South Park, new home of Alan Watts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ERbvKrH-GC4

I really like these.



Watts gets a lot of criticism from a lot of teachers who consider themselves (or their teachers) more enlightened. He also gets criticized by philosophers who think that they (or their professors) are more intelligent. It's a shame, really. Watts wasn't perfect, but he gets an 'A+' for introducing Eastern wisdom to Westerners beyond what can be learned in a World Religions textbook. If it wasn't for Watts and D.T. Suzuki, I don't know that I'd be where I am today... right here.

Back in the 70s the local Pacifica station in LA used to play his lectures every Sunday night -- it was so cool. Plus, a lot of my friends used to walk around with and read his books back then, so his name and his work were always kind of around.

He definitely had a huge influence on me.

It was very confusing to me when I first found out how much alcohol he drank, especially in his last years. I guess I'm less confused and bothered by it now.

I like these because it seems a simultaneously lighthearted and deeply respectful tribute to someone who called himself 'a spiritual entertainer.'

About Watts' drinking, which would seem to have resulted in his 'early' demise... I'd have said that it was tragic, like Trungpa's similar 'end.' That assumes the standard Western belief of this life being our one shot and when you're dead, you're dead. So it's best to have as many years as possible, and whatever cuts them short is a bad thing.

Now, I'm not nearly so sure. The context is a great deal more unstable, on examination, than seems to encourage that assumption. Maybe better to watch and see.

Kate:

As a "Westerner" I certainly have that "standard belief" you mention. However, that isn't what bothers me about alcoholism in someone like Watts. No matter how many shots one may have or not have at life, I have a belief that in the one we are in now we have a responsiblity to our spouses, our children, our parents/siblings, our friends, coworkers and others to be available, to be able to be intimate on certain appropriate levels -- today, now.

Drunkeness is a disease that greatly diminishes one's ability to do this.

I think that has a lot to do with the existence of the fifth precept.

There is practice/awakening/enlightenment and there is alcoholism. They can exist in the same person -- no doubt. However, once practicing, once becoming awake, to not then recognize that one has this disease, and to not see the effect it is having on one's family and on the rest of the world and then DO something about it instead of rationalizing it away as some kind of "wisdom" -- just seems like a bad idea, to me.

Of course no one is ever going to be perfect -- but I think at a minimum people like Alan Watts, Trungpa, Maezumi, etc. should at least strive to be honest about what is really going on.

Excellent! You are, of course, absolutely right, Mike. It is easy for someone who is averse to alcohol on the basis of personal preference [to me, tastes like shit, and on a physiological level, FEELS like shit] to forget about the social and familial effects, which ARE tragic.

Word.

Well, it's odd for such a book-person as myself to say so, but I'd go for one of the audio sets. He IS a master raconteur whose subject matter is essential spirituality/cosmology. I've got the 12-CD comprehensive 'Out of Your Mind'; the 4-CD 'Do You Do It or Does It Do You?' might be less daunting, with the bonus that the 'it' referred to is meditation.

I agree with Kate that his audio programs are a great place to start. For free audio, go to www.alanwattspodcast.com . That's how I first started getting to know his work.

He is perhaps most famous for his book, The Way of Zen. It's a great book. It may not be the best scholarly work on Zen, but it does go beyond the fluff.

Another one of his more popular books is The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. This one has more of a Hindu Vedanta feel to it, but it's classic Watts.

I also own a copy of Nature, Man and Woman, as well as a book of his collected talks called Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life. They're all really fun to read.

http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/review/60th/pdfs/15watts.pdf