Author Topic: Brief Alan Watts Lecture....  (Read 385 times)

Jed McKenna

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Brief Alan Watts Lecture....
« on: April 26, 2020, 09:39:38 am »

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Chuck

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Re: Brief Alan Watts Lecture....
« Reply #1 on: April 26, 2020, 11:26:37 am »
Thanks for posting this. Great morning inspiration as I drink coffee
Alan Watts is on my short list of historical figures to have dinner with. Amazing guru-tainment  ;)

One thing in this talk that strikes me is how science can be categorically accurate but miss the whole point. For example, science does not consider a virus to be technically "alive." A person, of course, no doubt is. But no person can exist without air pressure, food, water, the complementary bacteria that reside inside us, the plants that produce oxygen, the CO2 that the plants require, the gravity that holds us to the earth, all the myriad of forces that keep the planet's temperature within tolerable boundaries, etc. -- the entire ecosystem that supports us.

So where do you draw the line on what is "alive?"

Science tends to categorize everything as separate, which can be helpful, but sends us exactly in the wrong direction in understanding the whole. Just as you cannot separate the crest and the trough, or the negative pole from the positive, you can't truly define any living thing in separation from everything else. The focus on individual things rather than the whole results in a type of conceptual blindness, like a Materialism OCD.

Similarly, the problem with most Theories of Everything is they all begin with an assumption of division and try to unify that which was never separate.

Just my response ramble,
Cheers

Jed McKenna

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Re: Brief Alan Watts Lecture....
« Reply #2 on: April 26, 2020, 11:59:41 am »
Thanks for that. When you contemplate the volume and variety of things, events, surroundings, etc. that much be just so for this human dream to arise and appear to have existed for some times, I think it could well be considered the most amazing miracle that we can be aware of. We are a staggering impossibility.

Take care and let me in on your dinner date with his 'spirit'... and I am let to believe he liked 'spirits'  ::) ::) ::) :P :P

Love ya, Jed.

kranor89

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Re: Brief Alan Watts Lecture....
« Reply #3 on: April 26, 2020, 12:00:36 pm »
I've watched that video two or three times, replayed some parts, paused, continued and so on. It put me in a curious and strange mood.

After a while i got to another clip where he 'Explains What Awakening Means'. Thats the title.
There is a illustration. On the one hand you can see two faces looking at each other. On the other hand one can see a cup between them. There a just the outlines. So...as soon as one see the faces or the cup, its easy to switch between them, back and forth. Before that 'realization' there was just a picture of black and white lines, maybe forms.

Compared to my perception of the world, a question arises: Is it necessary (or even possible) to ever see 'the whole picture' again after one identified with one of the things of the picture? While im looking around, im identified with 'me', the body/viewer. But theres another component, the 'outer world'. Like in the illustration, one cannot exisit without the other. The 'cup' defines the 'faces' and contrawise.

There is a feeling that 'i am' already know the answer. But this has to spoken out in order to drive my contemplating forwards.

A quote from paul hedderman could be the answer:

"A mind identified as a wave is in denial of the ocean."

Jed McKenna

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Re: Brief Alan Watts Lecture....
« Reply #4 on: April 26, 2020, 12:07:01 pm »
... and denial doesn't exist without acceptance,  ::) ::) ::) but acceptance has the strange quality of being able to embrace denial.... and everything else. ;) ;) ;)

Love, and accept you, just the way you are... well... except that jerky part... like, you know... remember last week... nah... just kiddin, I accept that too.  ;) ;) ;)

Stay well,

Jed

jacoba

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Re: Brief Alan Watts Lecture....
« Reply #5 on: April 26, 2020, 12:43:18 pm »
so we can't have a virus without humans and we can't have humans without a virus, that's the conspiricy we made up together

and you know, the other day I did wonder wether we had it all wrong, it's the viruses that are keeping humans for it's reproduction and occasionally they need a few more humans   -  nothing wrong with that.

I like Alan Watts








kranor89

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Re: Brief Alan Watts Lecture....
« Reply #6 on: April 26, 2020, 01:08:57 pm »
Acceptance...yeah. Not in terms of 'I accept this or that'...more like 'Well, there is just nothing else'. I know we already had it on the subjec of acceptance and that there is no thing or moment who needs to be accepted, nor no one who could ever accepted some thing or moment or whatever. It is already without any need of acceptance. That would just imply the idea of some one who accept some other thing, two things.

But my mind got distracted by so many new ideas and informations about this and that which led this simple realization quitly vanish to the background. And while im tipping this words, theres a deep feeling that all of that was absolutly perfect. Every distraction, every (miss)information...even to say that something led to an distraction is absurd. Missinformation? How ridiculous.

This 'here', this 'moment', this 'whatever it is' is all there is. Its already the whole picture. There was never just the 'two faces' nor just 'the cup'. It was just an identification, a focus on one form only which hide the whole picture.

Every thought, every emotion, every thing which arises is 'part' of the whole picture. Its just the habit of thinking in terms, forms, distinctions which led to the assumption that this is better than that, i am here and the flower is over there. But its all together.

I have a sense that the more this 'percieving' of surroundings as one big and every-changing field or picture, the more habits of thinking in divided forms will calm down until it stops.
Like when you stop throwing stones into the sea...by the time, no matter how long it takes, the whole surface becomes still.

PS: Thanks for accepting even my jerky parts  ;D. You are right, i was a jerk and maybe will be in so many moments again. .. And it was and will be perfect, like everything else.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2020, 01:16:40 pm by kranor89 »

EternalDawning

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Re: Brief Alan Watts Lecture....
« Reply #7 on: April 26, 2020, 11:02:44 pm »
Love this.  I sleep with Alan Watts playing sometimes.  Ram Dass too lately.  Reminds me to let it all go again.  It’s good to wake up to.

Jed McKenna

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Re: Brief Alan Watts Lecture....
« Reply #8 on: April 26, 2020, 11:46:34 pm »
Thanks much for your contribution to my imaginary world.

Be well,

Love ya, Jed