Should you believe in free will?

[steve]

Alan Watts has an astounding sagacity. That was brilliant. I see these videos for the first time.

 

Thank you Steve!

My pleasure - glad you liked it. It really opened my eyes to some interesting ideas about time.

He was extremely insightful and a brilliant teacher.

A new movie is currently being produced about his life.

Check here -

I can also heartily recommend a CD set of talks from late in his life called "Out of Your Mind"

[steve]

Also a basic question to be asked, can there be an "event" unless it is interpreted by man, otherwise ain't it just undifferentiated action? Just to add a little more confusion.

A very important question. When we speak of history we need to distinguish events we personally experienced from those we have not. If we have not experienced the event, we are simply relying on someone else's interpretation and documentation of whatever events they witnessed, often 3rd, 4th,.... hand. Our own experience is 1. extremely limited 2. intimately related to our cultural biases, expectations, emotional attachment, vantage point and so on, and 3. wholly limited to our accuracy of documentation and/or memory. To some folks the Bible is history, to others Laozi is a historical figure. As per my example earlier - which history of the destruction of the twin towers is the truth? And that only happened 10 years ago! We can certainly say that something happened but it starts to get fuzzy as we try to pin down the details.

[manitou]

Steve - thanks for the 3 videos - they were wonderful.

 

How succinctly he put it at the end: so we won't be the dog being wagged by its tail.

[Marblehead]

Thanks for adding to the confusion Stan.

 

Hmm, can't resist questioning that bit about the same water under the bridge... Considering the process of evaporation, cloud formation, and so on, maybe the same water can. Also a basic question to be asked, can there be an "event" unless it is interpreted by man, otherwise ain't it just undifferentiated action? Just to add a little more confusion.

 

No, the water has been transformed even if it does make a complete cycle therefore it is not the same water.

 

Good question. Is there an event if an event has not been identified by the mind of man?

 

Well, it would still be a point somewhere in the process of time. Yes, time exists even if there is no man to calculate it. Time/space identifies our dynamic universe.

 

This might be why I speak often to the processes in nature. The individual events matter but I think that the process is of much greater importance.

[goldisheavy]

My pleasure - glad you liked it. It really opened my eyes to some interesting ideas about time.

He was extremely insightful and a brilliant teacher.

A new movie is currently being produced about his life.

Check here -

I can also heartily recommend a CD set of talks from late in his life called "Out of Your Mind"

 

I hit up youtube and started listening to all the Alan Watts stuff. I was agreeing and agreeing and generally enjoying myself. Then he started saying some things I disagree with. Then I realized he's not quite as sagely as I thought he would be. I still think he's brilliant, but the glinty sheen has now worn off. I realized that in some ways Alan has not yet completed transcending the physicalist outlook that he was inundated with since birth. But his errors are more subtle and nuanced than what I am used to seeing.

Edited May 25, 2011 by goldisheavy

[Marblehead]

I hit up youtube and started listening to all the Alan Watts stuff. I was agreeing and agreeing and generally enjoying myself. Then he started saying some things I disagree with. Then I realized he's not not quite as sagely as I thought he would be. I still think he's brilliant, but the glinty sheen has now worn off. I realized that in some ways Alan has not yet completed transcending the physicalist outlook that he was inundated with since birth. But his errors are more subtle and nuanced than what I am used to seeing.

 

Something I noticed with Mr. Watts is that he sometimes confuses his Buddhism with Taoism. I will never talk down about him but one should be aware of this, I think.

[manitou]

Something I noticed with Mr. Watts is that he sometimes confuses his Buddhism with Taoism. I will never talk down about him but one should be aware of this, I think.

 

 

I think the real answers lie not in the structure of Buddhism or Taoism but the spaces in between. If we're differentiating between the two (as though two different mindsets ending up two different places) I think we're missing the boat. They end up in the same place, if it is truly combined with the inner journey. The inner journey is the key, not all the external studying. The external studying gives us a template to begin the journey, our "beliefs". But one day, if we're earnest, and if we go very deeply inside ourselves to the very center and find out who we actually Are, there is no longer need for belief structure at all. It's all One.

 

At some point, Nature becomes your teacher.

Edited May 25, 2011 by manitou

[goldisheavy]

Something I noticed with Mr. Watts is that he sometimes confuses his Buddhism with Taoism. I will never talk down about him but one should be aware of this, I think.

 

I don't think he confuses anything at all. He is like me, a non-ist (not Taoist, not Buddhist, not Hindu-ist, etc.), who freely draws from any source of wisdom. That doesn't mean he is confused. It's wisdom we need to preserve and not tradition. I would even say tradition gets in the way of wisdom as much as it helps preserve it.

Edited May 25, 2011 by goldisheavy

[Marblehead]

I don't think he confuses anything at all. He is like me, a non-ist (not Taoist, not Buddhist, not Hindu-ist, etc.), who freely draws from any source of wisdom. That doesn't mean he is confused. It's wisdom we need to preserve and not tradition. I would even say tradition gets in the way of wisdom as much as it helps preserve it.

 

You are probably right. I will admit that I am biased when it involves Taoist Philosophy.

[steve]

I hit up youtube and started listening to all the Alan Watts stuff. I was agreeing and agreeing and generally enjoying myself. Then he started saying some things I disagree with. Then I realized he's not quite as sagely as I thought he would be. I still think he's brilliant, but the glinty sheen has now worn off. I realized that in some ways Alan has not yet completed transcending the physicalist outlook that he was inundated with since birth. But his errors are more subtle and nuanced than what I am used to seeing.

He's human. He was an alcoholic, a womanizer, and a great thinker and teacher. Now that he's dead we'll never know who he might have responded to your challenges (or my own). I would bet that he'd fair pretty well one on one if we had the opportunity to sit down with him. I agree that he's not perfect - I'm certainly not a Watt-ist.

 

Something I noticed with Mr. Watts is that he sometimes confuses his Buddhism with Taoism. I will never talk down about him but one should be aware of this, I think.

I think he was extremely well versed in each and borrowed elements of each to synthesize his own metaphysics (as well as drawing an awful lot form Hinduism).

 

 

I think the real answers lie not in the structure of Buddhism or Taoism but the spaces in between. If we're differentiating between the two (as though two different mindsets ending up two different places) I think we're missing the boat. They end up in the same place, if it is truly combined with the inner journey. The inner journey is the key, not all the external studying. The external studying gives us a template to begin the journey, our "beliefs". But one day, if we're earnest, and if we go very deeply inside ourselves to the very center and find out who we actually Are, there is no longer need for belief structure at all. It's all One.

 

At some point, Nature becomes your teacher.

This