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Out of Your Mind
In order to come to your senses, Alan Watts often said, you sometimes need to go out of your mind. Perhaps more than any other teacher in the West, this celebrated author, former Anglican priest, and self-described spiritual entertainer was responsible for igniting the passion of countless wisdom seekers to the spiritual and philosophical delights of Asia and India.
Now, with Out of Your Mind: Essential Listening from the Alan Watts Audio Archives, you are invited to immerse yourself in 12 of this legendary thinker's pinnacle teaching sessions about how to break through the limits of the rational mind, and begin expanding your awareness and appreciation for the Great Game unfolding all around us.
Carefully selected from hundreds of recordings by Alan Watts' son and archivist, Mark Watts, Out of Your Mind brings you six complete seminars that capture the true scope of this brilliant teacher in action. On these superb, digitally restored recordings, you will delve into Alan Watts' favorite pathways out of the trap of conventional awareness, including:
The art of the controlled accident—what happens when you stop taking your life so seriously and start enjoying it with complete sincerity
• How we come to believe the myth of myself that we are skin-encapsulated egos separate from the world around us, and how to transcend that illusion
• Why we must fully embrace chaos and the void to find our deepest purpose
• Unconventional and refreshing insights into the deeper principles of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Western philosophy, plus much, much more
Whether you're completely new to Alan Watts or familiar with his work, here is a rare opportunity to experience him at his best improvising brilliantly before a live audience on Out of Your Mind: Essential Listening from the Alan Watts Audio Archives.
Now, with Out of Your Mind: Essential Listening from the Alan Watts Audio Archives, you are invited to immerse yourself in 12 of this legendary thinker's pinnacle teaching sessions about how to break through the limits of the rational mind, and begin expanding your awareness and appreciation for the Great Game unfolding all around us.
Carefully selected from hundreds of recordings by Alan Watts' son and archivist, Mark Watts, Out of Your Mind brings you six complete seminars that capture the true scope of this brilliant teacher in action. On these superb, digitally restored recordings, you will delve into Alan Watts' favorite pathways out of the trap of conventional awareness, including:
The art of the controlled accident—what happens when you stop taking your life so seriously and start enjoying it with complete sincerity
• How we come to believe the myth of myself that we are skin-encapsulated egos separate from the world around us, and how to transcend that illusion
• Why we must fully embrace chaos and the void to find our deepest purpose
• Unconventional and refreshing insights into the deeper principles of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Western philosophy, plus much, much more
Whether you're completely new to Alan Watts or familiar with his work, here is a rare opportunity to experience him at his best improvising brilliantly before a live audience on Out of Your Mind: Essential Listening from the Alan Watts Audio Archives.
192 pages, Audio CD
First published January 1, 1998
About the author
Alan W. Watts
216 books7,123 followersAlan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer and speaker, who held both a Master's in Theology and a Doctorate of Divinity. Famous for his research on comparative religion, he was best known as an interpreter and popularizer of Asian philosophies for a Western audience. He wrote over 25 books and numerous articles on subjects such as personal identity, the true nature of reality, higher consciousness, the meaning of life, concepts and images of God and the non-material pursuit of happiness. In his books he relates his experience to scientific knowledge and to the teachings of Eastern and Western religion and philosophy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 340 reviews
March 25, 2008
Alan Watts is a pure delight. It's like meditation for the miserably Western! And don't worry! You can put your mindbrain at ease because Alan won't judge you for not being able to glint cosmic understanding from drum circles, patchouli, and tofu farts. Instead, he'll delve into etymological quandaries, expose and examine the problems of polarity, and tell you a couple of jokes along the way--all without saying "dude," "totally," or "dig it..." I can't say enough about this man's autodidactic understanding.
August 21, 2017
I don't pass along 5-star reviews lightly. This is the second Watts book (the other being "The Book") to garner a full rating. Watts is commonly referred to as a "spiritual entertainer" is steeped in Western and Eastern religious traditions. He was an Anglican Minister for a time, but also was one of the foremost Western experts on Zen. His knowledge of Vedanta (the basis of Hindu religion and culture) is also vast.
The premise of the book is that there is a bigger game being played around us. This game is hidden, through illusion "maya", a set of tricks being played by our own minds and the universe. The purpose of the game isn't to stop playing, but to know that it is a game, so that we can approach with a sense of play and fun, not seriousness and struggle. Given the number of people who seem to struggle their way through life, this book is an important one.
What if you were the universe, a vast sea of conscious, the "works", but simply forgot it to have the fun experience of playing the role of a human being for a while? This is the question that Watts dares to answer, in a humorous fashion.
The premise of the book is that there is a bigger game being played around us. This game is hidden, through illusion "maya", a set of tricks being played by our own minds and the universe. The purpose of the game isn't to stop playing, but to know that it is a game, so that we can approach with a sense of play and fun, not seriousness and struggle. Given the number of people who seem to struggle their way through life, this book is an important one.
What if you were the universe, a vast sea of conscious, the "works", but simply forgot it to have the fun experience of playing the role of a human being for a while? This is the question that Watts dares to answer, in a humorous fashion.
February 5, 2011
This is one to listen to again and again. Watts has done a brilliant job of summing up Zen Buddhism mixing it up with Pantheism, and what sounds to me like a Jungian view of the Self and the Ego. I can’t understand why people accuse him of recycling other ideas he’s heard. Granted, but he showcases them in a way that’s both spiritual and fun. Nothing wrong with that. I’ll be revisiting this lecture series.
November 9, 2021
just absolutely vital, beautiful and liberating. i listened to these a lot when i was traveling alone and heartbroken in the caucasus mountains, and watts' voice, day in and day out, challenged my intellect and spirit, and gave me more perspective and peace of mind than anything else prior... he doesn't offer answers, in terms of religion or spirituality or metaphysics, but instead as a scholar on buddhism and the hindu faith, applies the core values and beliefs of each faith and challenges his audience to see the harmony and interconnectedness of all life. By extension, he talks about the falsity and superfluity of the illusions and games (samsara) that we busy our lives with, but never in a negative, or self-righteous manner... well, i better stop. i can't say enough about these lectures, and i love talking with anyone who has been affected by them, or who holds them as close to their heart as i do.
June 26, 2022
Wonderful, just wonderful. Started listening to this as an audiobook but found that I really needed to pay attention so started over and actually read it. This is a collection of discussions held by Alan Watts and it is an invaluable distillation of his thoughts and philosophy. Absolutely 5/5.
January 26, 2022
I was thinking back the other day to the year 2008. It was a time of great change for me and so many unsettling developments had got me questioning my sense of direction. During this time, I suppose I was trying to find stability even while everything that had supported my sense of stability, even my sense of identity, was being challenged. Made redundant from a good job and then running an unprofitable small business, I had called off an engagement, been forced to sell my house, and—on top of all that—needed to deal with the death of my mother. Additionally, I had searched but found no better job prospects in the UK for a long while. I wanted my mind taken off the nagging worries and some sort of change of perspective was needed.
