Alan Watts - Death (HD)

I I have a friend a girl who's very intelligent and articulate and she was born blind and she hasn't the faintest idea what darkness is the word that means is little to her as the word light so if you went to sleep you're not aware of darkness when you're asleep and so if you went into sleep into unconsciousness for always and always and always it wouldn't be at all like going into the dark it wouldn't be at all like being buried alive it would be as if as a matter of fact you had never existed at all not only you but everything else as well you would be in that state as if you had never been and there of course there would be no problems there would be no one to regret the loss of anything you couldn't even call it a tragedy because there would be no one to experience it as a tragedy it would be simple nothing at all for ever and for never because not only would you have no future you would also have no past and no present now you would think that that was the point where we'd say well let's talk about something else but I'm not content with that I demur because this makes me think of two other things this state of nothingness makes me think first of all if they're the only thing I get anywhere in my experience that's close to nothingness is the way my head looks to my eyes because I seem to feel that there is a world out there as it were confronting my eyes and then behind my eyes there isn't a black spot there isn't even a hazy spot there's nothing at all I'm not aware of my head as it were as a black hole in the middle of all this luminous visual experience it doesn't even have very clear edges because the field of vision isn't open and if I run my fingers along my field of vision it's like this and this is the point where my fingers just disappear from sight they edged but then behind this oval revision there is nothing at all just from the sense of sight because if I use my fingers and touch I can feel something behind my eyes but if I use the sense of sight alone there's just nothing there at all now nevertheless out of that blankness I see well that's the first thing it makes me think of now the next thing it makes me think of is this if when I'm dead I am as if I never had been then that's the way I was before I was born because just as if I try to go back behind my eyes and find what is there I come to a blank if I try to remember back and back and back and back I've got my earliest memories and then behind them nothing total blank but just as I know there's something behind my eyes by using my fingers on my head so I know through other sources of information that before I was born there was something going on there were my father and my mother and their fathers and mothers and the whole material environment of the earth in its life out of which they came and behind that the solar system and behind that the galaxy and behind that all the galaxies and behind that another black space

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Views: 1,087,550

Rating: 4.9500704 out of 5

Keywords: alan watts, zen, buddhist, nothingness, nothing, universe, death, Light, Yoga, Meditation, Guru, world, stars, galaxy, after life, cease, Star, After, Before, All

Id: giZN0ZuDERY

Length: 5min 8sec (308 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 04 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Embrace your discomfort

[u/ChiveNation_12]

Can I watch without sound?

[u/gwdope]

You have just been confronted with mortality, striped of superstition and obfuscation.

[u/[deleted]]

This is all fine with me.

[u/2midgetsinaduster]

It's simple and makes sense and it's all quite comforting, I think.

[u/mrtest001]

Everything was blank, then you were born and started experiencing the world, then you die and it's blank. So why wouldn't "you" or whatever it is that experiences the world, be born again and start experiencing the world again? It happened once, you are proof - so why is the limit 1? Now you could have been born into dire circumstances, and some of us are - so what if we worked to rid the world of dire circumstances, because you are ensuring your next iteration the increase in chance of an enjoyable stay.

That's why it makes little sense for the rich and powerful to concentrate that wealth into their families. Well, if you want to be greedy, fine - but the ultimate act of greediness is to ensure your own enjoyment of life. So it makes sense that before you die, you start preparing the world to be as cushy as possible for your next visit. Spread the wealth and power in a way to reduce pain and suffering in the world. You really will live in the world that you leave behind.