"Now the secret is that the other eventually turns out to be you. The element of surprise in life is when suddenly you find the thing most alien turns out to be yourself. Go out at night and look at the stars and realize that they are millions and billions of miles away, vast conflagrations far out in space. You can lie back and look at that and say, "Well, surely I hardly matter. I am just a tiny little speck aboard this weird spotted bit of dust called earth, and all that was going on out there billions of years before I was born and will still be going on out there billions of years after I die." Nothing seems stranger to you that that, or more different from you, yet there comes a point, if you watch long enough, when you will say, "Why that's me!" It is the other that is the condition of your being yourself, as the back is the condition of being the front, and when you know that, you know you never die."
- Alan Watts, Swimming Headless, 1966
I first heard Alan Watts speak at California State University at Los Angeles in 1966. I had read The Way of Zen and Beat Zen and Square Zen while in high school in 1962. I was also well versed in the books by D. T. Suzuki. Mr. Watts was a charming and engaging public speaker. He made us laugh and he made us think.
In 1966, I was then an undergraduate majoring in Philosophy at CSULA, and working 30 hours per week at the City of Commerce Public Library. Since then, I've read all of the books by Alan Watts, and have listened to audiotapes of his lectures and radio broadcasts. He was definitely an intellectual and lifestyle influence in my life.
- Alan Watts, Swimming Headless, 1966
I first heard Alan Watts speak at California State University at Los Angeles in 1966. I had read The Way of Zen and Beat Zen and Square Zen while in high school in 1962. I was also well versed in the books by D. T. Suzuki. Mr. Watts was a charming and engaging public speaker. He made us laugh and he made us think.
In 1966, I was then an undergraduate majoring in Philosophy at CSULA, and working 30 hours per week at the City of Commerce Public Library. Since then, I've read all of the books by Alan Watts, and have listened to audiotapes of his lectures and radio broadcasts. He was definitely an intellectual and lifestyle influence in my life.
For me, the "realization" comes while gazing at our garden. Within this experience are myriad levels of complexity: ordinary human level, microscopic, molecular, atomic, subatomic ... This spot of earth has been here for millions of years and will continue long after I die. We animals and plants come and go, interdependent, interrelated, inter-being, a changing manifestation of the Here-Now.
This peach, these peppers,
These grapes, these tomatoes
Will all soon become me.
Such a tasty fact.
I am That and That is Me.
Bless the garden!
Bless the kitchen!
- Mike Garofalo, Pulling Onions
These grapes, these tomatoes
Will all soon become me.
Such a tasty fact.
I am That and That is Me.
Bless the garden!
Bless the kitchen!
- Mike Garofalo, Pulling Onions
Hopefully, you and your wife are healthy again.
ReplyDeleteBeste from soutern Taiwan!
Hermann
Hermann,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your positive thoughts. Karen is doing fine. I have some wound healing problems from two surgeries on my thigh to deal with a large tumor. We are both working again and busy with life's activities.
Mike