ZEN: Who in the world is Alan Watts?

Dhr. Seven and CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; AlanWatts.org

Zen Birthday Card: "Not thinking of you." (Piraro/bizarro.com)

  

Early Alan Watts, London (colorized photo)

Alan Watts was born in London in 1915, at the start of World War I. At a young age he became fascinated with the Far East, and at 14 he began to write and was published in the Journal of the London Buddhist Lodge before writing his first booklet on Zen in 1932. He moved to New York in 1938 and then to Chicago, where he served as an Episcopal priest for six years before leaving the Church. In 1950, he moved to upstate New York before going on to San Francisco to teach at the Academy of Asian Studies. Among Alan Watts' earliest influences were the novelist Sax Rohmer and Zen scholars D.T. Suzuki and Christmas Humpreys. In late 1950, he visited with Joseph Campbell and composer John Cage in NYC.

 

Worldview

Alan Watts was profoundly influenced by the East Indian philosophies of Vedanta [the "best of the ancient Vedas"] and Buddhism, and by Taoist thought, which is reflected in Zen poetry and the arts of China and Japan.
 

"Why cats are awesome" (RantsRavesT)

After leaving the [Anglican] Church, he never became a member of another organized religion. And although he wrote and spoke extensively about Zen Buddhism, he was criticized by American Buddhist practitioners for not sitting regularly in zazen. Alan Watts responded simply by saying, "A cat sits until it is done sitting, and then gets up, stretches, and walks away."

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Expect the unexpected, and you won't be disappointed ("Zen Comics"/Ioanna Salajan)

  

1950's and early '60's

Later wild-eyed Alan Watts, Berkeley

After teaching at the Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco, he became Dean and began to give regular radio talks on KPFA FM, the Berkeley free radio station. In 1957, he published his bestselling Way of Zen, and in 1958 returned to Europe where he met with C.G. Jung. He was an early subject in pioneering psychedelic trials and, after recording two seasons of the public television series "Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life," traveled to Japan several times in the early sixties. By the late sixties, he had become a counterculture celebrity, and traveled widely to speak at universities and growth centers across the US and Europe.
 

The adventures of a doctoral candidate in "PHD ZEN" (phdcomics.com/Jorge Cham)

 
Later Years

The animated Alan Watts is not just for kids

By the early seventies, Alan Watts had become a foremost interpreter of Eastern thought for the West and was widely published in periodicals including Earth, Elle, Playboy, and Redbook. He appeared on CBS television's "Camera Three" in 1969, and in 1971 he recorded a pilot for a new show titled "A Conversation with Myself" for NET, the precursor to PBS. When the series was not produced, he recorded the shows with his son Mark and his long-time audio archivist Henry Jacobs in 1972. Overall, Alan Watts developed an extensive audio library of nearly 400 talks and wrote more than 25 books during his lifetime, including his final volume, Tao: The Watercourse Way. Alan Watts died in his sleep in November of 1973, after returning from an intensive international lecture tour. More

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Taming the Mind and Heart (Part 1)

Amber Larson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Touristing (flickr); F.L. Woodward (trans.), PTS

Bathing the Buddha, backed by deva, at Saturday Station, Shwedagon Pagoda (Touristing)

 

The Book of the Ones

Numerical Discourses (Anguttara Nikaya)

Burmese bhikkhus on Shwedagon stupa

The Buddha made these declarations to meditative audiences of laypeople and monastics (monks and nuns). They were recorded by monks, who remembered them as being directed at them as bhikkhus. It is clear from the context as well as the meaning that they are addressed to all "hearers" (savakas), all Buddhists, and all people who would practice and strive for enlightenment no matter what other teachings they follow. So we translate the opening word, bhikkhave (lit. "O, bhikkhus!"), to reflect this.
 

Meditating sayadaw (Touristing)

31. "Meditators, I know not of any other single thing so intractable as the untamed mind [heart]. The untamed mind [heart] is indeed an untractable thing. 

 

32. "Meditators, I know not of any other thing so tractable as the tamed mind. The tamed mind is indeed a tractable thing.

 

33. "Meditators, I know not of any other single thing so conducive to great loss as the untamed mind. The untamed mind indeed conduces to great loss.

 

34. "Meditators, I know not of any other single thing so conducive to great profit as the tamed mind. The tamed mind indeed conduces to great profit.

 

39. "Meditators, I know not of any other single thing that brings such woe as the mind that is untamed, uncontrolled, unguarded, and unrestrained. Such a mind indeed brings great woe.

40. "Meditators, I know not of any other single thing that brings such bliss as the mind that is tamed, controlled, guarded, and restrained. Such a mind indeed brings great bliss."

— Gradual Sayings, "The Book of the Ones," Chp. IV translated by F. L. Woodward

Taming the Mind
PTS edited by BPS (further editing and Dhr. Seven), "Discourse to Ganaka-Moggallana" (MN 107)

The Enlightened One (Chngster/flickr.com)

Thus I have heard. At one time the [Buddha] was staying near Savatthi in the palace of Migara's mother in the Eastern Monastery.
 
