Allan Watts

let's discuss your old pal Allan Watts, cause admit it: sometimes you miss those days when you could just smoke a little grass, sit in your room, read 'profound' quoutes like pic related and be like: "woaaah duuude, that's just IT man . I dont know how but he just speaks the TRUTH maaan" Back when you didnt realize that litteraly all he says is metaphysical dribble. That he was a popularizer at best (a gateway drug maybe?) and a con-artist at worst. Before you had ever even heard of Jung. And now you can never ever get back.

Nothing about it is dribble.
That quote in the image is accurate.
Familiarity, however, breeds contempt. It did not prompt a metaphysical experience, and thus we deem the words bereft of substance. The substance is still there, as it is in an scripture, the bagavadghita or whatever. We still aren't at a point where we want to know what they mean. We are playing games with it, flirting with it, ignoring it, going back to status quo of our mental rounds.

Do not take your boredom with Watts ideas as an indication of the ideas, but rather as a disappointment with your desire or ability to see them through.

>dude the present is all that's real that's why I lived in a million dollar houseboat in california
so this is the power of buddhism..

But how can you now for sure? either way its a cheap way to get peoples metaphysical dicks hard.

"thats like... you know... the power of positive thinking maaan'' *inhales the smoke deeply*

What is a cheap way? I don't know what you mean by that.

I had plenty of metaphysical experiences 'induced' by watts by the way, but only back when i was an edgelord fedora wearing teenager.

I can't tell you what you have or haven't experienced, but you don't sound like a person who knows what they are saying.

I mean you dont need to read all of the stuff that Watts was on or develop a truly elaborate or sophisticated metaphysic to come to the conclusion of pic related, its childs play.

>Familiarity, however, breeds contempt.
This.

Alan Watts was a bridge. It may sound obvious and even null to you now, because you've seen it being said many many times in pop-psych and self-help books, but it wasn't like that to the people he was talking to.

Watts was not and will never be considered as ultimate authority on eastern ideas, but he truly was a great bridge between that and the western world of that time. He knows very well that things are more complicated than just that and knows in what terms the hindu, buddhist and daoist thinkers were talking about that kind of stuff, but it was a conscious choice to remain as simple and as mundane as possible so to reach out to those people and make the point get across, even if not the same, at least to wake them up from ordinary 60's american everyday life.

So yeah, it is supposed to get your metaphysical dick hard. If your dick doesn't get hard with this, search for more content that will, as he would advise I guess.

That is part of his style. His main love was Zen so he might agree, elaborate and sophisticated metaphysics can and often are conceptual traps.
"It's right in front of your nose."
Child's play is the oceanic consciousness which he desired others to come again to know.

This, my point exactly. He is still comfy sometimes tho, I still recommend it to people facing existential dread

He is a pop Buddhist
>You shouldn't chase after the past or place expectations on the future. What is past is left behind. The future is as yet unreached. Whatever quality is present you clearly see right there, right there. — Buddha, Bhaddekaratta Sutta

And now you despise it because you despise your teenage years, just like a teenager is edgy so not to be confused with a child.

Consider it might be important for fedora wearing edgelord teenagers of today and that it may be a good thing for them to read him at this point in their life and help them in getting out of it eventually.

yeah i agree, like the last sentence of my post, on how you its hard to retrieve that sense of child like wonder. Watts was great for me in giving me an alternative to christianity but i couldnt shake the feeling that there was something more than that. And in that sense i have wilfully corrupted my perfectly suitable metaphysical beliefs.

Let me tell you folk something. Alan puts it simply. He dissolves the mystery, says it in plain "american" terms. You wanted your game, your ego-gain, that conquest of esoteric knowledge, to come to feel like you were penetrating into the mysteries of things in a much more profound way than anyone else through your reading of this or that.
Can you see through this? You want to feel special? Something like "existence is a play of hide and seek", a plain and real truth, is too simple and silly. You want a labyrinth, a gordian knot to unfold, but why? The same game as ever, to please your ego sense of accomplishment. "No, I don't want it to be that simple. I will not have it. This man and what he speaks is too plain, too mundane, too obvious, too clear, too lucid. I want my symbolism back, my playthings, my toys. Don't dissolve my spiritual journey before I SAY SO."

That is how you sound to me.

Also, i remember back when i was way in to his stuff i read a YT comment that said: "back when i was young i found his views exhillirating. now i find it navel gazing." and i remember how i couldnt comprehend how anyone would call this navel gazing. it was almost sacrilige to me

People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion

that imperceptible point in the middle is the eternal genesis

Thats clearly projection. You can see from my other replies that i am aware of this. Any knots you still need to untie?im not saying i need my playthings in life perse. What im saying is that once you have convinced yourself you do, it can take a long time before you can come back too experience reality in the moment and being content with that.

It is fine to go on doing this, unraveling the knot is part of the fun.

It is only when we get bored of this do these things matter. Insofar as we are not yet bored of them, we can go on.