Adventures with Ideas: Truth, Beauty and the Paradoxes of Life
Juliet Bennett's Blog
  • About
  • My Story
  • Research
  • Photography
  • Modeling
  • 2009
  • 2010
  • 2011
  • 2012
  • 2013
  • 2014
  • 2015
  • About
  • My Story
  • Research
  • Photography
  • Modeling
  • 2009
  • 2010
  • 2011
  • 2012
  • 2013
  • 2014
  • 2015
  • Home
  • Random Life Stuff
  • Commemorating 100 years of Alan Watts

Commemorating 100 years of Alan Watts

6 Jan ’15 2 Comments Written by Juliet Bennett

Today marks the 100-year birthday of Alan Watts. While Watts’ “came out of this world” on 6 January 1915, and “returned to the world” in 1973 (far too young, at 58 years old), his legacy continues and expands in influence and appreciation.

Alan Watts

Alan Watts was a polymath of spirituality, religions, mysticism, philosophy, psychology, phenomenological, among his many disciplines. Though he tried to prevent labels, he was an expert in Zen Buddhism, Taoism, had a stint as an Episcopal clergyman, and a professor and dean of the Academy of Asian . He called himself a “philosophical entertainer”.

Watts was a man before his time, he had visions of the future that have come true, he was a man outside of time, using psychedelic drugs to understand that space beyond, he was a man of ancient wisdom, and a voice of the future who people in millennia ahead are likely to see to be one of the most transcendent and illuminating of all.

Watts is most famous for his influence in bringing Eastern thought to the West. He had a unique ability to make the complex simple, and to make the serious fun.

He describes himself as a ‘sedentary and contemplative character, an intellectual, a Brahmin, a mystic, and also somewhat of a disreputable epicurean who has had three wives, seven children, and five grandchildren’ to which he says he ‘cannot make up my mind whether I am confessing or boasting’ (Watts 1972: x).

He recalls that he has ‘come to see that my own “sins” are as normal and as boring as everyone else’s … beyond boasting on the one hand, or confessing or apologizing on the other, I find my life intensely interesting’ (6).

Watts is a living example of his philosophy, to the extent that even his autobiography does not follow a ‘linear dimension,’ since he explains that ‘I do not subscribe to the chronological or historical illusion that events follow one another on a one-way street, in series… the world itself isn’t strung out; it exists in many dimensions.’

His purpose is to entertain the reader, and perhaps even more so to entertain himself. Instead he tell his biography starting from the present, ‘from which the past rails and vanishes like the wake of a ship.’

He admits to accusation of critics of his repetition, explaining that ‘varied repetition is the essence of music.’ He says: ‘Each of the twenty books I have had published arrives at the same destination from a different point of departure, … Taking the premises of Christian dogmatics, Hindu mythology, Buddhist psychology, Zen practice, psycho analysis, behaviorism, or logical positivism, I have tried to show that all are aiming, however disputatiously, at one center. This has been my way of making sense of life in terms of philosophy, psychology, and religion’ (4).

Watts’ influence is widespread and still unfolding: in our culture, in academia, and in the world.

Peter J. Columbus and Donadrian L. Rice collected essays Here and Now explore Watts’ contribution to contemporary academic literature in psychology, philosophy and religion, pointing to many areas yet untapped.

Watts was involved in setting up (what is now called) the California Institute of Integral Studies, which continues to offer university courses in the interdisciplinary fields that Watts explored. Ralph Metzner, Brian Swimme and Charlene Spretnak are among its esteemed professors.

Watts had a significant influence in counterculture movement of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, that started in San Fransisco and spread across the world. The Occupy Movement and many environmental and social movements to advocate its values.

