Alan Watts's early life - Deepstash
The Philosophy Of Alan Watts

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The Philosophy Of Alan Watts

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Alan Watts's early life

Watt's interest in Eastern philosophy comes from enjoying Chinese and Japanese storybooks in his childhood as well as his attraction to Eastern aesthetics.

He was raised a Christian but found that Christianity's methods of understanding and dealing with life left him unfulfilled and often with more problems than solutions, such as the true nature of the universe, the self, the meaning of life and how to deal with it. He rejected the idea of an authority figure controlling the universe.

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Criticism of Watts's ideas

Criticism of Watts's ideas

For Watts, the ideas he shared were not easy and did not resolve all the challenges of being human. Those who knew him did not find him without struggle, inner conflict or vice.

Yet, his attempts at understanding the spiritual essence are not without value. Perhaps it is not the exact accur...

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Alan Watts

Alan Watts

British American philosopher Alan Watts was born in 1915.

He is known for translating and imparting Eastern philosophy to the Western world. He popularised Buddhist and Zen principles in the West and inspired the beat and hippie movements in the United States during the 60s and 70s, causing...

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Organism environment

Watts defined the term organism-environment not as an organism in an environment, but as an organism and an environment simultaneously.

We are also a feature of the whole, therefore we are the whole.

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Defining success

Defining success

Within the Watson Zen school of thought, success in life is not to change the world or acquire wealth or have the greatest status or power.Β 

The ultimate goal is to become deeply synchronised with nature itself and to realise your behaviour is one with the behaviour of the rest of the world...

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Ideas about humanity

Watts found that the Western world was often obsessed with status, wealth, consumption and success. Yet, even when they achieved success, they still appeared to remain lost and disconnected from themselves, their fellow humans and nature.

Watts thought that the Western religious idea of an ...

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An ego in a bag of skin

Self-identification is mainly regarded as ego. As a result of our ego, we tend to feel as if we are detached from what we are observing. Therefore, if there is an I or Me observing, then my internal must be separate from my external.Β 

Watts refers to this as the sense that we are an ego in ...

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Drawn to Buddhism

Drawn to Buddhism

Watts was drawn further into Buddhism because there is a universal consciousness in Buddhism, where everything is interconnected and interdependent of a singular essence to life that follows its own nature with no boss.

Every object and person is just an expression of this universal nature...

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Looking for a quieter life.

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Alan Watts On The Meaning Of Life

  • More knowledge doesn’t equate with more wisdom, even though that is presumed by most western societies. The universe is not ambitious or with a purpose, but we are blind to that.
  • The meaning of the universe cannot be understood by the intellect, or by breaking down stuff into small...

Philosophy of life

Philosophy of life

A philosophy of life means a mental framework for understanding how the world works and how you fit into it. It would include how you decide what is good and bad, what you mean with "success" and "purpose," whether there is a God, etc.

You may feel that you could summarize ...

How to live one's life

The chief orientation of traditional Chinese philosophy is about how to live one's life instead of finding out the truth about reality.

The well-known question posed by Zhuangzi in the 4th century B.C. - was he Zhuangzi who had dreamt of being...

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