Enter Alan Watts and ‘Out of your mind’. Of course Watts’ talks were never likely to solve any of these practical crises. They were unlikely to bring direct solutions. One thing these long, rambling, good natured talks did do for me though, was to make me question where my sense of security should lie. In that sense the talks were invaluable. Simply reassessing my sense of security and identity was a way to stabilize my inner world and to therefore gain more traction on the outer world. Not that I agreed with everything he said, or saw him as any kind of believable guru, far from it! It was *how* he said things, and how he was able to make people re-evaluate things that was his greatest strength as a speaker and writer.
In terms of finding a reliable guide through such troubled waters Alan Watts might seem an unlikely candidate, but in my view, it was precisely because of his own self-acknowledged imperfections, coupled with his naturalness, his knowledgeable ways, his warmth and humor and immense curiosity, that he proved extremely well qualified to enable me (and obviously many others) to re-think their situation and get some inner peace again.
So who is (was) Alan Watts?
At first glance, he may just strike you as an unconventional, off-beat philosopher. A pacifist, he avoided the draft in WWII, becoming a clergyman in the USA. He had ongoing marriage and fidelity issues and drink problems. He even seemed to feel like suicide was always a welcome option if the game of life got to be a drag.
While some of the elements of his life might lead some people to be prejudiced and dismissive of him. I would say that while this man had some very normal, natural, human imperfections, he was no smug pretender of holiness. Life and nature is not perfect. It is messy and contradictory and so are we, if we are honest.
Watts was a very sincere guide, particularly to a whole generation of Americans seeking more than a predictable, materialistic lifestyle in the 60′s and 70′s.
He pointed out some typical sources of the world view of people which is rooted in their inherited philosophy and religion.
Watts was an excellent and thoughtful speaker, a very helpful elucidator of Eastern philosophies. He was a seeker of whatever is valuable and essential in the human experience. He certainly valued the traditional aesthetics and culture of the Far East and found value in the way of life recommended by the ancient sages. This influence he brought into a world which then sorely needed, and now still needs to hear his reassuring and refreshing message.
‘Out of your mind’ is a set of talks which will prompt you to reconsider your place in the scheme of things. I can highly recommend the talks.
Enter Alan Watts and ‘Out of your mind’. Of course Watts’ talks were never likely to solve any of these practical crises. They were unlikely to bring direct solutions. One thing these long, rambling, good natured talks did do for me though, was to make me question where my sense of security should lie. In that sense the talks were invaluable. Simply reassessing my sense of security and identity was a way to stabilize my inner world and to therefore gain more traction on the outer world. Not that I agreed with everything he said, or saw him as any kind of believable guru, far from it! It was *how* he said things, and how he was able to make people re-evaluate things that was his greatest strength as a speaker and writer.
In terms of finding a reliable guide through such troubled waters Alan Watts might seem an unlikely candidate, but in my view, it was precisely because of his own self-acknowledged imperfections, coupled with his naturalness, his knowledgeable ways, his warmth and humor and immense curiosity, that he proved extremely well qualified to enable me (and obviously many others) to re-think their situation and get some inner peace again.
So who is (was) Alan Watts?
At first glance, he may just strike you as an unconventional, off-beat philosopher. A pacifist, he avoided the draft in WWII, becoming a clergyman in the USA. He had ongoing marriage and fidelity issues and drink problems. He even seemed to feel like suicide was always a welcome option if the game of life got to be a drag.
While some of the elements of his life might lead some people to be prejudiced and dismissive of him. I would say that while this man had some very normal, natural, human imperfections, he was no smug pretender of holiness. Life and nature is not perfect. It is messy and contradictory and so are we, if we are honest.
Watts was a very sincere guide, particularly to a whole generation of Americans seeking more than a predictable, materialistic lifestyle in the 60′s and 70′s.
He pointed out some typical sources of the world view of people which is rooted in their inherited philosophy and religion.
Watts was an excellent and thoughtful speaker, a very helpful elucidator of Eastern philosophies. He was a seeker of whatever is valuable and essential in the human experience. He certainly valued the traditional aesthetics and culture of the Far East and found value in the way of life recommended by the ancient sages. This influence he brought into a world which then sorely needed, and now still needs to hear his reassuring and refreshing message.
‘Out of your mind’ is a set of talks which will prompt you to reconsider your place in the scheme of things. I can highly recommend the talks.
November 27, 2018
Reading Alan Watts is an experience in osmosis for me. The themes and approach in each of his books are similar, straightforward, in a way, but a bit tricky; each time I encounter one of his books—or lectures—I breathe in a new way of liberation, a little bit deeper. I walk away more aware, less rigid, more open.
Zen manifests in surprising ways. Insights can take years to uncover, if we're struggling too much with them, or they can be ever-present, mere moments away—once we stop seeking them.
Watts is a spiritual entertainer to the core, not a guru. You won't find dogma within these pages. He's merely offering us some things to consider—always sincere but never serious. His ability to use metaphor to convey dynamic truth always impresses. Zen cannot be captured in written word, or spoken word for that matter, but Out of Your Mind offers another way by which we can reorient our way of being, to train our minds; what matters is not the words themselves but the fact that they enable us to accept the world & ourselves (for we are the universe experiencing itself), and more easily flow with it.
He's a delight. Warm. Erudite. Full of life.
Zen manifests in surprising ways. Insights can take years to uncover, if we're struggling too much with them, or they can be ever-present, mere moments away—once we stop seeking them.
Watts is a spiritual entertainer to the core, not a guru. You won't find dogma within these pages. He's merely offering us some things to consider—always sincere but never serious. His ability to use metaphor to convey dynamic truth always impresses. Zen cannot be captured in written word, or spoken word for that matter, but Out of Your Mind offers another way by which we can reorient our way of being, to train our minds; what matters is not the words themselves but the fact that they enable us to accept the world & ourselves (for we are the universe experiencing itself), and more easily flow with it.
He's a delight. Warm. Erudite. Full of life.
