The task of making order, victorious over chaos or randomness.
If you take this seriously, you will look upon it as warfare.
Alan Watts was a 20th century British American philosopher born in 1915.
He is renowned for his wit, eloquence and success in translating
and infusing Eastern philosophy into Western world.
Watts is regarded as being greatly responsible for the popularization
of Buddhist and Zen principles in the West, inspiring the beat and hippie movements
in the United States during the 60s and 70s and causing major cultural shifts away
from traditional western values.
During his life before dying in 1973, at 58 Watts published over 25 books
and articles on various Western and Eastern theories
and was the first to write a best-selling book on Buddhism entitled
The way of Zen published in 1957.
Watts's unique ability to understand, conceive and translate complex
alternative philosophies into practical digestible language.
Makes it clear why he is one of the most enjoyed and influential philosophers
in recent history.
Watts's interest in Eastern philosophy stem from his childhood enjoyment
of Chinese and Japanese storybooks, as well as his affinity with Eastern aesthetic.
He found that things like light, colour and nature
were shown in profoundly beautiful and provoking ways within Eastern art
and he wondered what it was that allowed these artists to see
and consider the world with such lucidity.
Watts was born in what is now South-East London and was initially raised Christian.
However during Watts's developing younger years
he began to find that Christianity's methods of understanding and dealing with life
left him unappeased unfulfilled and often with more problems than solutions.
In Watts's mind Christianity did not attempt in any real sense to answer things like
what the true nature of the universe is, what the self is,
what the meaning of life is and how to deal with it all.
Rather Christianity appeared more interested in studying and maintaining history
and remained and firmly transfixed on the idea that there is some tyrannical like God figure
controlling everything.
This idea of an authority figure controlling the universe was both unappealing
and insensible to Watts.
And so in combination with his growing fondness and curiosity with the eastern aesthetic
he would embark on his journey in to Buddhism.
What drew Watts further into Buddhism was that in Buddhism
rather than a tyrannical like god controlling everything with some rational or moral intension.
There is a universal consciousness,
which everything is an interconnected and interdependent part of
a singular essence to life that follows its own nature with no boss.
Every object and every person is merely an expression of this universal nature
following the nature of itself for the mere sake of itself.
Watts found this concept to be far more reasonable, human and useful
to the experience of life.
As Watts study, consider and practice Eastern ideas like this one,
he found that he experienced a certain bliss in their realization,
often regarded as enlightenment or awakening.
Life became richer, anxieties and fears reduced if not disappeared
and peace and connection with nature blossomed.
It was this that Watts wanted to share with the Westener,
- an individual whom Watts felt deeply needed a way out or in, depending on where he stood.
With the distinctively diverse background in understanding of both
Western and Eastern worlds from a cultural standpoint,
Watts found that much of the western world was intensely alienated and conflicted.
Often obsessed with status, wealth, consumption and success in being right or the best.
Yet even when one successful in the Western ideal of success,
they still appeared to remain lost and disconnected from themselves,
their fellow human and nature itself.
The idea that a successful business, a new luxury product sold or bought
a higher status, a social power or anything alike could resolve
the human experience of isolation, anxiety and vulnerability
was exceptionally foolish in Watts's mind.
Furthermore it appeared that the Western religious idea of an absolute morality
and authoritative God did not really assist the westerner and his or her ability
to resolve these behaviours or help any spiritual essence in themselves.
Rather it only further detach them from the physical of metaphysical world,
by making them a subject of everything instead of a part of everything.
The principles of Zen and Watts's teaching diverged through others significantly.
As humans we have a very peculiar consciousness
that is aware of what it is perceiving and furthermore identifies with its awareness.
This self-identification is generally regarded as ego and as a result of our ego
we tend to feel as though we are detached from what we are observing.
That if there is an I or Me observing then I must not be what I am observing,
then my internal must be separate from my external.
Watts would often refer to this as the sense that we are an ego in a bag of skin.
However in Zen in Watsons teachings this concept and feeling is not only incorrect,
but it is the source of most of our alienation anxiety suffering and subsequent animosity.
With the knowledge that we will die that things will change
that stuff will dissolve how can we derive any sense of meaning or connection to life
by chaining our sense of self to these things: to our body,
to our personal identity, to our stuff to our status.
One of if not the most fundamental principle in Zen and Watts's teachings
is the idea that attempts to resolve this problem.
The idea that we are none of these things that we tend to identify with,
but instead we are everything and everything is us.
Human and nature go together as one linked inexorably in infinitely,
just as noise can't exist without silence, just as light can't exist without darkness,
our internal cannot exist without our external
and our experience cannot exist without our non experience or death.
