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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.
Watts refers to this as the sense that we are an ego in a bag of skin. But in Zen, Watson's teachings on this concept are incorrect and a source of most of our alienation, anxiety, suffering and subsequent hatred.
According to Zen and Watts, we are none of the things we identify with but are everything and everything in us.
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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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190 reads
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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244 reads
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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143 reads
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.
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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127 reads
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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176 reads
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 w...
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184 reads
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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164 reads
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