May 6, 2021
Some of my favourite quotes:
„The moment you cease to identify with the ego and become aware that you are the whole organism, you realize how harmonious it all is. Your organism is a miracle of harmony. All these things functioning together—even miniscule creatures fighting each other in your bloodstream and eating each other up. If they weren’t doing that, you wouldn’t be healthy. What appears to be discord on one level is harmony at a higher level. All the discord in your life and in the lives of others—at a higher level of the universe, all of that is healthy and harmonious. Everything you are and do at that higher level is magnificent and free of blemish, just like patterns in waves, markings in marble, or the rippling movements of a cat. The world is really okay, and it couldn’t be anything else. Otherwise, it couldn’t exist.“
„Confusion largely results from not following feelings or ideas into their depths. People say they want to live forever, or they want this or that new car, or a certain amount of money to make them happy, and so on, but follow that line of thinking to its end. What would it be like to have those desires fulfilled?“
„A free and easy society loves outsiders. It knows that the outsider is doing for us what we haven’t got the guts to do for ourselves. The outsider lives up there in the mountains at the highest peak of human evolution—their consciousness is one with the divine, and that’s just great. It makes you feel a little better to have somebody like that around. That person is realized—they know what it’s all about. So we need those people, even if they aren’t playing our game, because it reminds the government in no uncertain terms that there’s something more important going on.“
„The moment you cease to identify with the ego and become aware that you are the whole organism, you realize how harmonious it all is. Your organism is a miracle of harmony. All these things functioning together—even miniscule creatures fighting each other in your bloodstream and eating each other up. If they weren’t doing that, you wouldn’t be healthy. What appears to be discord on one level is harmony at a higher level. All the discord in your life and in the lives of others—at a higher level of the universe, all of that is healthy and harmonious. Everything you are and do at that higher level is magnificent and free of blemish, just like patterns in waves, markings in marble, or the rippling movements of a cat. The world is really okay, and it couldn’t be anything else. Otherwise, it couldn’t exist.“
„Confusion largely results from not following feelings or ideas into their depths. People say they want to live forever, or they want this or that new car, or a certain amount of money to make them happy, and so on, but follow that line of thinking to its end. What would it be like to have those desires fulfilled?“
„A free and easy society loves outsiders. It knows that the outsider is doing for us what we haven’t got the guts to do for ourselves. The outsider lives up there in the mountains at the highest peak of human evolution—their consciousness is one with the divine, and that’s just great. It makes you feel a little better to have somebody like that around. That person is realized—they know what it’s all about. So we need those people, even if they aren’t playing our game, because it reminds the government in no uncertain terms that there’s something more important going on.“
October 26, 2019
I’ve come across Alan Watts quite a few times, in quotes and listened to parts of his talks on YouTube in the form of inspirational videos, and always found his words to be thought provoking. Yet I found these talks to be quite bland and repetitive, which makes me feel that Alan Watts was somewhat rehearsed in what he says, and this made his words feel less authentic. I also found it really odd the frequency at which he laughed at his own words, given they are rehearsed, and how the audience laughed merrily along each time as if he’d said something profound or outrageous. Given, these lectures were in an age where they were more likely to have found impact but it felt as if Watts was trying to imitate the Buddha in how he laughs along at the world. I found it interesting that Watts aligns himself with a lot of Eastern Philosophy and yet diverges at his own convenience in relation to the modern world. There are nuggets of gold amongst his discussions that make you rethink your own thought processes about the world but they are not worth listening to the full 14 hours of lectures for.
May 2, 2023
Warning: this book will trigger a lot of paradigm shifts inside of your own mind. Not for the faint of heart or the unwitty. A work of art requiring patience and curiosity, but also complete dedication and love of life and the state of "being". Deeply philosophical, yet straightforward intro and in-depth teachings and workings on Zazen from one of the greatest worldly Masters. Has left me with a lot and I'm grateful for the occurence.
January 12, 2016
This dude Alan is insane in the membrane. He provides some humbling perspectives and interesting, if not always agreeable, insights. Worth a listen though far better off read slowly.
V2
Signal to noise ratio isn't the best in the industry. Still, he's got some of the same talent as McKenna for capturing the seemingly inexplicable. Also a knack for scholarly theistic criticism I can dig.
V2
Signal to noise ratio isn't the best in the industry. Still, he's got some of the same talent as McKenna for capturing the seemingly inexplicable. Also a knack for scholarly theistic criticism I can dig.
January 7, 2021
A
Everything is change. Nothing can be held on to. And if you go with the flux, you flow with it. However, if you resist the stream, it fights you. If you realize this, you swim with the flow—you go with it, and you're at peace.
Embracing Buddhism—IMPERMANENCE and SUFFERING (or shall I say, the lack thereof?).
Everything is change. Nothing can be held on to. And if you go with the flux, you flow with it. However, if you resist the stream, it fights you. If you realize this, you swim with the flow—you go with it, and you're at peace.
Embracing Buddhism—IMPERMANENCE and SUFFERING (or shall I say, the lack thereof?).
February 15, 2019
Every so often while listening to Allan watts I make the mistake of trying to understand what he's saying, which is possible, it just hurts my brain. Experiencing is the best way to go about absorbing this content.
May 22, 2022
Forced myself to finish… not really sure what I learned
May 18, 2023
A delightfully simple introduction to Zen, Nirvana, and the path to true contentment.
Alan Watts distills Buddhism into endlessly amusing analogies and deliciously digestible bits, taking us on a journey through the infinite hypocrisies and deceit we so desperately cling to in everyday life. Knowing the secrets of the cosmos cannot be fully divulged in just a few hours of reading, he instead pokes fun at our stubborn reluctance to love ourselves the way we are. Echoing teachings preached (and forgotten) since childhood, Watts offers a warm, lighthearted approach to rediscovering acceptance and recapturing peace.
Sometimes, all you need is to go with the flow.
Alan Watts distills Buddhism into endlessly amusing analogies and deliciously digestible bits, taking us on a journey through the infinite hypocrisies and deceit we so desperately cling to in everyday life. Knowing the secrets of the cosmos cannot be fully divulged in just a few hours of reading, he instead pokes fun at our stubborn reluctance to love ourselves the way we are. Echoing teachings preached (and forgotten) since childhood, Watts offers a warm, lighthearted approach to rediscovering acceptance and recapturing peace.
Sometimes, all you need is to go with the flow.
July 6, 2020
Alan Watts is one author you'd rather also listen to, than just read. This is an amazing collection of his sessions, I'd recommend it for everyone.
October 6, 2020
It was very enjoyable and mind-opening kind of book at the same time.The important thing about reading any Alan watts book is that your face will be illuminated with a magical smile at every piece of line. Make your mind peaceful is the first and foremost duty of Alan watts book.It is so often that even a very complex and layered an idea had been explained by Alan watts with so much ease,beauty and spiritual bliss.
In this book,Watts comes across as both a confident philosopher of religion and as a spiritual trickster whose enthusiasm for ideas is contagious. Out of Your Mind contains six digitally-restored seminars running fourteen and one-half hours. They have been selected from hundreds of recordings by Alan Watts' son Mark. The six seminars are: The Nature of Consciousness, The Web of Life, The Inevitable Ecstasy. The World as Just So, The World as Self, and The World As Emptiness. Here Watts puts on display his wide-ranging knowledge about Eastern and Western philosophy. Whether exploring the myth of ourselves based on our separation from others, the nature of selfishness, the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, or the illusion of the ego, Watts takes delight in demolishing the traps of conventional thinking. He asserts that we miss too much of the diversity and majesty of our experience when we close ourselves off to mystery, playfulness, and improvisation.
