Strength in weakness

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Alan Watts, Fellow beings, Wiara

Now, there’s another aspect of the problem, and that is, that a great deal of our negative attitude to the experience of pain –and acute physical pain I’m speaking of now– is connected with a certain culturally conditioned unwillingness to react to pain in the natural way.

In other words, we are afraid of giving in to suffering, in the way that our own physical organism suggests to us. We are afraid of crying; we are afraid of screaming; we are afraid of going into those very undignified motions, which constitute the human being’s reaction in pain.

Even though, we sometimes have the very same reactions in acute pleasure.

But we are fundamentally ashamed of pain. Because we are taught that giving in to pain –weeping, or something like that– is unmanly; sissy. Or something like that.

Now, it’s a very dangerous doctrine, that a human being should always be rigid in conditions of suffering.

I often like to quote a passage from that Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, which says:

“Man at his birth is supple and tender; in death, he is rigid and hard. Plants when they are young, are pliant and soft; but when dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus, tenderness and softness are the companions of life, but rigidity and hardness are the companions of death.”

In other words, there is strength in weakness.

Consider a cat. When a cat drops off a tree… What does the cat do? Does it go rigid, ’cause it’s “Allow me, I’ll be a real tough guy and meet the ground without flinching!” Does the cat stick out its feet like this? No. Because if it did, when it hit the ground, it’d be just a broken bag of bones. When the cat is in mid-air, it relaxes. It goes with it; it becomes weak; and so it hits the ground with a soft, heavy thud. And is unharmed.

Think also of water. Water was one of the basic symbols of Lao Tzu’s philosophy. To be like water… Nothing in the world is softer and more yielding than water, and yet at the same time, nothing is like water for overcoming and wearing away things which are hard, like rocks.

And thus, if you put a knife into water, and you try to cut it… What happens? Water gives completely to the knife. The water closes up wherever the knife went, and although you strike at it as hard as you like, you could never create a wound. So it is you see because of its softness, that the water triumphs over the hardness of the knife.

So then, it’s the same with human beings. Unfortunately we are so brought up to mistrust our natural feeling reactions to sudden experiences. We are conditioned to believe that we will suffer less, that we will somehow triumph over pain, if we hold our feelings rigid.

But you know? Our reactions to pain are in a way therapeutic; they’re healing! Just like fever. When we have poisons in our blood, the natural defense mechanisms of the body send up our temperature, and in this way boil out the invading bugs. Now, it used to be thought, that when people had fevers, this was the disease; the fever itself was the disease; and so, once upon a time, doctors used to give medicine to take away the fever.

But by taking away the fever, they very often killed the patient! Because they took away the defensive action of the body to drive out the disease. And so in just the same way, if one refuses to react in the way of nature to invasions of pain, so, too, one may shatter the body beyond what it can stand.

It’s the same thing you know. No bridge will stand up, unless it has give. If a steel suspension bridge is built so firmly that it doesn’t sway in the wind, that bridge will come crashing down on the first gale. It’s just because there’s give in it, that the bridge is strong. Take a great building, like the Empire State; the Empire State also has a swaying; and if it didn’t have that sway, it would be a very insecure structure indeed.

So then.

When we are willing to react to pain as our own natural feeling suggests; if we are willing to scream, if we are willing to weep, if we are willing to wriggle and writhe as pain suggests to us to do; a very strange thing happens. The very willingness to react in that way, often makes it quite unnecessary to do so.

Now, you may say I’m just talking big, and the only way I can prove what I say, is the next time you have a toothache, the next time you have any serious pain, see what happens if you do this. If you, as it were, go along with the pain and don’t try to fight it; yield and become weak and you will discover the strength in weakness.

So then, you see, this is not really an escapist philosophy at all. It is most definitely a philosophy of keeping in mind the actual reality of the situation in which you find yourself. I don’t know what could be more realistic than this; what could be more fundamentally facing the hard facts of life. One keeps his attention on the actual concrete fact that is happening, as distinct from our socially conditioned and inculcated ideas and attitudes about it. And this is really, facing reality a hundred percent.