Everything needs everything else in order to be anything at all.
Watts would often define this using the term organism environment.
Meaning we are not an organism in an environment, but we are an organism
and an environment simultaneously.
We are but a feature of the whole and thus we are the whole.
For Watts the illusion that much of the Western world has and continues to live in
is that our thoughts are exempt from the laws of the universe.
That we have a separate volition detached from nature
and our thoughts and actions occur voluntarily and can impose themselves
on nature.
However for Watts the truth is that our brain and our consciousness
are not exempt or separate.
Not from the cause and effect process of the universe
and not from the laws that everything operates on.
Within the Watson Zen school of thought success in life is not to change the world
or to make a certain amount of wealth or to surpass anyone and status or power
or anything of that sort, but the ultimate goal and success in life
is to become deeply synchronized with nature itself,
to realize that your behaviour is one with the behaviour of the rest of the world.
A person is in fact nature itself
and so a person cannot choose to change or influence nature,
because even what appears to be a human effect on nature
is only in essence a nature effect on nature.
Which is to say everything is just nature playing the game of nature
with us and through us.
Like a river that flows without choosing to or how to we humans move and act
without choosing to or how to.
We did not choose to be a human or the kind of human we are.
We did not choose the conditions of the human body or mind.
We simply express the nature of the universe through them and the achievement of Zen
is to flow freely without choosing, acknowledging that one is
and has always been without choosing.
To accept this and overcome one's ego is no small feat
it is to destroy one sense of self-importance which is of course
very important to the thing that believes and wants so very badly to be important.
But the irony is that perhaps what we think we want is not what we need.
Perhaps thinking we are more or less important than anything or anyone
is not all that helpful for the experience of life.
Perhaps alternatively realizing one's unimportance has the potential
to actually open up the door to a whole new realm of meaningfulness and enjoyableness.
Like an artist in a state of flow instead of forcing nature we synchronize with it
and perform life with fluidity and ease.
Of course Watts is not without criticism nor are the Eastern philosophies
that he communicated and derived many of his ideas from.
It is reasonable to find some of Watt's teachings and translations
to be either confusing or fuzzy for ease up against a very difficult opponent
be it the very thing we have been conditioned and wired to identify life with.
Even for Watts himself it is fair to say that the ideas he shared were not easy
and did not resolve all the challenges of being human for him.
According to those who knew him he was not without struggle in her conflict or vice.
Perhaps his take on life is accurate and complete or perhaps it is not
and perhaps that is not the point.
At this time in our evolution we can only really speculate
what the true nature of everything is.
There is no answer at the back of the book that we can peek at when things get confusing.
However that does not mean that
efforts and attempts at speculating and understanding our spiritual essence
is without value.
Perhaps it is not the exact accuracy of any philosophical idea that is important
what the idea can do for us.
For many Watts's ideas and offerings have and continue to radically shift how they see
and experience life and a positive practical way,
that Christianity and other traditional Western ideologies continue to overlook.
It is not only what Watts said but also how he said it and who he said it to.
In part Watt's fame can be attributed to his unique ability
to translate and communicate a way out of the cycle of consumption,
anxiety and alienation.
In a part of the world that has and continues to severely suffer from these things.
For Watts and those who agree with him
his teachings suggest very comforting and useful ideas of life.
That fundamentally there are no mistakes, no failures, no successes,
no good or bad things.
Rather there are just things that happen, that contrast with other things that happen.
That life is not a contest with winners and losers,
but an endless game of back-and-forth.
That we are not separate from everything, but we are an expression of everything
forever linked with what has and will always be.
And that we don't need to take things quite so seriously.
We're an ordinary person sees a battle, an extraordinary person sees a cooperation,
a dance as Watts would often call it.
And there is no real point to a dance other than to mystify and entertain.
Which is to say everything and everyone
is all working together at once to mystify and entertain
to express the single thing that is universal consciousness that is life.
And here we are in the stance with an ability to form reason
trying to make sense of this apparently senseless dance.
and our attempts we become confused and seek better meaning,
better justification, better understanding.
We overanalyse and take ownership in this dance
in order to compensate for its elusiveness.
We struggle to accept it for what it is.
But perhaps there is no better sense to anything,
than senselessness.
For in the senselessness there is wonder mystification and entertainment.
And perhaps it is this idea that remains true no matter what we believe in life.
Whether we agree with Watts, Zen, Christianity
or any of the other countless religions and ideologies,
we're almost certainly wrong or incomplete in our understanding.
And so for now perhaps the best we can do
is to try and enjoy the dance for what it is in all of its senselessness
and remember that the only thing that could be bad
is to take it seriously. - Alan Watts -