There are so many beautiful and soul touching quotes and i can't show all of them right here,but the quote which i loved the most must be lamented here:
“If we can see that the ego is purely fictitious—that it is merely an image of ourselves coupled with a sensation of muscular strain occasioned by trying to make this image an effective agent to control emotion and direct the nervous operations of our organism—then it becomes clear that what we have called ourselves isn’t able to do anything at all.”
In this book,Watts comes across as both a confident philosopher of religion and as a spiritual trickster whose enthusiasm for ideas is contagious. Out of Your Mind contains six digitally-restored seminars running fourteen and one-half hours. They have been selected from hundreds of recordings by Alan Watts' son Mark. The six seminars are: The Nature of Consciousness, The Web of Life, The Inevitable Ecstasy. The World as Just So, The World as Self, and The World As Emptiness. Here Watts puts on display his wide-ranging knowledge about Eastern and Western philosophy. Whether exploring the myth of ourselves based on our separation from others, the nature of selfishness, the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, or the illusion of the ego, Watts takes delight in demolishing the traps of conventional thinking. He asserts that we miss too much of the diversity and majesty of our experience when we close ourselves off to mystery, playfulness, and improvisation.
There are so many beautiful and soul touching quotes and i can't show all of them right here,but the quote which i loved the most must be lamented here:
“If we can see that the ego is purely fictitious—that it is merely an image of ourselves coupled with a sensation of muscular strain occasioned by trying to make this image an effective agent to control emotion and direct the nervous operations of our organism—then it becomes clear that what we have called ourselves isn’t able to do anything at all.”
March 23, 2020
Out of Your Mind by Alan W. Watts came up as an Audible deal of the day and I was sufficiently intrigued to take a chance.
Alan W. Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was a British philosopher, writer and speaker who was best known as an interpreter and populariser of Asian philosophies for a Western audience. Many of his talks are on YouTube and remain very popular. Indeed, in Spike Jonze's 2013 film Her, Watts is resurrected as a hyper-intelligent operating system.
I managed to get through about half of these recordings before waving the white flag. I don't know when these talks were recorded but from some of the words he uses I'd guess mid to late 60s. The talks are quite interesting and amusing but doubtless played better to the counterculture college kids of the 1960s. His main message seems to be that there is no separate self, that there is just the universe and you are inescapably part of it, so relax and let go, rather than trying to rigorously follow whatever spiritual practice you are convinced by, and which will actually just reinforce your ego. You are already perfect and enlightened so you don't need to do or change anything. It's a subtle and nuanced message that feels quite profound whilst he's talking but then seems far more nebulous an hour later.
Watts died age 59. He was drinking a bottle of vodka a day and also smoking heavily. He was compelled to give several talks a week to make enough money to pay his alimony and child support after three failed marriages. Does any of that matter? Perhaps, perhaps not. It tends to make me a bit more sceptical about his philosophy.
The titles of the 12 talks in this recording will give you some idea of what's in store...
1. The nature of consciousness, Part 1
1. Intro
2. Our image of the world
3. The myth of the ceramic construct
4. The myth of the automatic universe
5. A wiggly world
6. A game that's worth the candle
7. An independent system
8. Whose game is it?
9. The world as a drama
2. The nature of consciousness, Part 2
1. Intro
2. Being aware of awareness
3. Captivated by the drama
4. The game of hide and seek
5. Consciousness beyond awareness
6. How do we define ourselves?
7. What it is to see
8. The road to here
9. A re-examination of common sense
3. The web of life, Part 1
1. Intro
2. What did you forget?
3. A spontaneous life
4. Seeing beyond our separateness
5. Intervals between what happens
6. Existence as a function of relationship
7. Understanding the unitive world
8. An implicit agreement
9. To be aware of the melody
4. The web of life, Part 2
1. Intro
2. Web as mutuality
3. The nature of selfishness
4. A perfectly genuine act
5. The sound of rain needs no translation
6. What game would you like to play?
7. Is is serious?
8. An invitation to act
5. The inevitable ecstasy, Part 1
1. Intro
2. Undifferentiated vs. differentiated awareness
3. The marriage of an illusion to a futility
4. The awareness of a baby
5. The fallacy of misplaced concreteness
6. The sensation of the happening
7. Of pain and suffering
8. Must life go on and on?
9. A natural satori
10. The aversion to death
11. The eroticism of pain
12. The spectrum of vibrations
6. The inevitable ecstasy, Part 2
1. Intro
2. Seeing beyond the game
3. A conspiracy we play on ourselves
4. The illusion of the ego
5, The meaningless life
6. This is the game
7. So what is the problem?
8. Every incarnation is this one
9. The state of nothing
10. The line of least resistance
7. The world as just so, Part 1
1. Intro
2. To say what can't be said
3. Zen's appeal to the West
4. Direct pointing
5. The origins of Zen
6. The golden age of Zen
7. No mind, no deliberation
8. Who are you?
9. Disturbing confusions of the mind
10. Who is the thinker behind the thoughts?
8. The world as just so, Part 2
1. Intro
2. Escaping the tangle
3. The in defines the out defines the in
4. The Japanese Zen monastery
5. Entering the temple
6. Answering the koan
7. Seeing past the illusion
8. The decline of modern temples
9. The truth of the birthless mind
9. The world as self, Part 1
1. Intro
2. The totality of all being
3. Awareness of the self
4. The fundamental I
5. Self as play
6. The rhythmic dance
7. Rules of the game
8. The Hindu Yogas
9. Western difficulty with Hindu mythology
10. The world as self, Part 2
1. Intro
2. The human world as self
3. Stages of citizenship in India
4. Shedding the masks
5. The limits of self-awareness
6. The role of the trickster
7. The journey to where you already are
8. Fear of enlightenment
9. The Yoga Sutra
10. How not to use the mind
11. Gamesmanship in spiritual practice
12. A place for the hermit
11. The world as emptiness, Part 1
1. Intro
2. The essence of Hinduism
3. The Four Noble Truths
4. The cause of suffering
5. The Eight-Fold Path
6. The Five Good Conducts
7. Presence of mind
8. A finger point at the moon
9. The nature of change
10. The mystery of change
11. Peaks and valleys go together as one
12. The world as emptiness, Part 2
1. Intro
2. The Buddhist attitude of change
3. Willing to die
4. A happy death
5. Raising the alarm
6. The world as Void
7. Voiding the Void
8. Consider death now
9. Thunderous silence
3/5
Alan W. Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was a British philosopher, writer and speaker who was best known as an interpreter and populariser of Asian philosophies for a Western audience. Many of his talks are on YouTube and remain very popular. Indeed, in Spike Jonze's 2013 film Her, Watts is resurrected as a hyper-intelligent operating system.
I managed to get through about half of these recordings before waving the white flag. I don't know when these talks were recorded but from some of the words he uses I'd guess mid to late 60s. The talks are quite interesting and amusing but doubtless played better to the counterculture college kids of the 1960s. His main message seems to be that there is no separate self, that there is just the universe and you are inescapably part of it, so relax and let go, rather than trying to rigorously follow whatever spiritual practice you are convinced by, and which will actually just reinforce your ego. You are already perfect and enlightened so you don't need to do or change anything. It's a subtle and nuanced message that feels quite profound whilst he's talking but then seems far more nebulous an hour later.