And so, there come out of this, two basic results.

The first is, that when we don’t resist pain, we don’t set up a vicious circle in connection with it. Take the pain of fear again. Supposing you are in a situation where the doctor has told you, “You have to have an operation”. And of course, if you’re going to undergo this operation in the best way, you need to be rested, you need to have plenty of sleep, you need to be strong, and so on.

Well.

Fine advice, isn’t it?

Because, the moment you know you gotta have an operation, you are liable to get a bit frightened, and then you know you ought not to be frightened; you ought not to stay awake at nights and worry about it; you need sleep! Then you get afraid, you see, because you’re afraid! You’re afraid that your fear is going to lead to insomnia and debility, and so you are afraid of being afraid! And then, because you see that you are afraid of being afraid, you are afraid because you are afraid because you are afraid! So that worry is always a vicious circle, in which you are worrying because you worry because you worry because you worry! And this, as it were, builds up a whole chain of reactions, which makes the pain of fear worse and worse and worse.

So then.

If at any point in this link, we can, as it were, be willing; be willing to be worried; and then you don’t worry about being worried. Being willing to afraid; then you don’t have to be afraid of being afraid.

And so, this, in other words, diminishes the total amount of pain, because it doesn’t allow the painful situation to build itself up and up and up and up.

In the same way, if somebody stuck a hook into you, and you pull away from it, well the hook goes more deeply into you. But if you are caught, like a fish on a hook, and you go with the hook, this reduces the amount of tension. And this works backwards, all the way down the line.

Now, there’s also a second result.

And that is, that when our mind, our consciousness, our attention, is fully focused on what is, on the actual situation, as I said, we are free from various thoughts about it and associations with it, that bring up a context which makes the experience painful.

So you might say that this is an attitude of taking things as they come, one at a time.

For example.

Many of you who are not blessed with dishwashers, have to wash many dishes day after day. And when you’ve been married, as a woman, for, oh… ten or eleven years… One day you’re sitting there at the sink, utterly weary of the whole thing. And in your mind’s eye, comes the immense pile of dishes which you’ve had to wash day after day in the past… There they are, in your mind’s eye, standing up piled for ever and ever, on the draining board. And also in your mind’s eye, is that enormous pile of dishes that you’re gonna have to wash in the future. And you think, “My life is out of a mere drudge! Washing dishes, washing dishes, washing dishes, and there’s no end to it!”

But if you were realistic, you would see this:

You have only one dish to wash in your life:

This one.

You can only wash one dish at a time.

That’s the only one you have to deal with.

It’s the same with climbing a mountain. If you start to think as you climb, “Oh, what a lot of steps to take…” then the task becomes utterly oppressive.

Or if, for example, you make a new year’s resolution. And you say, “Well, all I’m going to go on the wagon; I’m not gonna drink anymore this new year”. And if you say, “This whole year, I will not touch another drop of drink”, well, of course the old devil immediately brings to your mind: “Three hundred and sixty-five days of not drinking anything!” (anything alcoholic). And that’s overwhelming. Don’t tempt the devil that way. One conquers the problem by not drinking this one; and saying nothing about the next.

So with the climbing of the mountain. Taking each step, as if it were the only step to be taken.

And so, in the situation there, where there is the experience of agony, whether it be physical, or whether it be moral, the way out is, in a way, suffering that agony as if this were the only thing in the whole world to be done. By going right down to the bottom of the furnace, no further pains will harass you. It was also so, isn’t it, in Dante’s Divine Comedy; when Dante and Virgil find their way out of hell, by going down to the very centre of hell.

I like to illustrate this with another of those Zen stories.

There was a monk who got news that his mother had died, and he was weeping. And another Buddhist monk said to him: “You oughta be ashamed of yourself! You are monk, still showing worldly attachments by weeping.” He said: “Don’t be silly! I’m weeping because I want to weep.”

