Alan Watts Chillstep - We are All One

and other astronomers either say there was a primordial explosion an enormous bang millions of years ago billions of years ago which flung all the galaxies into space well let's take that just for the sake of argument and say that was the way it happened it's like you took a bottle of ink and you threw it at a wall smash and all that ink spreads and in the middle it's dense isn't it and as it gets out on the edge the little droplets are finer and finer and make more complicated patterns see so in the same way there was a big bang in the beginning of things and it spread and you and i sitting here in this room as complicated human beings are way way out on the fringe of that band we are the complicated little patterns on the end of it very interesting but so we define ourselves as being only that [Music] if you think that you are only inside your skin you define yourself as one very complicated little curlicue way out on the edge of that explosion way out in space and way out in time billions of years ago you were a big bang but now you're a complicated human being and when then we cut ourselves off like this and don't feel that we are still the big bang but you are [Music] so [Music] so [Music] you are actually if if this is the way things started if there was a big bang in the beginning you're not something that is a result of the big bang on the end of the process you are still the process you are the big bang the original force of the universe coming on as whoever you are see when i meet you i see not just what you define yourself as mr so-and-so miss so-and-so mrs so-and-so i see every one of you as the primordial energy of the universe coming on at me in this particular way i know i'm that too but we've learned to define ourselves as separate from it and so what i would call a kind of a basic problem we've got to go through first is to understand that there are no such things as things that is to say separate things or separate events [Music] that that is only a way of talking [Music] if you can understand this you're going to have no further problems [Music] [Music] i once asked a group of high school children what do you mean by a thing and first of all they gave me all sorts of synonyms they said it's an object which is simply another word for a thing it doesn't tell you anything about what you mean by a thing finally a very smart girl from italy who was in the group said a thing is a noun she was quite right [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] instead of saying to you you should be doing it another way that you're doing it i will be saying now find out the way you must do it and go that way now this is a general principle of an art and we will find there is a kind of limits to this art and how it can be used and so forth once the general principles are clear there aren't many serious problems left that if you begin to look at it in that way you will begin to realize that ecstasy by one road or another is inevitable that indeed ecstasy is in a way the nature of existence there is a universe for the simple reason that it's ecstatic what else is all this fireworks it is just like music in this ecstatic thing going off and you have to be a certainly careful in a little way here that any initiation into a deep wisdom is apt at first to demotivate you you think what the hell am i doing all this projects and building this up and that up or doing something to save the world and so on and so forth why did i don't think it's nonsense yes if you stick there that's what they call in mahayana buddhism the pratyaka buddha that means the private buddha as distinct from bodhisattva who comes back into everyday life as they say for the liberation of all other sentient beings because when you know that uh all this is all right anyway and that the situation is inevitable ecstasy i mean you're going to get it one way or another and you say well what was all the fuss about the fact remains that a lot of people just don't know that [Music] and are really hating life not knowing how to handle hate [Music] and if you are at a certain point you know those other people are you [Music] [Music] [Music] so they're like you had an extended body and all these were nerve ends on the end of it you see however you know also [Music] that you can't really show them anything they don't already know and won't be able to show them anything else until they know it but then the question what shall i do has now disappeared [Music] it should have disappeared in the beginning because there wasn't any real eye it was just the happening [Music] so [Music] therefore here it is we'll just call it this and if you will the going on [Music] which includes absolutely everything you feel [Music] well whatever that is it's what the chinese call dao what buddhists call suchness and it's a happening it doesn't happen to you because where is that you what you call you is part of the happening or an aspect of it has no parts it's not like a machine and it's a little scary because you'd say well who's in control around here [Music] why should there be anyone that's a very weird notion we have that processes require something outside them to control them it never occurred to us that processes could be self-controlling even though we say to someone control yourself in order to think about self-control we split a person in two [Music] so that there's a you separate from the self that's supposed to be controlled well how can that achieve anything how can a noun start a verb yet it's a fundamental superstition that that can be done so you have this process which is quite spontaneous going on we call it life it's controlling itself it's aware of itself it's aware of itself through you [Music] [Music] [Music] you are an aperture through which the universe looks of itself and because of its the universe looking at itself through you there's always an aspect of itself that it can't see so it's just like that snake you see that is pursuing its tail because the snake can't see its head like you can't we always find as we investigate the universe make the microscope