RE: Meaningful ideas and quotes
July 23, 2020 at 3:28 am
(This post was last modified: July 23, 2020 at 3:28 am by Belacqua.)
(July 23, 2020 at 2:37 am)Porcupine Wrote: But Alan addresses this and explains this in a lecture that I can't post here.
What Watts writes may be fascinating and inspiring, but I am not convinced that what he described is Zen Buddhism. I think it's his own synthesis. I'm not the only one to feel this way. He's a synthesist and a popularizer.
Charismatic media figures make me skeptical.
Back in the day I heard him speak at my college, as well as Gary Snyder and John Cage. I studied with this guy:
https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Addiss/e/...dp_epwbk_0
In my view, there are two ways to learn real Zen: experiential or scholarly. The former would take total dedication -- living the life, not just meditating at home. It would also require obedience to a teacher, which Watts was never able to manage. The latter would require things like paleographic knowledge of Chinese and Japanese, and quite possibly Indian languages. I've met people who've done this -- it's not for amateurs.
Reading is a great pleasure, but I think that once you've reached a certain point you either have to plunge all the way in or accept that you're going to stay an amateur. I'm content to be an amateur on this subject.