Alan Watts transcribed by Leon Hieros

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A marvellous system of wiggles

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Alan Watts

What Happens If You Stop Talking To Yourself All The Time

Now, it’s amazing what doesn’t exist in the real world.

For example, in the real world there aren’t any things. Nor are there any events.

That doesn’t mean to say that the the real world is a perfect featureless blank. It means that it is a marvellous system of wiggles, in which we descry things, and events, in the same way as we would project images on a Rorschach blot, or pick out particular groups of stars in the sky and call them constellations, as if they were separate groups of stars! Well, they’re groups of stars in the mind’s eye, in our system of concepts. They are not “out there”, as constellations, already grouped in the sky!

So in the same way, the difference between myself and all the rest of the universe, is nothing more than an idea. It is not a real difference.

And meditation is the way in which we come to feel our basic inseparability from the whole universe. And what that requires is; that we; shut; up.

That is to say, that we become interiorly silent and cease from the interminable chatter that goes on inside our skulls. Because, you see, most of us think compulsively all the time. That is to say, we talk to ourselves. I remember when I was a boy, we had a common saying, “Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness”. Now, obviously, if I talk all the time, I don’t hear what anyone else has to say. And so in exactly the same way, if I think all the time –that is to say, if by talk to myself all the time– I don’t have anything to think about except thoughts! And therefore I’m living entirely in the world of symbols. And I’m never in relationship with reality.

Alright, now that’s the first basic reason for meditation.

But there is another sense, and this is gonna be a little bit more difficult to understand, why we could say, that meditation doesn’t have a reason; or doesn’t have a purpose, and in this respect, it’s unlike almost all other things that we do, except perhaps making music and dancing. Because when we make music, we don’t do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music, to get to the end of the piece, then obviously the fastest players would be the best! And so likewise when we are dancing, we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor, as we would be if we were taking a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point; when we play music, the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation.

Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at, in the immediate moment. And therefore, if you meditate for an ulterior motive, that is to say, to improve your mind, to improve your character, to be more efficient in life, you’ve got your eye on the future and you are not meditating. Because the future is a concept. It doesn’t exist. As the proverb says, “Tomorrow never comes”. There is no such thing as “tomorrow”, and never will be! Because time is always Now. And that’s one of the things we discover when we stop talking to ourselves, and stop thinking; we find there is only a Present, only an eternal Now.

So, it’s funny then, isn’t it, that one meditates for no reason at all; except, we could say, for the enjoyment of it. And here I would interpose the essential principle that meditation is supposed to be fun! It’s not something you do as a grim duty. The trouble with religion as we know it, is that it is so mixed up with grim duties! We do it because it’s good for you; it’s a kind of self-punishment, while meditation, when correctly done, has nothing to do with all of that. It’s a kind of digging the present; it’s a kind of grooving with the eternal Now, and brings us into a state of peace, where we can understand that the point of life, the place where it’s at, is simply here and now.

The easiest way to get into the meditative state, is to begin by listening.

If you simply close your eyes, and allow yourself to hear all the sounds that are going on around you, just listen to the general buzz and hum of the world, as if you were listening to music. Don’t try to identify the sounds you’re hearing; don’t put names on them; simply allow them to play with your eardrums. And; let them; go.

In other words you could put it, let your ears hear whatever they want to hear. Don’t judge the sounds… There are no, as it were, proper sounds, or improper sounds; and it doesn’t matter if somebody coughs, or sneezes, or drops something… It’s all just sound.

And if I am talking to you right now, and you are doing this, I want you to listen to the sound of my voice, [it’s worth doing it and actually my transcription humbly serves to lead you also to Mr Watts’ voice -Leon] just as if it were noise. Don’t try to make any sense out of what I am saying, because your brain will take care of that automatically; you don’t have to try to understand anything; just listen to the sound.

As you pursue that experiment, you will very naturally find that you can’t help naming sounds, identifying them; that you will go on thinking –that is, talking to yourself inside your head– automatically. But it’s important that you don’t try to repress those thoughts by forcing them out of your mind. Because that will have precisely the same effect as if you were trying to smooth rough water with a flat iron; you’re just going to disturb it all the more.