bigger and bigger and we will find ever more minute things [Music] make the telescope bigger and bigger and bigger and the universe expands because it's running away from itself it won't do that if you don't chase it [Music] [Applause] [Music] huh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] my [Music] so it's very simple [Music] you only have to understand that you can't do anything about it [Music] and as they say in zen you cannot take hold of it but you can't get rid of it and in not being able to get it you get it so all these trials that gurus put their students through have as their ultimate object convincing you that you can't do anything a guru gives people exercises a that are difficult but can be accomplished and b that are impossible you will always be hung up on the impossible ones but the possible ones you will get a feeling of making progress so that you will double your efforts to solve the impossible exercises and then they arrange things in many many ranks and levels through which you can advance this stage of consciousness that state of consciousness or think of the degrees of masonry or so on ranks in learning things the different belts you get in judo and all that kind of jazz you can do that and it gives people the sense of competing with themselves or even with others because of the feeling inside that there is just something i'm missing and of course if you are learning any sort of skill and you haven't perfected the skill there is indeed something you're missing but in this thing that we're talking about that isn't true because you as the buddhists say are buddhas from the very beginning [Music] [Music] [Music] and all that searching is like looking for your own head which you can't see and therefore might conceivably imagine that you're lost [Music] so that indeed is the point that we don't see what looks and therefore we think we've lost it [Music] and so we're in search of the self the utmost well that's the one thing we can't find [Music] because we have it we are it that we confuse it with all these images [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] for one thing the idea of a difference between matter and spirit this idea doesn't work anymore long long ago physicists stopped asking the question what is matter they began that way they wanted to know what is the fundamental substance of the world and the more they asked that question the more they realized they couldn't answer it because if you're going to say what matter is you've got to describe it in terms of behavior that is to say in terms of form in terms of pattern you tell what it does you describe the smallest shapes of it that you can see atoms electrons protons nissans all sorts of sub nuclear particles but you never never arrive at the basic stuff because there isn't [Music] what happens is this stuff is a word for the world as it looks when our eyes are out of focus fuzzy stuff the idea of stuff is that it's undifferentiated it's some kind of a ghoul and when your eyes are not in sharp focus everything looks fuzzy when you get your eyes into focus you see a form you see a pattern and so all that we can talk about is [Music] patterns [Music] so [Music] if there is any such thing at all as intelligence and love and beauty well you found it in other people in other words it exists in us as human beings and as i said if it is there in us it is symptomatic of the scheme of things we are a symptomatic of the scheme of things as the apples are symptomatic of the apple tree or the rose of the rose bush the earth is not a big rock infested with living organisms any more than your skeleton is bones infested with cells the earth is geological yes but this geological entity grows people and our existence on the earth is a symptom of the solar system and its balances as much as the solar system in turn is a symptom of our galaxy and our galaxy in its turn is a symptom of the whole company of galaxies goodness only knows what that [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] but you see when as a scientist you describe the behavior of a living organism [Music] you try to say what a person does it's the only way in which you can describe what a person is describe what they do then you find out that in making this description you cannot confine yourself to what happens inside the skin [Music] in other words you can't talk about a person walking unless you start describing the floor because when i walk i don't just dangle my legs in empty space i move in relationship to a room and so in order to describe what i'm doing when i'm walking i have to describe the room i have to describe the territory so in in the describing my talking at the moment i can't describe this just as a thing in itself because i'm talking to you and so what i'm doing at the moment is not completely described unless your being here is described also so if that is necessary if in other words in order to describe my behavior i have to describe your behavior and the behavior of the environment it means that we've really got one system of behavior [Music] that what i am [Music] involves what you are i don't know who i am unless i know who you are and you don't know who you are unless you know who i am it was a wise rabbi once said if i am i because you are you and you are you because i am i then i am not i and you are not you in other words we're not separate we define each other we're all backs and fronts to each other you know uh you can't for example have two sticks you lean two sticks against each other and they stand up because they support each other take one away and the other falls they interdepend and so in exactly that way we and our environment and all of us and each other are interdependent systems we know who we are in terms of other people we all lock together and this is again and again the serious scientific description of how things happen and any good scientist knows therefore that what you call the external world is as much you as your own body [Music] your skin doesn't separate you from the world it's a bridge through which the external world flows into you and you flow into