Watts died age 59. He was drinking a bottle of vodka a day and also smoking heavily. He was compelled to give several talks a week to make enough money to pay his alimony and child support after three failed marriages. Does any of that matter? Perhaps, perhaps not. It tends to make me a bit more sceptical about his philosophy.
The titles of the 12 talks in this recording will give you some idea of what's in store...
1. The nature of consciousness, Part 1
1. Intro
2. Our image of the world
3. The myth of the ceramic construct
4. The myth of the automatic universe
5. A wiggly world
6. A game that's worth the candle
7. An independent system
8. Whose game is it?
9. The world as a drama
2. The nature of consciousness, Part 2
1. Intro
2. Being aware of awareness
3. Captivated by the drama
4. The game of hide and seek
5. Consciousness beyond awareness
6. How do we define ourselves?
7. What it is to see
8. The road to here
9. A re-examination of common sense
3. The web of life, Part 1
1. Intro
2. What did you forget?
3. A spontaneous life
4. Seeing beyond our separateness
5. Intervals between what happens
6. Existence as a function of relationship
7. Understanding the unitive world
8. An implicit agreement
9. To be aware of the melody
4. The web of life, Part 2
1. Intro
2. Web as mutuality
3. The nature of selfishness
4. A perfectly genuine act
5. The sound of rain needs no translation
6. What game would you like to play?
7. Is is serious?
8. An invitation to act
5. The inevitable ecstasy, Part 1
1. Intro
2. Undifferentiated vs. differentiated awareness
3. The marriage of an illusion to a futility
4. The awareness of a baby
5. The fallacy of misplaced concreteness
6. The sensation of the happening
7. Of pain and suffering
8. Must life go on and on?
9. A natural satori
10. The aversion to death
11. The eroticism of pain
12. The spectrum of vibrations
6. The inevitable ecstasy, Part 2
1. Intro
2. Seeing beyond the game
3. A conspiracy we play on ourselves
4. The illusion of the ego
5, The meaningless life
6. This is the game
7. So what is the problem?
8. Every incarnation is this one
9. The state of nothing
10. The line of least resistance
7. The world as just so, Part 1
1. Intro
2. To say what can't be said
3. Zen's appeal to the West
4. Direct pointing
5. The origins of Zen
6. The golden age of Zen
7. No mind, no deliberation
8. Who are you?
9. Disturbing confusions of the mind
10. Who is the thinker behind the thoughts?
8. The world as just so, Part 2
1. Intro
2. Escaping the tangle
3. The in defines the out defines the in
4. The Japanese Zen monastery
5. Entering the temple
6. Answering the koan
7. Seeing past the illusion
8. The decline of modern temples
9. The truth of the birthless mind
9. The world as self, Part 1
1. Intro
2. The totality of all being
3. Awareness of the self
4. The fundamental I
5. Self as play
6. The rhythmic dance
7. Rules of the game
8. The Hindu Yogas
9. Western difficulty with Hindu mythology
10. The world as self, Part 2
1. Intro
2. The human world as self
3. Stages of citizenship in India
4. Shedding the masks
5. The limits of self-awareness
6. The role of the trickster
7. The journey to where you already are
8. Fear of enlightenment
9. The Yoga Sutra
10. How not to use the mind
11. Gamesmanship in spiritual practice
12. A place for the hermit
11. The world as emptiness, Part 1
1. Intro
2. The essence of Hinduism
3. The Four Noble Truths
4. The cause of suffering
5. The Eight-Fold Path
6. The Five Good Conducts
7. Presence of mind
8. A finger point at the moon
9. The nature of change
10. The mystery of change
11. Peaks and valleys go together as one
12. The world as emptiness, Part 2
1. Intro
2. The Buddhist attitude of change
3. Willing to die
4. A happy death
5. Raising the alarm
6. The world as Void
7. Voiding the Void
8. Consider death now
9. Thunderous silence
3/5
September 24, 2020
This book took my perspective and sometimes we were standing beside eachother nodding our head in agreement and other times it bashed me over the head and I woke up like what the hell was that for. But it all made sense after I regained my consciousness.
June 7, 2021
I didn't understand all the concepts from this book, but whatever I got is more than life-changing. I got to learn a lot about Hinduism and Buddhism. Must read if interested in zen ideologies
February 27, 2024
4.5/5
Table of contents and my chapter summaries below
PART ONE THE NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
CHAPTER 1 Cosmological Models of the World
• 1. Ceramic model: Creator creation, monarchial; made of stuff matter
• 2. Automatic model: clocklike/mechanical flukes, came into the world/separate/result
• Alternative: we are continuous with the universe, the original force of the universe manifesting as whoever you are in this moment, not separate, whole world flows through you
CHAPTER 2 The Dramatic Model
• Consider the world as a drama, a game, a play. Rather than being a victim, you are the actor, player, director. This is a better image/myth to view the world by
CHAPTER 3 The Eternal Transaction
• The blur between voluntary and involuntary actions – you do them all as one process; your body is continuous with the total energy system of the cosmos
• We are the whole organism
• Discord on one level is harmony at another level (microscope zooming in, macroscopic zooming out)
• Life is a pattern, a dance of energy
• Persisting in folly to realize illusions
• Organism and environment are transactional: environment grows organism; organism creates environment
• Re-examine common sense
PART TWO THE WEB OF LIFE
CHAPTER 4 Levels of Perception
• Our consciousness and senses are not aware of everything; we screen out with our perceptions
• The more you progressively zoom in (say embroidery), you’ll see altering order, chaos, order, and chaos. They go together, just as there is a continuity beneath all things that stick out of reality (think different mountains, one fundamental earth)
• Think of sound – it’s actually sound/silence, a series of taps on an eardrum (and a nervous system); interval between is just as important as what happens
• Existence is relationship; yin-yang, context determines meaning; duality is secretly unity
• Everything is woven together; interdependent; interconnected
CHAPTER 5 The Web as Trap
• For completeness/wholeness , it is also worth examining the web of life as a ‘trap’
• Biologically, the universe is a weird system that lives by everybody eating everybody else
• We are entirely selfish, but go deeper – the self is always in terms of the other
• Jung’s shadow self
• Holy = whole, internal opposites reconciled, like the ocean, relaxing/gorgeous and terrifying
• The need for deception/self-deception for sanity (the dark depths never end)
• Humor (as a form of the above) is an attitude of laughter about oneself
• When you stuck, go deeper, follow feelings/ideas into their depths for clarity
CHAPTER 6 The Web as Play
• The world is basically patterning (and we are patterning organisms), which is itself at play
• Our patterning bodies (and parts) are basically dancing
• An attitude toward life as a game, a dance, a delight worth being interested in – engage with the external world to be enriched
• Everything vibrates; everything is rhythm
PART THREE INEVITABLE ECSTASY
CHAPTER 7 Attachment and Control
• Words are for distinctions; we grow up forgetting the foundation, and we get stuck or ‘hung up’ in attachment
• Our egos are caricatures but useful for social communication
• Death is natural and shows us what life is all about
• There is social pressure to resist fear, but go into the tension
CHAPTER 8 Hypnosis and Habituation
• As babies we had non-selective awareness; as adults, selective awareness
• We need both – capable of playing the game but not taking it too seriously
• The past flows back from the present
• The world is energy at play, a kaleidoscope of jazz, a complex of vibrations that just are
• The very perception of the illusion makes it possible to live up to the illusion and get involved in life, even its attachments
CHAPTER 9 Harmonious Dissolution