What you do is this. As you hear sound coming up in your head –thoughts–, you simply listen to them as part of the general noise going on, just as you would be listening to the sound of my voice, or just as you would be listening to cars going by, or to birds chattering outside the window.

So look at your own thoughts as just noises. And soon you will find, that the so-called outside world, and the so-called inside world, come together. They are a’happening. You thoughts are a’happening, just like the sounds going on outside, and everything is simply a’happening. And all you’re doing is watching it.

Now, in this process, another thing that is happening that is very important, is that you’re breathing. And as you start meditation, you allow your breath to run, just as it wills. In other words, don’t do at first any breathing exercise, but just watch your breath breathing the way it wants to breathe.

And then notice a curious thing about this.

You say in the ordinary way “I breathe”, because you feel that breathing is something that you are doing, voluntarily, just in the same way as you might be walking, or talking. But you will also notice, that when you are not thinking about breathing, your breathing goes on just the same. So the curious thing about breath is, that it can be looked at, both as a voluntary, and an involuntary action. You can feel on the one hand “I am doing it”, and on the other hand “It is happening to me”.

And that is why breathing is the most important part of meditation. Because it is going to show you, as you become aware of your breath, that the hard and fast division that we make, between what we do, on the one hand, and what happens to us, on the other, is arbitrary. So that as you watch your breathing, you will become aware that both the voluntary and the involuntary aspects of your experience, are all one happening.

Now, that may at first seem a little scary, because you may think, “Well, am I just the puppet of the happening? The mere passive witness of something that’s going on completely beyond my control?” Or, on the other hand, “Am I really doing everything that’s going along? Well if I were, I should be God! And that would be very embarrassing, because I would be in charge of everything and that would be a terribly responsible position!”

The truth of the matter, as you will see it, is that both things are true. You can see it that everything is happening to you, and on the other hand, you’re doing everything.

For example. It’s your eyes that turn the Sun into light; it’s the nerve ends in your skin that are turning electric vibrations in the air into heat and temperature; it’s your eardrums that are turning vibrations in the air into sound, and in that way, you are creating the world.

But, when we are not talking about it, when we are not philosophizing about it, then there is just this happening; this… ah…

[the sound of a little gong is heard as he gently hits it]

… and we won’t give it a name.

Alan Watts transcribed by Leon Hieros

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Just be sure that a vast variety of human beings is maintained

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Alan Watts

Thus you got to make a move, which will put yourself out of your own control, into the control of a better.

If you don’t believe in the Christian kind of a God, you can believe in the Hindu kind of a God, who is your Inner Self.

You see, you got a lower self, which you can call your ego. That’s that little scoundrelous fellow, that’s always out for me. But behind the ego, there is the Atman; the Inner Self; the Inward Light, as Quakers would call it; the real Self, the Spirit, which is substantially identical with God!

So, you got to meditate in such a way that you identify with your Higher Self! Now, how do you do that? Well, you start by watching all your thoughts. Very carefully; watching your feelings; watching your emotions; so that you begin to build up a stance of separation; between the watcher, and what is watched. So that you are, as it were, no longer carried away by your own stream of consciousness. You remain the witness; impassively; impartially; suspending judgement; and watching it all go on.

That seems to be something like progress. At least you’re taking an objective view of what is going on; you are beginning to be in a position to control it by just “Wait a minute! Who is this Self behind the self… the watching Self… Can you watch that one?” It’s interesting if you do! Because you find out of course, that this is, just as the problem of Grace, is nothing more than a transposition of the first problem; “How am I to be unselfish… by my own power?” It becomes “How am I to get graced by my own power?”

So, in the same way, we find that the watching Self, or the observing Self behind all our thoughts and feelings, is itself a thought! That is to say: when the police enter a house in which there are thieves, the thieves go out from the ground floor to the first floor; when the police arrive on the first floor, the thieves have gone up to the second; and so to the third, and finally out to the roof. And so, when the ego is about to be unmasked, it immediately identifies with the Higher Self! It goes upper level. Because, the religious game is simply a refined and highbrow version of the ordinary game. “How can I outwit me? How can I one-up me?”