it just for example as a whirlpool in water you could say because you have a skin you have a definite shape you have a definite form all right here is a flow of water and it suddenly it does a whirlpool then it goes on the whirlpool is a definite form but no water stays put in it the whirlpool is something the stream is doing and exactly the same way the whole universe is doing each one of us and i see you today and i recognize you tomorrow just as i would recognize a whirlpool in the stream i'd say oh yes i've seen that whirlpool before because near so-and-so's house on the edge of the river and it's always there so in the same way when i meet you tomorrow i recognize you you're the same whirlpool you were yesterday but you're moving the whole world is moving through you all the cosmic rays all the food you're eating the stream of steaks and milk and eggs and everything is just flowing right through you when you're wiggling the same way the world is wiggling the stream is wiggling you the problem is you see we haven't been taught to feel that way [Music] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] [Music] what do i want the answer is i don't know when bodhidharma was asked who are you which is another form of the same question he said i don't know planting flowers to which the butterflies come bodhidharma says i know not i don't know what else when you don't know what you want you've really reached the state of desirelessness when you really don't know do you see there's a there's a beginning stage of not knowing and there's an ending stage of not knowing in the beginning stage you don't know what you want because you haven't thought about it or you've only thought superficially then when you somebody forces you to think about it and go through and say yeah i think i'd like this i think i like that i think i'd like the other as the middle stage then you get beyond that say is that what i really want in the end you say no i don't think that's it [Music] i might be satisfied with it for a while and i wouldn't turn my nose up at it but it's not really what i want why don't you really know what you want two reasons that you don't really know what you want number one you have it [Music] number two you don't know yourself because you never can the godhead is never an object of its own knowledge just as a knife doesn't cut itself fire doesn't burn itself light doesn't illumine itself it's always an endless mystery to itself i don't know and this i don't know uttered in the infinite interior of the spirit this i don't know [Music] is the same thing as i love i let go i don't try to force or control it's the same thing as humility and so the upanishads say [Music] if you think that you understand brahma you do not understand and have yet to be instructed further [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] if you know that you do not understand then you truly understand for the brahmana is unknown to those who know it and known to those who know it not [Music] and the principle is that anytime you as it were voluntarily let up control in other words cease to cling to yourself you have an access of power [Music] because you're wasting energy all the time in self-defense trying to manage things trying to force things to conform to your world the moment you stop doing that that wasted energy is available therefore you are in that sense having that energy available you are one with the divine principle you have the energy when you're trying however to act as if you were god that is to say you don't trust anybody and you're the dictator and you have to keep everybody in line you lose the divine energy because what you're doing is simply defending yourself [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so then the principle is the more you give it away the more it comes back now you see i don't have the courage to give it away i'm afraid and you can only overcome that by realizing you better give it away because there's no way holding on to it the meaning of the fact you see that everything is dissolving constantly that we're all falling apart we're all in a process of constant death and that uh the world we hope men set their hearts upon turns ashes or it prospers and like snow upon the desert's dusty face lighting a little hour or two is gone you know all that omar khan jazz you know the cloud cat towers the gorgeous palaces the great globe itself i all which it inherits shall dissolve like this insubstantial pageant fading not a wreck behind all falling apart everything else that's the the great assistance to you see that that fact that everything is in decay is your helper that is allowing you that you don't have to let go because there's nothing to hold on to it's achieved for you in other words by the process of nature [Music] so once you see that you just don't have a prayer it's all washed up and that you will vanish and leave not a wreck behind and you really get with that suddenly you find you have the power this enormous access of energy [Music] [Music] [Music] now if you ever do momentarily slip into some sort of a mystical experience uh you become aware of this tremendous gamesmanship going on uh and you see it as sort of continuous with the with all sorts of cosmic games that are going on of uh creatures eating other creatures up and uh the creatures that get eaten of course transform themselves into the creatures that eat them and then in turn uh eat other creatures and uh you see the whole hide and seek game going on and then you realize very clearly that the state of development that you are in now [Music] is uh no better and no worse than anybody else's state because it's like uh space again which planet is in or which star is in the best position well it's all equal [Music] any point on a sphere is the center of the surface of the sphere so you know in the same way everybody in all his behavior whatever he's doing whether we call him from a certain point of view sick or whether we call him healthy whether we call him good or bad neurotic normal psychotic sane all the manifestations are just like the leaves on the trees and in each uh