When Life Changes, Stop Clinging To It - Alan Watts On The Philosophy Of Yūgen

you must understand the idea of the world as being in flux I gave you the Sanskrit word dukha the sense of frustration Luka really arises from a person's failure to accept the other two characteristics lack of permanent self and change the feeling that we have of an enduring organism I meet you today and I see you and then tomorrow I meet you again and you look pretty much as you looked yesterday and so I consider that you're the same person but you aren't not really when I watch a whirlpool in a stream here's the stream flowing along and there's always a Whirlpool like the one at Niagara but that whirlpool never never really holds any water the water is all the time rushing through it in the same way a university the University of California what is it the students change at least every four years faculty changes at a somewhat slower rate the building changes they knock them down put up new ones the administration changes so what is the University of California it's a pattern a doing of a particular kind and so in just precisely that way every one of us is a whirlpool in the tired of existence and we are in every cell in our body every molecule every atom is in constant flux and nothing can be pinned down from one point of view change is just too bad everything flows away and there's a kind of sadness in that a kind of nostalgia and there may be even a rage go not gently into that good night but rage rage of the dying of the light if you resist change you have dukkha you have frustration and suffering but on the other hand if you understand change you don't cling to it and you let it flow then it's no problem it becomes positively beautiful which is why in poetry the theme of the Evanescence of the world is beautiful when Shelly says the one Remains the many change and pass Heaven's light forever shines Earth's shadows fly life like a dome of many colored glass stains the white Radiance of Eternity until death shatters it to fragments now what's beautiful in that is it Heaven's light that shines forever or is it rather the Dome of many colored glass but shatters see it's always the image of change that really makes the poem the fact that things are always running out the things are always disappearing has some hidden Marvel in it the Japanese have a word you again y-u-g-e-n which has no English equivalent whatsoever and you again is in a way digging change it's described poetically you have the feeling of you again when you see out in the distant water some ships hidden behind the far-off island [Music] you have the feeling of you again when you watch wild geese suddenly seen and then lost in the clouds you have the feeling of you again when you look across Mount Tamil pies and you've never been to the other side and you see the the sky Beyond [Music] you don't go over there to look and see what's on the other side that wouldn't be you again you let the other side be the other side and it evokes something in your imagination but you don't attempt to Define it to pin it down you can so in the same way the coming and going of things in the world is marvelous they go where do they go don't answer because that would spoil the mystery they vanish into the mystery but if you try to pursue them you've destroyed you again like I remember when I was almost a child in the Pyrenees in the southwest of France we went way up in this gorgeous Silence of the mountains but in the distance we could hear the bells on the cows clanking and somehow those tiny sounds brought out the silence and so in the same way slight permanences bring out change life is life you see because just because it's always disappearing [Music] supposing Suddenly by some kind of diabolical magic I could say zit and every one of you would stay the same age forever you'll be like Madame Tussauds Wax works you'd be awful in a thousand years from now what beautiful hags you would be [Music] so the trouble is that we have one-sided Minds and we notice the wave of life when it is at its peak or crest we don't notice it when it's at the trough not in the ordinary way it's the Peaks that count take a buzzsaw what seems important to us is the tips of the teeth they seem to do the cutting not The Valleys between the teeth but do you see you couldn't have tips of teeth without Valance between them therefore the soul wouldn't cut without both tips and v-shaped valleys but we ignore that we don't notice the valid so much as we notice the mountains valleys Point down mountains point up and we prefer things that point up because up is good and down is bad but seriously we don't praise the peaks of being high and blame The Valleys for being low but it is so you see that we ignore the valley aspect of things and so all wisdom Begins by emphasizing the valley aspect as distinct from the peak aspect we pay plenty of attention to the peak aspect that's what captures our attention but we somehow screen out the valley aspect [Music] but that makes us very uncomfortable it seems that we want and get pleasure from looking at the Peaks but actually this denies our pleasure because secretly we know that every Peak is followed by a valley the Valley of the shadow of death and we are always afraid because we are not used to looking at values because we're not used to living with them they represent to us a strange and threatening unknown maybe we are afraid the principle of the valley will conquer and the Peaks will be overwhelmed maybe death is stronger than life because life always seems to require an effort death is something into which you slide effortlessly Maybe nothing will overcome something in the end wouldn't that be awful and so we resist the change ignorant of the fact that change is life and that nothing is invariably the obverse phase of something so space night death Darkness not being there is an essential component of being there that's the way being is made up

Channel: T&H - Inspiration & Motivation

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Id: RoCxybz9GAs

Length: 10min 29sec (629 seconds)

Published: Tue May 30 2023