So, if I find, for example, that in the quest for pleasure, the ordinary pleasures of the world; food, sex, power, possessions; all this becomes a drag, and I think “No, it isn’t there”, so I go in for the arts; literature; poetry; music; and I absorb myself in those pleasures. And after a while, they aren’t the answer. So I go to psychoanalysis, you see? And then I found out, that’s not the answer. I go to religion. But I’m still seeking what I was seeking when I wanted candy bars! “I wanna get that goodie!” Only I see now, that’s of course it’s not gonna be a material goodie; all material goodies fall apart! Then maybe this is spiritual goodie that’s not gonna fall apart.

But in that quest… The quest is not different from the quest for the candy bar. Same old story. Only you’ve refined the candy bar, and made it abstract and holy and blessed and so on. So it is for the Higher Self; the Higher Self is your old ego; and you sure hope it is eternal; indestructible, and all-wise.

But then the great problem is, how to get that Higher Self working? Or how does it make any difference to what you do and what you think? I know all kinds of people who got this “Higher Self” going… practicing their yoga… But they’re just like ordinary people… Sometimes a little worse! And… they can fool themselves. They can say, for example, “Well, my point of view in religion, is very liberal; I believe that all religions have divine revelation in them, but I don’t understand the way you people fight about it! You fight. You say, ahm, that ‘We, Jehova’s witnesses have the real religion’. Others say, ‘Well, we Roman Catholics have it’, and the Muslims say ‘No, it is in the Quran, and this is the right way.’ And somebody else gets up, and he may be a rather highbrow Catholic and say ‘Well, God has given the Spirit through all the traditions, BUT; ours is the most refined and mature.’” And then somebody comes along and says “Well, as I said, they’re all, equally revelations of the Divine, and in seeing this, of course I’m much more tolerant than you are!”

Huh! You see? That how this game is gonna work? They architect this position. Supposing you regard me as some sort of a guru. And you know how gurus hate each other; and always putting each other down! And I could say, “Well, I don’t put other gurus down! See? That outwits all of them!

[Laughter]

We were always doing that! We’re always finding a way to be one-up; and by the most incredibly subtle means…

So, you see that, you see? And you say, “I realize I’m always doing that! And tell me: How do I not do that?”

I say, “Why do you wanna know?”

[Laughter]

“Well, I’d be better that way!”

“Yeah, but why do you wanna be better?”

You see, the reason you wanna be better, is the reason why you aren’t.

Shall I put it like that?

We aren’t better, because we want to be. Because the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Because, all the do-gooders in the world, whether they’re doing good for others, or doing it for themselves, are troublemakers. On the basis of “’Kindly let me help you, or drown!’ said the monkey, putting the fish safely up a tree.”

[Laughter]

We, White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, British, German, American, have been on a rampage for the past hundred or more years to improve the world! We have given the benefits of our culture, our religion, our technology, to everybody; except perhaps the Australian Aborigines. And we have insisted that they receive the benefits of our culture and even our political styles, our democracy. “You’d better be democratic! Or we’ll shoot you!” And having conferred these blessings all over the place, we wonder why everybody hates us! See, because sometimes doing good to others, and even doing good to oneself, is amazingly destructive. Because it’s full of conceit! How do you know what’s good for other people? How do you know what’s good for you? If you say, you wanna improve, then you ought to know what’s good for you. But obviously you don’t! Because if you did, you would be improved!

