Ep. 33 – Zen Reconsidered
Alan Watts Being in the Way
Be Here Now Network / Love Serve Remember Foundation
4.9 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 22 November 2024
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Re-familiarizing us with Zen traditions, Alan Watts inspires listeners to move beyond going through the motions of practice.
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In this episode of Being in the Way, Alan Watts explains:
- Our lack of awareness of the basic structure of the world
- The world itself as meaningless (non-symbolic)
- Realizing fundamental energy and Zen as the religion of no religion
- The metaphysical in terms of the everyday
- The composition of Zen practice
- How westerners are bothered by ritual and splendor
- How Buddhism has degenerated over the years
- A re-familiarization with Buddhism for modernity
This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.
“There is this tremendous problem, unless the Buddhist tradition is to go down the drain completely, of re-familiarizing the Japanese with what it’s all about. Over the years it has degenerated into going through the motions and into being something which is just a kind of magic.” – Alan Watts
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Transcript
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| 1:26.6 | H-E-L-P.com slash Alan. Welcome to Being in the Way, the Aloatz podcast, and I'm your host, Mark Watts. |
| 1:51.0 | And today we're going to be exploring the archives a bit more. |
| 1:54.6 | And in particular, going toward a seminar called Zen Reconsidered. |
| 1:59.1 | And I was listening to this the other day, and it was very interesting |
| 2:02.7 | because he opens up by talking about his own qualifications to teach about Zen. And he says |
| 2:09.0 | he hasn't been trained as a Roshi, and he hasn't sat for great periods in meditation. And he actually |
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