Watts’ lectures, many recorded on his home on an old ferry boat S. S. Vallejo in Sausalito, California, uplift the moods of millions of people every day: http://www.alanwatts.org/collections.php

Watts books have influenced writers such as Deepak Chopra (see his Introduction to The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety), Spike Jonze (hence Watts’ cameo appearance in the movie Her) and the animators of South Park Trey Parker and Matt Stone- see their videos:

A new film by his son Mark Watts, who is now building The Alan Watts Mountain Center north of San Francisco, was released last year: http://www.alanwatts.org/news.php

You’ll never regret getting his books, downloading his lectures, or now the Apps… here are some links to his books on Amazon:
In My Own Way: An Autobiography
The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
This Is It: and Other Essays on Zen and Spiritual Experience
Still the Mind: An Introduction to Meditation
Tao: The Watercourse Way
Psychotherapy East and West
The Supreme Identity
Myth and Ritual In Christianity
Behold the Spirit: A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion
The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness
Nature, Man and Woman
Out of Your Mind: Essential Listening from the Alan Watts Audio Archives
Does It Matter?: Essays on Man’s Relation to Materiality
You’re It!: On Hiding, Seeking, and Being Found

 

What I like most about Alan Watts is the way that he tackled the myopia of modern day society, that is, the short-sightedness that leads to a lack of care for the long-term well-being of our planet, an onslaught of alienation and anxiety associated with the future of “me” and what happens when “I” die, that makes it difficult to really enjoy life.

He counters this myopia with a holistic view of the self as the world, both which are involved in an ongoing cosmic process of creation and appreciation. In this view “You are the big bang, the original force of the universe, coming on as whoever you are.”

I will continue to share his insights on this blog, as Watts’ writings continue to inspire and ground my own philosophy of life.

 

References:

Alan Watts, 1972. In My Own Way: An Autobiography. California: New World Library.

Random Life Stuff
Alan Watts
Similar posts
  • My policy wishlist for Australia’s re... — As of 2020, scientists estimate a remaining cumulative emissions budget of 400 gigatonnes of greenhouse gases measured in carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2e) to keep global average surface temperature within 1.5°C of preindustrial levels (Rogelj et al. 2019).[1] Business-as-usual adds 40 GtCO2 to the atmosphere each year, using up our 1.5°C budget in 10 years. The budget estimated to correspond with [...]
  • 2015 in review — ‘Repetition produces a gradual lowering of vivid appreciation. Convention dominates. A learned orthodoxy suppresses adventure.’ [1] “Without adventure civilization is in full decay. … in their day the great achievements of the past were the adventures of the past. Only the adventurous can understand the greatness of the past.“ At the start of 2015 I was writing an article on [...]
  • Reframing your mind: changing negativ... — “Whatever you want to succeed at, you need to replace any negative scripts you might have with positive ones” (Ash and Gerrand 2002: 7). We need to reframe our minds, changing negative stories to positive stories, one micro story at a time. Eve Ash and Rob Gerrand’s (2002) Rewrite your life! is a book full of tips on how to [...]
  • Taming the beast: technology, corpora... — Have we reached a point in the processes of industrialisation, globalisation, and corporatisation in which we have lost control over our culture, our lives and our shared future? Looking at my life, the lives of those around me, the media and global politics and economics, I think we have. It seems to me that technology controls us, rather than us [...]
  • Slave to society — Society draws us into its world of the trivial, making us slaves to the superficial, the menial, its time-wasting ego-based self-absorbed naval-gazing meaninglessness. It is evermore relentlessness with its inescapable myriad of communication paths that bath you in guilt. “I haven’t replied to this.” “I haven’t called that person back.” “I have to do this.” “I must remember that.” The [...]
Retreat from the city: Watts’ mountain cabins and old ferry-boats
Slave to society

2 Comments

1 Ping/Trackback

  1. Drinking under the moonlight – Alan Watts on Taoism | Magical Wonderings
    15 Oct ’15    

    […] fascinating video on Taoism, this time by Alan Watts. See video at the bottom of the […]

  2. Bei Kuan-tu
    28 Apr ’16    

    What Watts has done and continues to do for me is keep the light burning on the most intimate questions/challenges I struggle with in regards to orthodox Christian doctrine: the belief in the inerrancy of scripture; the exclusivity of Jesus as “THE” son of God verses “A” son of God (or as Watts describes him — the “bosses son”); the “pedestalizing of Jesus” at the expense of our connection with him; a system of monarchical rule by a Zeus-like/Jehovah overseerer; guilt laden believers separated by a ever widening chasm between themselves and a perfect Jesus (even considering the Pauline “doctrine of grace” enabled).