So, we don’t know. It’s like the problem of geneticists, which they face today. I went to a meeting of geneticists not so long ago, where they gathered in a group of philosophers and theologians and said “Now look here; we need help! We, now, on the verge of figuring out how to breed any kind of human character we would wanna have, we can give you saints, philosophers, scientists, great politicians… anything you want; just tell us, what kind of human beings ought we to breed?” So, I said, “How will those of us who are genetically unregenerate make up our minds what genetically generate people might be? Because I am afraid, very much, that our selection of virtues, may not work! It may be like, for example, this new kind of high-yield grain which is made, and which is becoming ecologically destructive. When we interfere with the processes of nature and breed efficient plants and efficient animals, there’s always some way in which we have to pay for it. And I can well see, that eugenically produced human beings might be dreadful! We could have a plague of virtuous people! [Laughter] Do you realize that? Any animal, considered in itself, is virtuous; it does its thing; but in crowds, they’re awful! Like a crowd of ants, or locusts on the rampage; they’re all perfectly good animals, but it’s just too much! I could imagine a perfectly pestiferous mass of a million saints! [Laughter] So I said to these people, “Look, if there’s anything you can do, just be sure that a vast variety of human beings is maintained. Don’t please breed us down to a few excellent types. Excellent for what? We never know how circumstances are gonna change, and how our need for different kinds of people, changes. At one time, we may need very individualistic and aggressive people; at another time we may need very cooperative, team-working people; at another time we may need people who are full of interest in dexterous manipulation of the external world; at another time we may need people who explore into their own psychology and are introspective. There is no knowing. But the more varieties and the more skills we have, obviously, the better.

Alan Watts transcribed by Leon Hieros

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Are you? No need to insist.

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Alan Watts, Mooji, SATSANGS/RETREATS, Wiara

Are you tired of the game and feeling superior?

There’s no need to insist on labeling yourself as anything.
When you lose the eyes of the ego, you see with the eyes of God.
Yes. Rid me of ego, and merge me with You.
That’s your little work.
And keep quiet.
And trust.
And see!

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“Mr. Guru, I have problems! I suffer, and it’s a mess, and I can’t control my mind, and I’m miserable, and depressed…”

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Alan Watts, Buddha

“Shiva ol’ boy… Don’t kid me; I know who you are…

But you’re coming on beautifully, in this act…”

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The only way to handle danger is to face it. If you start getting frightened of it, then you make it worse. Because you project unto it all kinds of bogeys and threats which don’t exist in it at all. Whenever you meet a ghost, don’t run away. Because the ghost will capture the substance with your fear, and materialize itself out of your own substance; and will kill you eventually, because it will take over all your own vitality. So then, whenever confronted with a ghost, walk straight into it. And it will disappear.

“We gotta survive! You must survive! That’s the great thing!” We’re all working on that, and counting it out, day after day in anxiety. Because this is a description of anxiety: Anxiety is the fear that one of a pair of opposites, might cancel the other. Forever.

And if by any chance, by any means, you find out that that is not so, you have an entirely new attitude to what human beings are doing. Which may be very creative, but which, also, may be very dangerous:

You – See – Through – The Game!

You are only just kidding, that you’re just “Poor little me.”

See, the function of a guru –that is to say, a spiritual teacher, in India– is to give you a funny look in the eye. Because you come to him and say, “Mr. Guru, I have problems!” [Laughter] “I suffer, and it’s a mess, and I can’t control my mind, and I’m miserable, and depressed,” and so on… And he gives you a funny look. And you feel a bit nervous about the way he looks at you. Because, you know, he is reading your thoughts. This man is a great magician! He can read everything that’s IN you! He knows right down into your unconscious! And you know all the dreadful things you’ve thought, and all the awful desires you have, and you’re rather embarrassed that this man looks right through you and sees them all!

But that’s not what he’s looking at!!! He’s giving you a funny look for quite another reason altogether! Because, he sees, in you, the prana, the Godhead, just claiming “It’s poor little me!” That’s why he gives you a funny look! And why he seems to look right through you; as if to say, Shiva ol’ boy… Don’t kid me; I know who you are… But you’re coming on beautifully [Laughter] in this act, that you’re somebody else altogether! And I congratulate you! You’re doing a wonderful job, playing this part, which you call the person… My person…

So.

It’s all very well. Anybody can have ecstasy. Anybody, as a matter of fact, can become aware that he is one with the eternal ground of the universe. But since that’s what you are anyway, I’m going to ask: “So what?”