Then the Brahmin Ganaka-Moggallana approached, exchanged greetings and, having conversed in a friendly and courteous way, sat down at a respectful distance.

Sitting there, the Brahmin Ganaka-Moggallana spoke thus to the venerable one: "Just as, good Gotama [Sanskrit Gautama], in this palace of Migara's mother there can be seen a gradual training, a gradual doing, a gradual practice, that is to say, as far as the last flight of stairs [in a seven-storied palace, explains the Commentary, which is not to be built in a day] so, too, good Gotama, for these Brahmins:

"There can be seen a gradual training, a gradual doing, a gradual practice, that is to say, in the study [of the three three Vedas, which cannot possibly be done in a day] so, too, good Gotama, for these archers there can be seen a gradual... practice, that is to say, in archery. 

"So, too, good Gotama, for us whose livelihood is calculation [ganana, which is this Brahmin's profession, giving him the name Ganaka-Moggallana, explains Editor of The Wheel], there can be seen a gradual training, a gradual practice, that is to say, in accountancy.

"For when we get a pupil, good Gotama, we first of all make him [it was only offered to males] calculate: 'One one, two twos, three threes, four fours, five fives, six sixes, seven sevens, eight eights, nine nines, ten tens,' and, good Gotama, we also make him calculate a hundred.

"Is it possible, good Gotama, to lay down a similar gradual training, gradual doing, gradual practice in respect of this Dharma and discipline?" Continued in Part 2: "The Gradual Training"

With pleasure, misery, and escape (sutra)

Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly translation based on Frank Lee Woodward, Pali Tex Society, Book of the Kindred Sayings or Samyutta Nikaya PART IV (SN 4.17-22)

CHAPTER II, SECTIONS 17-22

In search of enlightenment

{17} Meditators, if there were not pleasure that comes from the eye, beings would not lust after (grasp for and cling to) the eye. 

But inasmuch as there is pleasure in the eye, beings lust after it.

Medtitators, if there were not misery that comes from the eye, beings would not be repelled by the eye.

But inasmuch as there is misery that comes from the eye, being are repelled by it.

If there were no escape from the eye, beings could not [become free] from it.

But inasmuch as there is a way of escape from the eye, beings do escape from it.

Likewise with regard to the pleasure, the misery, and the way of escape from the 

• ear,
• nose,
• tongue,
• body, and
• mind.... 

But inasmuch as there is a way of escape from the [ear, nose, tongue, body, and] mind, beings do escape from it.

The Buddha towering in Theravada Thailand

Meditators, so long as being have not understood as they truly are the pleasure as it is, the misery as it is, and the way of escape as it relates to this sixfold personal sphere of sense then, meditators, so long have beings not remained aloof, detached, and separated with the hindrances of the mind/heart done away with -- nor has the world with its shining ones (devas), killers (maras), divinities (brahmas), nor its legions of wandering ascetics (shramans) and temple priests (Brahmins), shining ones and human beings.

 

But, meditators, just as soon as beings thoroughly understand as they truly are the pleasure as it is, the misery as it is, and the way of escape as it relates to this sixfold personal sphere of sense -- then, meditators, beings and the world, with its light beings... do [finally*] remain aloof, detached, separated, with the hindrances of heart/mind done away with.

• *[NOTE: This letting go is accomplished by insight, not by an act of willpower or effort. Knowing-and-seeing, or insight into the true nature of things, is in itself liberating. There is no need to struggle and make the Truth true. Truth sets one free.]

[{18} The same is true of all other psycho-physical phenomena in addition to the eye, visible objects (sights), and the consciousness arising from seeing; ear, sounds, and the consciousness arising from hearing....]

DELIGHT

Silent stillness and vipassana to know-and-see

{19} Meditators, whoever takes delight in the eye takes delight in disappointment. And I declare, whoever takes delight in disappointment is not released from disappointment.

Whoever takes delight in the tongue... in the mind takes delight in disappointment, I declare. And I declare, whoever delights in disappointment is not released from disappointment.

 

But whoever does not take delight in the eye, the tongue... the mind -- that person does not delight in disappointment. And I declare, one who does not delight in disappointment is released from disappointment.

[{20} The same is true for visible objects (forms), sounds, fragrances, tastes, tangibles, and mind-states.]

 

{21} Meditators, that which is the arising, persisting, the rebirth, the manifestation of objects -- that is the arising of disappointment, the persisting of diseases, the manifestation of decay and death.

So also with regard to sounds, fragrances, tastes, and tangibles....

That which is the arising, the persisting, the rebirth, the manifestation of mind-states -- that is the arising of disappointment, the persisting of diseases, the manifestation of decay and death. 

But, meditators, that which is the ceasing, the quelling, the going out of objects -- that is the ceasing of disappointment, the quelling of diseases, the going out of decay and death.

So also with regard to sounds, fragrances, tastes, and tangibles...

 

That which is the ceasing, the quelling, the going out of mind-states -- that is the ceasing of disappointment, the quelling of diseases, the going out of decay and death.

[{22} The same is true for visible objects, sounds... mind-states -- for all psycho-physical phenomena.]

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