being in a unique way is as christians would say manifesting the will of god so they're really from that point of view there is nothing to do to attain buddha nothing at all [Music] but you see that's very difficult to understand because a lot of people when they hear that there's nothing to do try to do nothing and you can't because you are karma and karma means action you can't do nothing but uh the thing you're looking for or think you're looking for [Music] is what you're doing is what's called [Applause] [Music] you [Music] [Applause] [Music] only of course as we all know uh we've got ourselves into the idea that oneself is so difficult to see because it's like as i've often said trying to bite your own teeth or look into your own eyes and you can't find it it's always behind it's like your head is from the optical point of view a blank space neither light nor dark it's right in the middle of everything [Music] so [Music] so [Music] and so one of the great tricks of gurus is to set people looking for their heads a famous story of a king in india in ancient times called yajna data and one morning he woke up and reached out for his mirror and brought it over no head he was looking the wrong side of the mirror and you know he was kind of blurry-eyed and had a hangover so he summoned servants and said he gots i've lost my head find it and uh they said but your majesty it's there on your shoulders he said it is not i can't see it in the mirror nobody can show me my head so they were rushing all over the place looking for the head now the trick to that is of course that uh you are perfectly well aware of your head only not in a form in which you expect to be aware of it [Music] you expect to be aware of your own head in the same way as you're aware of other people's heads but that wouldn't be true of you because you've got an inside view on your head you have an outside view on other people's heads because of course you're taking an inside point of view but the way in which you are aware of your head is in terms of what you are seeing and hearing because all sights and all sounds are what the nerves inside your head are doing that's how to be aware of one's head you are aware therefore of yourself the mysterious self that you have in terms of experience because there isn't really any difference [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] but that always escapes people you see so perpetually so long as you don't understand that you can be talked into going on to all kinds of weird excursions and just so long as you believe it you're a sucker you're hooked and it takes a tremendous inner confidence and nerve finally to say don't pull that stump on me anymore i i see through your gaze [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] and uh because gurus are very clever at putting you down but they're just trying to see how strong you are testing you out see if they can hoodwink you so long as they can you see they're going to go on doing it because they're going to get you to the point where they can't do it to you anymore then they'll graduate and so uh one of rinzai's students after he saw three said well it wasn't much in rinzai's buddhism after all of course there wasn't he said boldly and straight out my teaching is just like using an empty fist to deceive a child [Music] [Music] [Music] you know when you play games with a child and pretend you've got something here the child goes into all kinds of tizzy to get you to open your hand and show what it is and then there's nothing food so you so you can be fooled as long as you can be food when you can't be fooled you don't ask the question because it's all become clear it's all become clear that there is no puzzle about this universe [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] what makes you think there are puzzles about this universe very simple reason you're trying to explain it [Music] and when you explain things what you would what do you mean by explanation there are several meanings of explanation there's really one basic meaning but first of all to be able to translate what is happening into terms of words or numbers in other words to describe but a real explanation is not just a description it's a description which enables us to control what we're describing but didn't we see in the last session that to control the world is not really what we want to do [Music] so that if all explanations have as their function enabling us to control things then maybe an explanation isn't what we wanted and furthermore you can very simply see that what makes things complicated is explaining when somebody explains to you how a flower works and he's a great botanist and analyzes all the innards of a flower and shows the channels the fibers the processes of reproduction and so on that go on in it everybody stands fascinated how complicated that is how clever god must have been to create that flower to have all that complexity going it isn't complicated at all it's only complicated when you start thinking about because the vehicle of words is a very clumsy one and when you try to talk about the processes of nature what is complicated is not the processes of nature but trying to put them into words that's as complicated as trying to drink up the ocean with a fork takes forever and so this intense complexity that we see in everything is created by our attempt to analyze it all and so what we do is you see when we analyze we use our eyes and ears as scalpels and we dissect everything and we have to put a label on every piece we chop off so we scalpelize and we get it right down to atoms getting finer and finer we suddenly thought well we got to the end of it because the word atom means what is not cuttable atomos uh but then he found we could cut the atom and lo and behold big fleas had little fleas upon their backs to buy them and it goes on forever there is no end to the minuteness which you can unveil through physical investigation for the simple reason that the investigation itself is what is chopping things into pieces and the sharper you can sharpen your knife the finer you can cut it [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and the knife of the intellect is very sharp indeed [Music] and the sophisticated instruments that we can now make there's probably no limit to it but in a way all that is vain knowledge in a way because you see it what it does is it gives you the illusion that you've solved your problems when you have control certain things and you have solved certain problems practical problems you say fine more of that please let's go on solving problems and then you do [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] back in 1958 i was in zurich and there met a most extraordinary man by the name of calfried von dierkin he was a former german diplomat who had studied zen in japan and when he came back after the war he opened a meditation school and retreat in the black forest he said well i tell you what a lot of my work has to do with people who went through spiritual crises during the war and he said you know we we all know that when a person's in an absolutely extreme situation and they accept it there is a possibility of a natural satori [Music] and that's what i mean when i was explaining that when one gets to an extreme that is to say to the point where you realize that there is nothing you can do about life nothing you could not do about life then you're the mosquito biting the iron bull well so in the same way he said look you heard a bomb coming at you you could hear it whistle you knew it was right above you and headed straight at you and that you were finished and you accepted it and suddenly there was a strange feeling that everything is absolutely clear you suddenly see that there isn't a grain of dust in the whole universe that's in the wrong place that you understand completely absolutely totally what it's all about because you can't say what it is but he said in so many cases the bomb was a dud and they lived to tell the tale or he said you were in a concentration camp you've been there so long that you gave up all hope whatsoever ever getting out you were just going through this miserable boring degrading grind week after week after week nobody paid the slightest attention as an individual you knew you would never get out and you accepted it and suddenly something changed extraordinary freedom [Music] [Music] oh he said you were a displaced refugee you had lost your family you didn't know whether they even existed you were miles from your home you didn't know whether it existed you had lost your job your very identity you were absolutely nowhere and you accepted it and suddenly you were as light as a feather and free as the air now he said so many people have had those experiences and they talk about them to their families and friends they say oh well you were under terrific pressure and you probably had some hallucination you know well he said i am showing those people that so far from having a hallucination those were the few few occasions in which they woke up so you see this is always the opportunity presented by death [Music] that if one can go into death with eyes open and have somebody help you if necessary to give up before you die this extraordinary thing can happen so that from your standpoint in that position at that time you would say i wouldn't have missed that opportunity for the world now i understand why we die the reason we die is to give us the opportunity to understand what life's all about by letting go because then we come to a situation that the ego can't deal with when we are no longer hypnotized by that then our natural consciousness can see clearly what all this universe is for so therefore we have missed this golden opportunity by institutionalizing death out of the way instead of having a socially understood acceptance of death and rejoicing in death now i could imagine that one person would want to rejoice in death in an entirely different way from another like say a wedding is a rite of passage there are certainly some forms of celebrating a wedding which i would find a total bore quite offensive other ways would be very good i would enjoy it so everybody in other words i'm not saying that you've got to get mixed up with a lot of people coming laughing around you and giving you presents and cards and everything because you're going to die but i'm only indicating a general thing that the doctor the the ministers the psychiatrists and above all us really owe it to our friends to work out an entirely new approach to death because what has happened you see from earliest childhood the child learned that great uncle was dying and saw the family put on long faces and say oh that's too bad even christians who think they're going to go to heaven you know they get absolutely morbid more so than anybody else about death because heaven as they all know is a very boring place and so this frightful thing is dead no one understands that for the living to lose someone you love or even for a dying person to worry about what on earth my wife my children my whatever going to do without me [Music] one can understand a certain worry in that [Music] but nobody is indispensable and there comes a point when you have to say i'm sorry but i am completely going to abandon responsibility for anything because there is no further way i can do it this is another way of that surrender and then the curious thing that occurs is the moment all that has dropped suddenly it dawns on you [Music] that to be important existence does not have to go on any longer than a moment quantitative continuity is of no value [Music] how long can you hold your breath who cares so it follows from that you see that if any one of us without being shocked into it by being bombed or put in a concentration camp could at this moment be as one about to die [Music] genuinely and honestly we would understand the mystery of life because death is the in a certain sense the source of life [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so you

Channel: X Techno

Views: 268,550

Keywords: Alan Watts, Chillstep, Philosophy, Music, Ambient Music

Id: Xh5Tc-D8ZYE

Length: 78min 26sec (4706 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 02 2021