When a hero goes on an adventure, and he leaves his people, and he’s going to a strange land; he can go away, and just hide himself around the corner in an obscure house, and then appear a year later, and say “I’ve been on a heroic journey,” and tell all sorts of tales. And they say, “Prove it!” Because they expect him to bring back something; something which nobody has seen before. Then they believe; “You’ve been on a journey.”

So in the same way exactly, anybody who goes on a spiritual journey, must bring something back. Because if you just say, “Oh, man! It was a gas!” [Laughter] Anyone can say that!

Now, this is why, in the doctrines of Buddhism, there is a differentiation between two kinds of enlightened beings. They are both forms of Buddha – which is to say, the word Buddha means “somebody who has awakened, who has discovered the secret behind all this” and in other words, all this thing we call life with its frantic concerns, is a big act, which you, in your unconscious depths, are deliberately setting up.

So, you can do one of two things when you discover this: you can become what’s called a Pratyekabuddha, that means a private Buddha, who doesn’t tell anything; or you can become a Bodhisattva. Pratyekabuddha goes off into his ecstasy, and never is seen again. Bodhisattva is one who comes back, and appears in the everyday world, and plays the game of the everyday world by the rules of the everyday world; but he brings with him upaya; he brings with him some way of showing that he’s been on a journey, that he’s come back, and he’s going to let you in on the secret, too, if you… if, if, if… you’ll play it cool; and also come back to join in the everyday life of everyday people.

The first thing, then, is to discover what indeed you do love! If anything. And you’ll find, there is something! And then, go into the nature of that. Now, it’s said that selfish people love themselves; is something which you thought is other than yourself. Even if it be very ordinary things, such as ice-cream, or booze… In the conventional sense, booze is not you; nor is ice-cream. It certainly… it turns into you in a manner of speaking when you consume it, but then you don’t have it anymore. And so, you look around for more, in order to love it once again. But, so long as you love it, you see, it’s never you! When you love people –even however selfishly you love them, because of the pleasant sensations they give to you– still, it is somebody else that you love. And as you enquire into this, as you follow honestly your own selfishness, many interesting transformations begin to come about in you.

One of the most interesting transformations, of being directly and honestly selfish, in the same way that for example cats are, is that you stop deceiving people.

If, what you define as you, is inseparable from everything which you define as not-you, just as front is inseparable from back, then you realize that deep down, between self and other, there is some sort of conspiracy. If these things always occur in combination, and look very different from each other, and feel quite different, nevertheless the feeling of difference between them, allows each one to exist. And so, underneath the opposition, or the polarity, between self and other, or between any other pair of opposites you can think of, there is something in common, as there is for example between figure and background. You can’t see a figure without a background. You can’t have an organism without an environment. Equally, you can’t have a background without a figure; or an environment without organisms in it; or without things in it. You can’t have space which is unoccupied by any solid. You cannot have solids not occupying some space. This is absolutely elementary, and yet, we don’t realize it, because, for example, the average person thinks that space is nothing. But it’s just such a sort of not-there-ness, in which there are things, and we are slightly afraid that not-there-ness, that nothingness, that darkness, that the negative poles of all these oppositions, will win! That they will eventually swallow up every kind of being and every kind of there-ness!

But when you catch on to the game, you realize that that won’t happen. Because what is called not-existing, is quite incapable of being there without the contrast of something called existing.

It’s like the crest and the trough of a wave; you can’t have a wave that is all trough and no crest, just as you can’t have a wave which is all crest and no trough. Such a thing has never been manifested in the physical universe. They go together.

And that is the secret!

There really is no other secret than that.

That is the secret!

💜🙏

Alan Watts transcribed by Leon Hieros

Doesn’t it all?

Tags

Alan Watts, Morihei Ueshiba, Wiara

If it all intuitively makes sense to us, why slip into taking sides and worry about the enlightenment of those who challenge us?

🙏 Leon

💜🙏

Simply by being with it

Tags

Alan Watts, Wiara