The Book On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

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Society bluntly discourages inwardness. It’s a world of fast food, fast fulfillments - and avoiding Pain (even though pain and disappointment are two of the greatest teachers)! Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.” It's like you took a bottle of ink and you threw it at a wall. Smash! And all that ink spread. And in the middle, it's dense, isn't it? And as it gets out on the edge, the little droplets get finer and finer and make more complicated patterns, see? So in the same way, there was a big bang at the beginning of things and it spread. And you and I, sitting here in this room, as complicated human beings, are way, way out on the fringe of that bang. We are the complicated little patterns on the end of it. Very interesting. But so we define ourselves as being only that. If you think that you are only inside your skin, you define yourself as one very complicated little curlique, way out on the edge of that explosion. Way out in space, and way out in time. Billions of years ago, you were a big bang, but now you're a complicated human being. And then we cut ourselves off, and don't feel that we're still the big bang. But you are. Depends how you define yourself. You are actually--if this is the way things started, if there was a big bang in the beginning-- you're not something that's a result of the big bang. You're not something that is a sort of puppet on the end of the process. You are still the process. You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are. When I meet you, I see not just what you define yourself as--Mr so-and- so, Ms so-and-so, Mrs so-and-so--I see every one of you as the primordial energy of the universe coming on at me in this particular way. I know I'm that, too. But we've learned to define ourselves as separate from it. ” It's the taboo against knowing who you REALLY are. It's the "unbearable lightness of being." The impossibility of getting any real answers. The immense difficulty in getting to the ‘bottom’ of yourself. Or even finding a secure foundation for an endless stream of very random thoughts. Watts makes a case for quieting the mind by leaving it alone. He argues that we are "addicted to thoughts" and want to avoid ourselves, and that this quest for self-avoidance leads to a "vicious circle" of worry. [4] You're IT [ edit ]

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.” The individual is separate from his universal environment only in name. When this is not recognized, you have been fooled by your name. Confusing names with nature, you come to believe that having a separate name makes you a separate being. This is — rather literally — to be spellbound.” In his highly influential 1957 The Way Of Zen, Watts provides his definitive introduction to Zen Buddhism.

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Watts has been criticized by Buddhists such as Philip Kapleau and D. T. Suzuki for allegedly misinterpreting several key Zen Buddhist concepts. In particular, he drew criticism from Zen masters who maintain that zazen must entail a strict and specific means of sitting, as opposed to being a cultivated state of mind that is available at any moment in any situation (which traditionally might be possible by a very few after intense and dedicated effort in a formal sitting practice). Typical of these is Roshi Kapleau's claim that Watts dismissed zazen on the basis of only half a koan. [55] On Change: The more it changes, the more it is same. Change is in some ways an illusion, for we are always at a point of uncertainty where any future can occur. Regarding his intention for living, Watts attempted to lessen the alienation that accompanies the experience of being human that he felt plagued the modern Westerner, and (like his fellow British expatriate and friend, Aldous Huxley) to lessen the ill will that was an unintentional by-product of alienation from the natural world. He felt such teaching could improve the world, at least to a degree. He also articulated the possibilities for greater incorporation of aesthetics (for example: better architecture, more art, more fine cuisine) in American life. In his autobiography he wrote, "… cultural renewal comes about when highly differentiated cultures mix". [37] Watts says humans are connected to everything around us so that we and the universe are one. The goal of Eastern

Jesus Christ knew he was God. So wake up and find out eventually who you really are. In our culture, of course, they’ll say you’re crazy and you’re blasphemous, and they’ll either put you in jail or in a nut house (which is pretty much the same thing). However if you wake up in India and tell your friends and relations, ‘My goodness, I’ve just discovered that I’m God,’ they’ll laugh and say, ‘Oh, congratulations, at last you found out.” Some other themes that Watts explores in these essays are race relations, karma, reincarnation, the natural world, and established religion. He even writes about yoga, astrology and the nature of ecstasy. It would appear that he leaves no stone unturned – the man clearly did a lot of thinking in those mountains! I guess that’s one of the benefits of being out in nature; getting to really spend time with your thoughts.

Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.”

It happened to me when I was 20 - a feeling of the utter Vastness of the universe, swiftly followed by a vision of my own littleness and vulnerability! Davis, Erik (May 2005). Druids and Ferries. Arthur (Brooklyn: Arthur Publishing Corp.) (16). "Druids and Ferries (Archived copy)". Archived from the original on 16 October 2012 . Retrieved 13 December 2012. Watts left formal Zen training in New York because the method of the teacher did not suit him. He was not ordained as a Zen monk, but he felt a need to find a vocational outlet for his philosophical inclinations. He entered Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, an Episcopal (Anglican) school in Evanston, Illinois, where he studied Christian scriptures, theology, and church history. He attempted to work out a blend of contemporary Christian worship, mystical Christianity, and Asian philosophy. Watts was awarded a master's degree in theology in response to his thesis, which he published as a popular edition under the title Behold the Spirit: A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion. Furlong, Monica (1986). Genuine Fake: A Biography of Alan Watts. Heinemann (or titled Zen Effects: The Life of Alan Watts as published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, ISBN 0-395-45392-5).Furlong, Monica, Zen Effects: The Life of Alan Watts. Houghton Mifflin. New York. 1986 ISBN 0-395-45392-5, Skylight Paths 2001 edition of the biography, with new foreword by author: ISBN 1-893361-32-2. To define is to limit. The words we use in language are limits to the magnificence that is our preymbolic The boundaries we set on the boundless make it impossible to properly define things like the universe. Watts was a heavy smoker throughout his life [43] and in his later years drank heavily. [43] In popular culture [ edit ]