• Get in touch with what it feels like inside when you contemplate the prospect of nothing
• Your life is simply a sudden experience
• Liveliness is change and motion
• Nothingness is beyond imagination
• Explore emptiness
PART FOUR THE WORLD AS JUST SO
CHAPTER 10 The Koan of Zen
• Zen deals with the domain of experience that can’t be talked about (like a poet/poem); finger pointing at the moon
• Wu-wei – action in the spirit of not being separate from the world, not an interference but an expression of the universe
• Zen virtue: not being fooled by thoughts or hypnotized by forms of speech/images, not confusing thoughts for the world
• To be clear-minded, your mind isn’t sticky, you go with the flow of life – the Tao
CHAPTER 11 Nonduality in Action
• Zen doesn’t present a duality between a higher and lower self
• To overcome this split-mindedness, you have to be surprised into it
• When you are free to feel stuck or not stuck, then you’re unstuck
• We become split-minded by thinking there’s some real entity that stands aside from thoughts and chooses among them
• We wobble because we get too much feedback and criticize thought while thinking
• Zen students stop playing the status game, beyond distinctions of superior or inferior
CHAPTER 12 A Great Doubt
• The practical side of Zen (as an institution)
PART FIVE THE WORLD AS SELF
CHAPTER 13 Hindu Cosmology
• All words are labels, intellectual pigeon-holes
• You are something being done by this vast, incredible self that has no beginning, end, beyond categorization
• The interconnectedness of everything, relativity = relatedness, it’s a question of point of view, or scientifically, level of magnification
• Human senses only respond to a very small band of the known spectrum of vibrations; it’s a selective process constituting of patterns the universe plays on itself
• Everybody feels ‘I’ in the same way, this I-ness is the most fundamental thing in people and the universe; our I comes from the central I
• Detachment: going with this whole thing and not resisting change; you can afford it if you know it’s an illusion; it doesn’t need to exist for any purpose
• Play is that which is done just for itself – for fun – the self exists for fun; the self is non-dual; our existence is rhythmic; time is cyclical – only the present exists
CHAPTER 14 Insiders and Outsiders
• The self is something out of which we proceed
• The history of human cultures and religion is a microcosm of the self playing the game of being all of us and then realizing that it is the self – self-awareness
• Self-consciousness is an echo in our heads, neurological resonance; it can be troublesome if the echoes don’t stop confusion, anxiety; learn that self-consciousness has limits and self-awareness doesn’t exclude making mistakes learn to be spontaneous and enjoy the echo
• Realizing you are the universal self: proposes a journey to the place you already are; visit many places; not what you wanted to find (‘tricked’)
• Insecure societies are most intolerant of those who check out of the game; they demand that everyone play the game, which leads to conformism
• Democracy (in the West) started out on the wrong foot of Christian inferiority (to God), leading to viewing other people as inferior, terror of the outsider
• A free and easy society loves outsiders – they do for us what we don’t have the guts to do
• Wise kings who kept court fools to remind them of death and forces/domains beyond us; not playing society’s game
PART SIX THE WORLD AS EMPTINESS
CHAPTER 15 The Buddhist Method
• Buddhism is Hinduism stripped for export – awakening and liberation are their respective essences
• No amount of effort will make a person who believes themselves to be an ego become truly unselfish
• The dharma (method), discourse, dialogue as form of Buddhist truth
• 4 Noble Truths: suffering, desire/attachment, liberation, and the path
• 3 divisions to the 8-fold path: understanding, conduct, meditation
• The Middle Way as a way to move out of extremes/attachment
• In the West, the idea of God is a finger pointing at God (the Self), but most people don’t follow the finger, instead they suck it for comfort
• Buddhism changes over time, develops and grows like an oak tree/acorn
CHAPTER 16 Impermanence by Any Name
• The world is in flux; the Buddha emphasizes impermanence, the unreality of a permanent self, and suffering (arising from failing to accept the first two)
• Buddhism as a philosophy of change
• Rather than resist change, understand it, don’t cling to it, and let it flow
• Conscious attention ignores intervals (spaces always goes with solids, front with back, music is a melody, the interval between one tone and another, this year’s leaves and next years, this generation of people and the last generation)
• Death; your disappearance is simply seasonal; you’re as much the crest/peak of a wave as you are the valley, the dark space beyond death as the light interval called life, a full wave, a full human (born and dies)
• Social attitude change toward death
CHAPTER 17 The Doctrine of Emptiness
• There’s nothing to cling to and there isn’t anybody to cling to them
• All present knowledge is memory
• Memories are a series of signals with a special kind of cue attached to them so we don’t confuse them with present experiences; they’re actually part of the present moment experience. They are part of this constantly flowing life process, and there is no separate witness standing aside from the process watching it all go by
• This acceptance of change is the doctrine of the world as the void
• Emptiness (in this context) essentially means ‘transience,’ nothing to grasp, nothing permanent, specifically refers to ideas of reality, meaning that reality escapes all concepts
• ‘You cannot nail a peg into the sky’ – when you’re a student of the void, you don’t depend on anything, you’re not hung up on anything
• We are a stream of thoughts (rather than thinkers of our thoughts); we don’t feel feelings (redundant); hearing is sound; seeing is sight
• Void as a mirror, like space, contains everything
Quotes:
Character limitation (similar to my previous first Watt's book -- Become What You Are). See Word doc for compilation
Table of contents and my chapter summaries below
PART ONE THE NATURE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
CHAPTER 1 Cosmological Models of the World
• 1. Ceramic model: Creator creation, monarchial; made of stuff matter
• 2. Automatic model: clocklike/mechanical flukes, came into the world/separate/result
• Alternative: we are continuous with the universe, the original force of the universe manifesting as whoever you are in this moment, not separate, whole world flows through you
CHAPTER 2 The Dramatic Model
• Consider the world as a drama, a game, a play. Rather than being a victim, you are the actor, player, director. This is a better image/myth to view the world by
CHAPTER 3 The Eternal Transaction
• The blur between voluntary and involuntary actions – you do them all as one process; your body is continuous with the total energy system of the cosmos
• We are the whole organism
• Discord on one level is harmony at another level (microscope zooming in, macroscopic zooming out)
• Life is a pattern, a dance of energy
• Persisting in folly to realize illusions
• Organism and environment are transactional: environment grows organism; organism creates environment
• Re-examine common sense
PART TWO THE WEB OF LIFE
CHAPTER 4 Levels of Perception
• Our consciousness and senses are not aware of everything; we screen out with our perceptions
• The more you progressively zoom in (say embroidery), you’ll see altering order, chaos, order, and chaos. They go together, just as there is a continuity beneath all things that stick out of reality (think different mountains, one fundamental earth)
• Think of sound – it’s actually sound/silence, a series of taps on an eardrum (and a nervous system); interval between is just as important as what happens
• Existence is relationship; yin-yang, context determines meaning; duality is secretly unity
• Everything is woven together; interdependent; interconnected
