Re-familiarizing us with Zen traditions, Alan Watts inspires listeners to move beyond going through the motions of practice. Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self. 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 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Focusing on cosmic balance, Alan Watts outlines the fundamentals of Taoism and how to skillfully interfere with our environment. Find the full Zen and the Art of the Controlled Accident series of talks at play.alanwatts.org. Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self. This time on Being in the Way, Alan Watts shares a lecture on: The philosophy of Taoism Taoism as the flow of things / the course of nature The pervasive illusion of separateness and seeing it within our language How we only experience the world bit-by-bit A transformation of our everyday consciousness into oneness How we are all indestructible beyond the ego Life as a game of yin and yang, crests and troughs The fundamental idea of mutual arising How everything we do interferes with our environment Learning how to interfere skillfully 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. “We are not ordinarily aware of how we’re aware, and as a result of that, we don’t understand our connection with the world, and we don’t understand what our real self is. We get anxious; we’re afraid that death may be the end of us. This is, of course, the purest superstition, because everybody is indestructible.” – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Explaining the delicate balance of religiousness, Alan Watts lectures on the principle of leaving no trace. “Religion of No Religion” is part of the Japan Tour 1965 series of talks that you can listen to in full over at the Alan Watts Streaming Channel Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self. In this episode, Alan Watts explains: How the highest kind of a Buddha is like an ordinary person Imitation and how all religious comments about life become cliches The way of the enlightened man as the track of a bird in the sky Zen Buddhism and the dance between metaphysical and ordinary Balance and compatibility between universality and the particulars The problem with being too spiritual or too worldly The connection of all events in the universe, past, present, and future How everything in the universe depends upon each other 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. “All religion, all religious comments about life, eventually become cliches. That’s why religion always is falling apart and becoming a certain kind of going through the motions, a kind of imitation of attitudes.” – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In a lecture on symbolic reality versus real reality, Alan Watts explains the importance of total sensory awareness and looking at our motivations. "Symbolic Reality vs. Real Reality" is part of Flow, a three-part session in the TAO for NOW series of talks that you can listen to in full over at the Alan Watts Streaming Channel Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self. This time on Being in the Way, Alan Watts discusses: Being aware of all sensory inputs while meditating Allowing oneself ‘to be’ in a non-conceptual way Confusing the world of symbols for reality The limits to what we can enjoy in a material sense The uselessness of guilt Money, tithes, and western religion versus gurus Why our motivation and intention matters Experiencing life naked and directly The Taoist approach to letting go of your body-mind Using all five of our senses to witness our surroundings 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. “The point is to be wide, wide awake and aware of your total sensory input without confusing it with the symbolic world of words and concepts so that you experience life naked and directly. Experience YOU naked and directly, without having in your head the concept of who you are a a role player, as a personality, as an ego.” – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Join us on a journey of contemplation and enlightenment in this captivating introduction to Taoism. Discover the profound wisdom of Taoist philosophy with Alan Watts as he invites us to embrace the course of nature. Through insightful exploration, he delves into the timeless significance of Yin and Yang, illustrating their inseparable connection and guiding us toward a deeper understanding of harmony and balance in existence. Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan In this episode, Alan Watts speaks about: Ancient Chinese philosophies How social institutions are mistaken for the real world The self, Confucianism, and the roles we play in life Taoism and the basic energy of the universe Tao as the force of nature How space and solid are two facets of one reality Yang and Yin, positive and negative, male and female Conscious dying and preparing to let go Acting in accordance with nature 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. “It is the inner connection, or rather the inseparability of Yang and Yin, which is what is meant by Tao. That’s why Tao cannot be explained. The reason again if I may put it in another way is that all thinking is classification. It’s asking ‘is you is or is you aint’. Is it this or is it that. After all, if you want to say something is inside it requires an outside. You can’t have an inside without an outside or an outside without an inside.” – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Taking a trip through the constructs of form and labeling, Alan Watts philosophizes about the limits of language. This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit play.alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts. Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan This time on Being in the Way, Alan Watts philosophizes about: Unexamined systems of belief underneath language Ideas that are built into our common sense The substance of form, pattern, and organization The profound mystery of matter Limitations in trying to use language to define the ineffable ‘Matter’ as a root word for many things Chinese views of nature Why verbs do not necessarily need subjects Being at peace with ourselves in a world of form Recognizing the universe as a process “When we divide the world into operations and agents, doers and doings, then we ask such silly questions as ‘who knows, who does it, what does it?’ When the what that is supposed to do it is the same as the doing. You could very easily see that the whole process of the universe may be understood as process, nobody is doing it.” – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In celebration of the waters that bring life to all things, Alan Watts reflects on the separation between human civilization and the natural world. This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit play.alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts. Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan In this unique and experimental recording, Alan Watts discusses: The beauty of life on the waters in Sausalito, California The rhythms of nature Time and timelessness The transformation of one form into another The separation of man from the natural world Objecting and Objectifying the world Identity and being able to know knowing The spacious environment of the ocean “Although the rhythm of the waves beats a kind of time, it’s not clock or calendar time, it has no urgency. It’s timeless time, because I know I am listening to a rhythm which has been just the same for millions of years.” – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Using wisdom from Eastern philosophies, Alan Watts explains why Westerners should let go of any preconceived notions of God. 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. This Alan Watts lecture features a discussion on: Comparative studies on religion The absurdity of Christian imperialism Superiority and lack of faith The difference between faith and belief Blasphemy and those who claim to be God The political image of God in the west The ceramic model of the universe (material and form) Hindu mythology and drama Self-discovery of supreme reality The meaning of Maya Punitive reasons why people say that God is dead Fixed notions of God as idolatry Contemplative prayer and letting go of our ideas of God Existence as relationship Buddhist vows versus western obedience Looking beyond the skin-encapsulated ego “It must be understood that the crux of the Hindu and Buddhist disciplines is an experience, not a theory, not a belief.” – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bringing awareness to ecstatic grace, Alan Watts enlightens us on the sexual archetypes formed by religion. Two cultural icons. Two unique perspectives... One understanding of the presence of the way. Ram Dass' Love Serve Remember Foundation and the Alan Watts Organization invite you to open your mind, open your heart, and tap into the living truth of Alan Watts and Ram Dass. Learn more about this special 4-week Virtual Course:"The Presence of the Way: The Dharma of Alan Watts and Ram Dass" Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan In this recording, Alan Watts lectures on: Baptism, confirmation, and religious initiation Masturbation and other supposedly sinful behaviors Defiance and wickedness The material world and sexuality The Semitic vs. Greek perspective on sex Sexual energy for reproduction rather than pleasure The fall in the Garden of Eden The institution of marriage Women throughout western literature Love and the illogical promises we make Prudism and extreme monogamy Subtle eroticism in the Victorian era How repression may lead to being overcame Libido as a fundamental reality Sexuality in religious iconography The function of sexual play beyond utilitarianism Sex as a sacramental expression of love Seeing the divine aspect in a lover 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. “The function of sexual play is not merely the survival and utilitarian function of reproducing the species as it is among animals to a very large extent. What peculiarly distinguishes human sexuality is that it brings the partners closer and closer to each other in an intense state of united feeling. In other words, it is a sacrament, the outward invisible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, bringing about love.” – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This time on the Being in the Way Podcast, Alan Watts delves into questions of identity, purpose and buying into the ‘Myth of Myself’. Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan In this episode, Alan Watts explores: The question of our own identity and our place in the world Myths of the self handed down through history Viewing ourselves and the world with a “floodlight consciousness” – rather than the narrow “spotlight consciousness” we are taught to see the world through How we are not born into this world, but grow out of it – “In the same way an apple tree apples, the Earth peoples.” “The most fascinating problem in the world is who am I? What do you feel when you say the word I? I myself? This problem has fascinated me for many years. Most Western people locate their ego inside their heads. This is the ordinary average conception of what is oneself.” – Alan Watts This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit https://Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Picking up from our last episode, Alan elucidates faith versus belief, and how our individual existence is connected with the totality of the universe. Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan From his houseboat in Sausalito, CA, Alan Watts explores: The two great myths which underly our Western sense of identity: the Judeo-Christian myth of an overly intelligent universe founded by a cosmic king; and the material myth of a universe which is mechanical, un-intelligent, and empty The problem of “believing” in God, versus the real attitude of faith which is being open to whatever reality is Finding out who we are beyond social institutions like time, money, value, language, and survival How you as an individual implies by your existence everything else in the universe “The problem about believing in God, incidentally, is that believing is the wrong attitude. Believing is a form of mistrust, because it’s saying, ‘I fervently wish that you exist, and if you don’t, I don’t know what to do with myself.’ The real attitude of faith is not believing, but simply being open to whatever reality is, and to say you don’t know.” – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Delving into the historically complicated human relationship to divinity, Alan Watts describes the trap of separateness.  Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan In this episode, Alan Watts explores: The sensation of our own existence  Jewish Christian mythology  Identifying with the tribe Universal law and the roots of justice Freud and the energies of the psyche  Man as a product of nature versus the supernatural The idea that we were all subjects of a divine king you might say was a political model based on the organization of the great city-states of the ancient near east. That image, you see, has absolutely haunted Western man throughout his whole development because he has felt that he is in the universe on probation and sufferance. He doesn't quite belong here." – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Offering us the possibility of waking up, Alan Watts contemplates the joyous cosmology that we are God playing the roles of ordinary people. Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan In this episode, Alan Watts explores: If there could be a theory of the world that justifies and makes worthwhile the difficulties and suffering that we undergo The contemplation that an infinite omnipotent being would eventually get bored with being everything, so would begin to shield itself from this knowledge, and pretend to play the role of separate beings so it could experience the full thrill of waking up to itself The idea of reality as God playing a game of hide and seek with itself for it’s own excitement and cosmic joke The difference or potential complete non-difference between the experience and the experiencer That what you think of as outside yourself is actually just a hidden you “We have within us a higher self who is pretending to be the ordinary everyday person that we are, who’s acting it. In other words, our everyday life is a dream from which we have the possibility of waking up.” – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sifting down behind the cultural myth of man as separate, Alan explores how we are all actually Earth, the Universe, and the Big Bang. In this episode of Being in the Way, Alan takes us on a journey from childhood to adulthood, highlighting how we are trained into separation from a young age, and forced to focus on the never-arriving “future,” rather than being present in the moment. Through this lens, he further spelunks the “hoax of man” and offers insight into how this sense of ego identity creates tension and frustration. Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan In this episode Alan discusses: How from childhood onward we are constantly preparing for something in the future, rather than being present for life The culture’s division of work and play, and the confused idea that money can buy you pleasure Growing up in society, identity, defining a person, and being a “genuine fake” How the sense of ego creates tension, separation, alienation, and frustration The inseparable connection of the polarity of self and other The dawn of creation and how we are not actually separate from the Big Bang The 19th-century myth that man is a fluke in an unintelligent, automatic universe “Your actual self—what is finally and fundamentally you—is not a separate and lonely part of the world, but the real you is the world itself, everything that there is, expressing itself as this particular organism here and now.” – Alan Watts 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. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this unique episode of Being in the Way, Alan Watts offers tribute to the life, humor, magic and ‘nonsense wisdom’ of writer, G. K. Chesterton. Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan 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. “I read G.K. Chesterton’s works very carefully, and I have, by osmosis, imbibed an enormous amount of wisdom from him. Funny thing is, not so much in terms of specific ideas, as in basic attitude to life. This is a man, who above all virtues, has what I think is one of the greatest virtues which we don’t usually find catalogued—he had a sense of wonder.” – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Exploring modern culture as actually anti-materialistic, Alan tackles matters of sedentariness, sensuousness, isolation, work, play, God, and sexuality. Host, Mark Watts, returns to introduce another thought-provoking talk from his father, Alan Watts. In this powerful lecture—one of his earlier field recordings, entitled ‘The Unpreachable Religion,’—Alan turns our common idea of modern materialism on its head. Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan 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. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Alan Watts pulls back the veil of ‘the human game,’ digging into language, ethics, finding balance, and the art of the controlled accident.  Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan In this episode, Mark Watts introduces Alan Watts in ‘Learning the Human Game’ – originally recorded at a seminar at the University of Michigan. In this lecture, Alan explores the connection between language and ethics, helping us understand why the perfect balance between randomness and order is the optimal middle-ground for experiencing life. 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. “Mental health is a good game—and a good game is what keeps a certain balance between randomness and order. And a healthy society, therefore, is one which keeps a proper balance between law and whimsy.” – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Contemplating the coincidence of opposites within the 'human game,' Alan ponders the simple yet thought-provoking question: is existence serious? Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan In this episode of Being in the Way, Mark introduces a lecture from his father Alan Watts called 'Coincidence of Opposites' – the first talk in a seminar called 'Learning the Human Game,' given in 1965 at the University of Michigan to a small group of psychology and philosophy grad students. 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. "One has to get used fundamentally to the notion that different things can be inseparable—that what is explicitly two, can at the same time be implicitly one." – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, & Allen Cohen join Alan Watts on his houseboat to discuss change, the evolution of society, and the practicality of 'dropping out.' Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan In this episode of Being in the Way, Mark Watts introduces a truly legendary discussion featuring his father Alan Watts, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Allen Cohen. Beaming in from the summer of 1967 on Alan's infamous houseboat in Sausalito, CA, this stacked lineup of free-thinkers, beatniks, poets, environmentalists, psychedelicists, and spiritualists dive into heady and practical conversation around "dropping out" into a freer, more natural, tribe-focused society. This series is made in partnership with the Alan Watts Organization. Discover the official Alan Watts archive at alanwatts.org "What we need to realize is there can be a movement, a stirring among people, which can be organically designed instead of politically designed." – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this recording from 1972, Alan Watts lectures on mystical vision via art, aesthetics, and Buddhist and Daoist philosophy. Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan This series is made in partnership with the Alan Watts Organization. Discover the official Alan Watts archive at alanwatts.org “You and I have all conspired with ourselves to pretend that we are not really God, but of course we are. That is perfectly obvious. We are all apertures through which the universe is looking at itself. Only it is so arranged that we don’t know that in exactly the same way as we don't look at our own eyes.” – Alan Watts See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.