Alan Watts’ Take On Buddhism

• Modern society has been described as the Age of Noise, and an Organized Lovelessness.
• Advertising is revealed to be an organized effort to extend and intensify craving.
• People in the modern age worship progress, technology, and their nation-state, all of which can be described as a 'religion'.
• The dogma of such religions was profoundly criticized in the classic books, while paving the way towards newer ways to find God, like meditation.

The Author and Philosopher's fresh take on religion, shaping it as an 'empirical spirituality' was a huge influence in the 1960s and which has since then led to more people (now 27% in the US) being 'Spiritual but not Religious'

Aldous Huxley was heavily criticized after his death by newer philosophers who didn't subscribe to the Perennial Philosophy.

While the author insisted that the ultimate mystical experience is the moment of pure oneness with God where the concepts of 'I', language, image and culture are dissolved, his critics argued that all religions are true and some of them are truer than the others.

One of the critics states that human beings construct reality using their bodies, rituals, words, actions and cultures.

"Understanding someone’s suffering is the best gift you can give another person. Understanding is love’s other name. If you don’t understand, you can’t love."  - Thich Nhat Hanh

"… The most precious inheritance that parents can give their children is their own happiness. Our parents may be able to leave us money, houses, and land, but they may not be happy people. If we have happy parents, we have received the richest inheritance of all."  - Thich Nhat Hanh

• Satori, enlightenment, is not a sudden complete awakening, it is the sudden and intuitive way of seeing into anything. The satori is not a feeling of relaxation, though, it is letting go but not feeling it.
• The koan is a way of stressing the mind into having to relax and release itself. Like increasing muscular tension to give yourself a feeling of what not to do. 

Zen spirituality is to be in the moment and do only what you are doing without giving in to fleeting thoughts.

When a human is so self-controlled, that he cannot let go of himself, he dithers or wobbles between opposites. The effort to remain “good” or “happy” necessitates such strenuous balancing that it will surely induce mania and anxiety.

Chaos is the natural state of the universe. There are more ways things can go wrong than ways things can go right. But chaos is a potential threat and that’s why we like orderly and ordering things.

Understand that there will always be problems in your life. Don’t expect to solve every problem or to always do the right thing. Simply do the best in your power, but don’t try so hard that you create more problems than solve.

Meditation is a place to view consciousness in its entirety, to see problems as they arise, and to watch them pass. Through it, is easier to see that all those who do bad things, small or big, are like ourselves except in different stages of development.

Knowing that and that we all need to minimize problems, achieve our desires and cooperate makes it easier to accept and deal with things as they come.

It's essentially a state of being at peace with your own thoughts, and being self-aware of your place within the universe, inconsequential (and simultaneously essential).

The word Zen is both the acceptance of everything and nothing, the realization that Zen encompasses and is encompassed by everything. It also centers on a relationship with your own mind, and a higher, undefined entity outside of yourself.

The most common ways are sitting meditation (Zazen) and walking meditation (Kinhin), where direct noninteractive observation of breath and mind is practiced. The ideal scenario is to clear your mind and allow thoughts to organically rise and fall, without interacting or affecting them in any way.

There are also group sessions of intense meditation, often taking up to a week of silent, disciplined focus, interrupted only by short periods of sleep. Other forms of practice include the use of koans (stories practitioners meditate on), and Zen chanting (repetition of sutras followed by silent meditation on them).

When you hit burnout, you become numb to the world; it’s difficult to feel joy and gratitude, which is what keeps you fueled in the face of challenges. So recovery means getting adequate rest and reestablishing joy to your life.

While recovering do things that make you happy, rather than things that lead to a sense of achievement. The former feeds your soul and the latter your ego. Also, get an accountability partner to encourage you to follow your impulses and do what makes you feel alive.

Rewiring your brain, new neural pathways are formed to replace old habits of thinking. This phase is critical, because thoughts lead to emotions, which lead to behavior. To do that:

• Keep a daily journal or meditate. Notice the repeating thoughts, especially the ones that feel heavy and make you anxious.
• Daily, at the end of the day, list 10 things you’re grateful for. Gratitude can quickly shift your internal world.
• Let go of your victim story. Remind yourself that you no longer want to be a victim.
• Choose and test your beliefs daily.
• Believe in something bigger than yourself. Faith in a higher power can be the antidote to two symptoms of burnout — helplessness and hopelessness.

It cannot be acquired by pleasurable experiences but only by identifying and realizing our own potential, moral and creative, in our specific environments, with our particular family, friends and colleagues, and helping others to do so. 

• “Zen” is a shorthand for Zen Buddhism, introduced into China in the 6th century, and emphasizes enlightenment for the student by the most direct possible means.
• Zen is a path to fully awaken to your original nature, which is present at all times.
• The word Zen comes from the Chinese word “chán” and the Sanskrit word “dhyana, ” which means “meditation. ”
• A Zen mind cannot be understood from the perspective of our ordinary, dualistic mind.
• Zen practice may calm our minds, bring more clarity, and infuse us with greater kindness.

“Zen mind is one of those enigmatic phrases used by Zen teachers to make you notice yourself, to go beyond the words and wonder what your own mind and being are. This is the purpose of all Zen teaching—to make you wonder and to answer that wondering with the deepest expression of your own nature.”

• He wasn't a master of any standard form of martial arts. He was closest in mastering Wing Chun.
• He invented his own style of martial arts. He based his style on the teaching of Man and what he learned of Wing Chun. He called his style Jeet Kune Do "the style of no style"
• He starred in 20 films in Hong Kong before the age of 18.
• He popularized the "1 Inch Punch" as seen in Kill Bill Vol. 2
• He was a prolific poet and philosopher. He studied poetry and philosophy in school and was even published several times.
• He was so fast, his moves were often too fast for a camera to catch.
• He only made 5 feature films in the US, his last released posthumously.