CHAPTER 5 The Web as Trap
• For completeness/wholeness , it is also worth examining the web of life as a ‘trap’
• Biologically, the universe is a weird system that lives by everybody eating everybody else
• We are entirely selfish, but go deeper – the self is always in terms of the other
• Jung’s shadow self
• Holy = whole, internal opposites reconciled, like the ocean, relaxing/gorgeous and terrifying
• The need for deception/self-deception for sanity (the dark depths never end)
• Humor (as a form of the above) is an attitude of laughter about oneself
• When you stuck, go deeper, follow feelings/ideas into their depths for clarity
CHAPTER 6 The Web as Play
• The world is basically patterning (and we are patterning organisms), which is itself at play
• Our patterning bodies (and parts) are basically dancing
• An attitude toward life as a game, a dance, a delight worth being interested in – engage with the external world to be enriched
• Everything vibrates; everything is rhythm
PART THREE INEVITABLE ECSTASY
CHAPTER 7 Attachment and Control
• Words are for distinctions; we grow up forgetting the foundation, and we get stuck or ‘hung up’ in attachment
• Our egos are caricatures but useful for social communication
• Death is natural and shows us what life is all about
• There is social pressure to resist fear, but go into the tension
CHAPTER 8 Hypnosis and Habituation
• As babies we had non-selective awareness; as adults, selective awareness
• We need both – capable of playing the game but not taking it too seriously
• The past flows back from the present
• The world is energy at play, a kaleidoscope of jazz, a complex of vibrations that just are
• The very perception of the illusion makes it possible to live up to the illusion and get involved in life, even its attachments
CHAPTER 9 Harmonious Dissolution
• Get in touch with what it feels like inside when you contemplate the prospect of nothing
• Your life is simply a sudden experience
• Liveliness is change and motion
• Nothingness is beyond imagination
• Explore emptiness
PART FOUR THE WORLD AS JUST SO
CHAPTER 10 The Koan of Zen
• Zen deals with the domain of experience that can’t be talked about (like a poet/poem); finger pointing at the moon
• Wu-wei – action in the spirit of not being separate from the world, not an interference but an expression of the universe
• Zen virtue: not being fooled by thoughts or hypnotized by forms of speech/images, not confusing thoughts for the world
• To be clear-minded, your mind isn’t sticky, you go with the flow of life – the Tao
CHAPTER 11 Nonduality in Action
• Zen doesn’t present a duality between a higher and lower self
• To overcome this split-mindedness, you have to be surprised into it
• When you are free to feel stuck or not stuck, then you’re unstuck
• We become split-minded by thinking there’s some real entity that stands aside from thoughts and chooses among them
• We wobble because we get too much feedback and criticize thought while thinking
• Zen students stop playing the status game, beyond distinctions of superior or inferior
CHAPTER 12 A Great Doubt
• The practical side of Zen (as an institution)
PART FIVE THE WORLD AS SELF
CHAPTER 13 Hindu Cosmology
• All words are labels, intellectual pigeon-holes
• You are something being done by this vast, incredible self that has no beginning, end, beyond categorization
• The interconnectedness of everything, relativity = relatedness, it’s a question of point of view, or scientifically, level of magnification
• Human senses only respond to a very small band of the known spectrum of vibrations; it’s a selective process constituting of patterns the universe plays on itself
• Everybody feels ‘I’ in the same way, this I-ness is the most fundamental thing in people and the universe; our I comes from the central I
• Detachment: going with this whole thing and not resisting change; you can afford it if you know it’s an illusion; it doesn’t need to exist for any purpose
• Play is that which is done just for itself – for fun – the self exists for fun; the self is non-dual; our existence is rhythmic; time is cyclical – only the present exists
CHAPTER 14 Insiders and Outsiders
• The self is something out of which we proceed
• The history of human cultures and religion is a microcosm of the self playing the game of being all of us and then realizing that it is the self – self-awareness
• Self-consciousness is an echo in our heads, neurological resonance; it can be troublesome if the echoes don’t stop confusion, anxiety; learn that self-consciousness has limits and self-awareness doesn’t exclude making mistakes learn to be spontaneous and enjoy the echo
• Realizing you are the universal self: proposes a journey to the place you already are; visit many places; not what you wanted to find (‘tricked’)
• Insecure societies are most intolerant of those who check out of the game; they demand that everyone play the game, which leads to conformism
• Democracy (in the West) started out on the wrong foot of Christian inferiority (to God), leading to viewing other people as inferior, terror of the outsider
• A free and easy society loves outsiders – they do for us what we don’t have the guts to do
• Wise kings who kept court fools to remind them of death and forces/domains beyond us; not playing society’s game
PART SIX THE WORLD AS EMPTINESS
CHAPTER 15 The Buddhist Method
• Buddhism is Hinduism stripped for export – awakening and liberation are their respective essences
• No amount of effort will make a person who believes themselves to be an ego become truly unselfish
• The dharma (method), discourse, dialogue as form of Buddhist truth
• 4 Noble Truths: suffering, desire/attachment, liberation, and the path
• 3 divisions to the 8-fold path: understanding, conduct, meditation
• The Middle Way as a way to move out of extremes/attachment
• In the West, the idea of God is a finger pointing at God (the Self), but most people don’t follow the finger, instead they suck it for comfort
• Buddhism changes over time, develops and grows like an oak tree/acorn
CHAPTER 16 Impermanence by Any Name
• The world is in flux; the Buddha emphasizes impermanence, the unreality of a permanent self, and suffering (arising from failing to accept the first two)
• Buddhism as a philosophy of change
• Rather than resist change, understand it, don’t cling to it, and let it flow
• Conscious attention ignores intervals (spaces always goes with solids, front with back, music is a melody, the interval between one tone and another, this year’s leaves and next years, this generation of people and the last generation)
• Death; your disappearance is simply seasonal; you’re as much the crest/peak of a wave as you are the valley, the dark space beyond death as the light interval called life, a full wave, a full human (born and dies)
• Social attitude change toward death
CHAPTER 17 The Doctrine of Emptiness
• There’s nothing to cling to and there isn’t anybody to cling to them
• All present knowledge is memory
• Memories are a series of signals with a special kind of cue attached to them so we don’t confuse them with present experiences; they’re actually part of the present moment experience. They are part of this constantly flowing life process, and there is no separate witness standing aside from the process watching it all go by
• This acceptance of change is the doctrine of the world as the void
• Emptiness (in this context) essentially means ‘transience,’ nothing to grasp, nothing permanent, specifically refers to ideas of reality, meaning that reality escapes all concepts
• ‘You cannot nail a peg into the sky’ – when you’re a student of the void, you don’t depend on anything, you’re not hung up on anything
• We are a stream of thoughts (rather than thinkers of our thoughts); we don’t feel feelings (redundant); hearing is sound; seeing is sight
• Void as a mirror, like space, contains everything
Quotes:
Character limitation (similar to my previous first Watt's book -- Become What You Are). See Word doc for compilation
December 4, 2019
Alan Watts is just incredible.
