'peoples'”
I believe this is suggesting that because everything is empty , one action is from all action. So the Ocean can wave because it is connected with everything. The entirety of emptiness creates form. So the universe is people and experiences 'people' while the ocean waves.
Feeling that we are separate minds in an alien universe creates two primary things:
-creates an aggressive , conquering attitude to the world 'outside' us.
– “The hostile attitude of conquering nature ignores the basic interdependence of all things and events—that the world beyond the skin is actually an extension of our own bodies—and will end in destroying the very environment from which we emerge and upon which our whole life depends.”
We have no 'common' / shared sense. We view opinions & actions as mine vs. yours instead of recognizing emptiness and acting accordingly.
This also allows the most aggressive extroverts 'propagandist' to make decisions.
This might lead us to think that we need to create a new religion
history has show that this isn't enough, they are focused on relativism ( we're more loyal than you, more pure, etc ) .
“Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide; it is positive unfaithful because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, open-ness—an act of trust in the unknown.”
I enjoy this quote a lot. Believe system should be evaluated on historical purity but instead on the value they actualize in your life. They should be experiential and create meaningful results. If they don't we should throw them away and iterate towards something better.
“Just as money is not real, consumable wealth, books are not life. To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency.”
Here the author is suggesting that we shouldn't worship scriptures. Just as we know that many other things are arbitrary forms that aren't truly separate we need to recognize that that is true for books and scripture as well.
we can use books as a stepping off point but we shouldn't use them as absolutes.
“The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego”
this is hard to internalize / realize because it is so introspective and outside our experience.
because of this we have to build stories & myths to try and help us understand.
“God also likes to play hide-and-seek, but because there is nothing outside God, he has no one but himself to play with. But he gets over this difficulty by pretending that he is not himself.”
“Now when God plays hide and pretends that he is you and I, he does it so well that it takes him a long time to remember where and how he hid himself.”
This view seems to explain why bad things happen ( kind of ) and why we struggle to understand emptiness. But, I would assume that we shouldn't take this literally given the author's previous statements about myths.
God can't be seen because they are the self of the universe and there is no not-god.
“But the secret which my story slips over to the child is that the Ultimate Ground of Being is you. Not, of course, the everyday you which the Ground is assuming, or “pretending” to be, but that inmost Self which escapes inspection because it’s always the inspector. This, then, is the taboo of taboos: you’re IT!”
“This is because we think of God as the King of the Universe, the Absolute Technocrat who personally and consciously controls every detail of his cosmos—and that is not the kind of God in my story.”
I always find these types of quotes unnecessarily clinging to the word 'god'. At least in the western modern times I think it makes sense to let the word God go — there is too much baggage / connotations with the word. It sound romantic and reassuring to say we're all God, but just using any of the words 'reality' / 'oneness' / 'non-self' / 'emptiness' gets the point across more clearly and with less baggage.
Personal Summary & Conclusion:
There is no ego driven self.
We are god playing hide and seek.
That we are all one and that there is emptiness & form is the greatest kept secrete in modern society.
Actually knowing emptiness is hard but extremely important.
I didn't find this chapter too thought provoking. But, I am familiar with Zen philosophy. I do find a lot of the language used 'distracting' and overly romantic — thought, Alan Watts is definitely not the only guilty part of this in Zen :)