    In regards to Watt’s shortcomings consider Numbers 22:28. As a gun for hire, Balaam was anything but an honest guy, and God’s anger against him is shown in God causing Balaam’s donkey to actually speak and rebuke him. “And the LORD opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?”

    Watts was and continues to be a powerful voice (even if some view him as irrelevant, immoral, and surely heretical). It seems reasonable to assume that God, who could surely create the ultimate human drama, might purposely cast someone many would argue unfit for centerstage.

    Reply
  1. Drinking under the moonlight – Alan Watts on Taoism | Magical Wonderings on 15 Oct ’15 at 2:59 am

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

TRUTH

BEAUTY

ADVENTURE

ART

PEACE

  • Popular
  • Recent
  • Comments
  • Is “God” a Fractal?
    15 Feb ’11
  • Is Lindt chocolate slave chocolate?
    11 Sep ’09
  • Creativism – a philosophy for life
    10 Sep ’09
  • Free Documentaries: The Truth Is Free
    17 Apr ’10
  • Coming to grips with the elephant in the room
    28 Jun ’10
  • Optimum Trajectory, swimming against the current, and man who stare at goats.
    4 Aug ’10
  • A short biography
    2 Sep ’09
  • Sex or chess? Peace, the world’s trump card
    13 Apr ’10
  • Alan Watts Fan Club
    3 Dec ’12
  • Big History Blog Series: Chapter 1 – The Big Bang
    25 Mar ’10
  • My policy wishlist for Australia’s response to climate change
    17 Jan ’20
  • Business leadership in climate change
    1 May ’19
  • A story of (mis)fortune: the farmer and his son
    8 Oct ’18
  • What is life really about?
    1 Mar ’17
  • Why the right (brain) is right…
    22 Feb ’17
  • New life: reflections on being a new mum
    29 Dec ’16
  • Orwellian Australia: the “[Un]Fairer Parental Leave Bill 2015”
    1 May ’16
  • Alan Watts’ ‘dramatic model’ and the pursuit of peace
    18 Mar ’16
  • A new lens to view the world: the world as process
    14 Jan ’16
  • 2015 in review
    1 Jan ’16

Adventures with Ideas... on Facebook

Archives

Categories

  • Academic (35)
  • Adventure (119)
  • Beauty (23)
  • Featured Posts (10)
  • Peace (124)
  • Random Life Stuff (102)
  • Truth (164)
Constitutional Recognition

Rights of Indigenous Peoples: A Personal Statement

As a "non-indigenous" Australian living on what was once the land of the Cadigal and Wangal Wangal communities, I wish to acknowledge the inter-generational responsibility that I feel toward the colonial past. As a beneficiary of "White Australia", to the Eora people of Sydney, I request your forgiveness. I stand in solidarity with your rightful demands to self determination and active participation in governmental decisions, and I hope I may learn from your eco-spiritual connection. May we, as Tom Trevorrow of the Ngarrindjeri puts it, learn to 'respect, care and share' the gifts that our planet offers us.

Tags

Alan Watts Atheism Big History Bridge Series Central America Chocolate climate change Conflict Transformation Creativism Ecology Europe God Health India India/Nepal inspiration Life in Oz Life philosophy Meaning of life Modeling My Brazilian My Christian Journey Narrative Narratology Occupy optimal trajectory Panentheism peace philosophy Photography Politics population Potentialism poverty religion slavery social construction South America The Pyramid Travel United States War What is God Wikileaks Yoga

Related posts

  • Alan Watts
    • Alan Watts Fan Club
    • Retreat from the city: Watts’ mountain cabins and old ferry-boats
    • Life is a Game: Alan Watts & Happiness
    • Do you know the secret? The “Law of Attraction”… what the bleep?!
    • The woe of efficiency

Donation

evolve theme by Theme4Press  •  Powered by WordPress