Would highly recommend.
Sessions 10-12 were for me, the best.
His lectures are timeless, entertainingly conveyed, and extremely thought provoking.
Would highly recommend.
Sessions 10-12 were for me, the best.
His lectures are timeless, entertainingly conveyed, and extremely thought provoking.
January 8, 2014
Ho potuto per la prima volta sperimentare quello che gli Anglofoni chiamano “mind-blown”.
Fare una recensione di questi 12 CD (durata approssimativa di 1h ciascuno) è impossibile perché la mole e lo spessore dei concetti proposti travalica abbondantemente il limite presentato dalle parole; ed è proprio per questo che trovo Alan Watts un Filosofo eccezionale, nonché un grande intrattenitore: tramite efficaci metafore, sapiente reiterazione dei concetti ed umorismo permeante, riesce a spiegare efficacemente ciò di cui — per definizione — non si può parlare.
Watts era un grande studioso, si è immerso completamente nella cultura asiatica (India-Cina-Giappone), ne ha assimilato le complesse dottrine filosofiche notando le influenze reciproche, dopodiché ha voluto spiegare all'Occidente una visione della vita talmente diversa da quella che siamo abituati ad avere, da sembrare inconcepibile. Il tutto è calato in una dimensione che tiene conto di scienza e psicologia (è però doveroso precisare che i seminari risalgono agli anni '60).
Alan Watts ha consacrato buona parte della sua vita a favorire la diffusione di una filosofia che cambiasse in meglio l'approccio delle persone alla Vita, e questi seminari — che affrontano gran parte dell'esperienza umana — sono un prezioso distillato del suo pensiero. Potete affrontarli con tutto lo scetticismo di cui siete capaci, ma qualcuna delle idee proposte lascerà inevitabilmente il segno.
Fare una recensione di questi 12 CD (durata approssimativa di 1h ciascuno) è impossibile perché la mole e lo spessore dei concetti proposti travalica abbondantemente il limite presentato dalle parole; ed è proprio per questo che trovo Alan Watts un Filosofo eccezionale, nonché un grande intrattenitore: tramite efficaci metafore, sapiente reiterazione dei concetti ed umorismo permeante, riesce a spiegare efficacemente ciò di cui — per definizione — non si può parlare.
Watts era un grande studioso, si è immerso completamente nella cultura asiatica (India-Cina-Giappone), ne ha assimilato le complesse dottrine filosofiche notando le influenze reciproche, dopodiché ha voluto spiegare all'Occidente una visione della vita talmente diversa da quella che siamo abituati ad avere, da sembrare inconcepibile. Il tutto è calato in una dimensione che tiene conto di scienza e psicologia (è però doveroso precisare che i seminari risalgono agli anni '60).
Alan Watts ha consacrato buona parte della sua vita a favorire la diffusione di una filosofia che cambiasse in meglio l'approccio delle persone alla Vita, e questi seminari — che affrontano gran parte dell'esperienza umana — sono un prezioso distillato del suo pensiero. Potete affrontarli con tutto lo scetticismo di cui siete capaci, ma qualcuna delle idee proposte lascerà inevitabilmente il segno.
June 21, 2016
Alan Watts brings a sharp and stunning clarity to mankind's most complicated spiritual concepts. I will always be in-debated to him for helping to expand my world view in a manner that works for me. Whenever I find myself suffering from existential angst I read Alan Watts and it calms me back down to the point where I can enjoy wherever I am in life.
So for anyone who finds themselves struggling with the spiritual or religious norms of their wider culture Alan Watts is for you. He will help re-invigorate your interest in human spirituality and help guide you back towards introspection to find your own deeply personal spirituality.
So for anyone who finds themselves struggling with the spiritual or religious norms of their wider culture Alan Watts is for you. He will help re-invigorate your interest in human spirituality and help guide you back towards introspection to find your own deeply personal spirituality.
February 1, 2023
Realllyyyyy struggling to get into Alan Watts. This read like incoherent rambling to me, to the point that I couldn't make it past the halfway point. Each point breaks into tangents with overly complicated metaphors for each of the tangents before vaguely looping back to the original concept. They're trains of thought that would make more sense while on psychs, but just irritate me sober. I can give it some leeway since this is a collection of notated speeches, but it still comes across as lazy stream-of-consciousness speaking instead of an intentional transmission of knowledge.
June 30, 2018
Philosophy is sometimes necessary in an individual's life in order to bring out the inside child for whom once the universe was wonder-filled but slowly while growing up it got used to the world and it became a habit. In order to keep this faculty of wonder, of being astonished seeing the world philosophy is necessary . It's like the magic trick of taking the Rabbit out of hat the how part is not important .... mystery that follows bewilderment is worth the show.
May 20, 2020
Amazing.
I started listening to Alan Watts' talks in You Tube. Then I bought the audiobook of this book.
Loved it. His style is a little more analytical for some people but it fits to my thinking perfectly.
Before I finished listening to the audiobook, I ordered a hard copy of it so that I can open a chapter (one of his talks) and read again in the future because I am sure every time I read, I will get something new out of it.
I started listening to Alan Watts' talks in You Tube. Then I bought the audiobook of this book.
Loved it. His style is a little more analytical for some people but it fits to my thinking perfectly.
Before I finished listening to the audiobook, I ordered a hard copy of it so that I can open a chapter (one of his talks) and read again in the future because I am sure every time I read, I will get something new out of it.
May 29, 2018
I listened to 10 hours straight of these lectures from Ohio to NYC. It’s addictive, creative, strange, lucid, and hilarious. Mr. Watts is—as he proclaims—“a spiritual entertainer”, and I would like to recommend these lectures in such a fashion: they’re entertainment. They shouldn’t be taken as a crutch.
As Watts would say: “when you get the message, hang up the phone”
As Watts would say: “when you get the message, hang up the phone”
October 21, 2009
If you've got 12 hours to kill, this will blow your mind all over the place. Alan Watts covers a pretty full spectrum of human experience in this one.
October 30, 2018
Alan Watts, one of the greatest minds to walk this earth. So simple, yet so profound👌
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