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alan watts
September 2009 
No More Dreams
Posted on Jun 22nd, 2009
by 
Praveer
Praveer
"I know the Jungians won't like that, but there comes a time when you just dream yourself out, and no more dreams. You sleep deeply and breathe from your heels." Alan Watts
Alan Watts
"Now then, if one must try to say something about what Zen is, and I want to do this by way of introduction, I must make it emphatic that Zen, in its essence, is not a doctrine. There's nothing you're supposed to believe in. It's not a philosophy in our sense, that is to say a set of ideas, an intellectual net in which one tries to catch the fish of reality. Actually, the fish of reality is more like water--it always slips through the net. And in water you know when you get into it there's nothing to hang on to. All this universe is like water; it is fluid, it is transient, it is changing. And when you're thrown into the water after being accustomed to living on the dry land, you're not used to the idea of swimming. You try to stand on the water, you try to catch hold of it, and as a result you drown. The only way to survive in the water, and this refers particularly to the waters of modern philosophical confusion, where God is dead, metaphysical propositions are meaningless, and there's really nothing to hang on to, because we're all just falling apart. And the only thing to do under those circumstances is to learn how to swim. And to swim, you relax, you let go, you give yourself to the water, and you have to know how to breathe in the right way. And then you find that the water holds you up; indeed, in a certain way you become the water."
Scribbled down by : Alan Seaver
The complete text here, if you're on Facebook, otherwise, you'll need to Google it.
Access: PublicTagged with: Zen, Alan Watts
great read, thanks for posting.
First off, I have had a major crush on Alan Watts since I was a teenager. Just saying.
Second, the swimming thing is such an interesting analogy. I can't even remember learning to swim - I grew up on Lake Michigan and in one of her many attempts to kill me off my mother used to send me off with people to go hang out at the beach. You know, the beach with the drop offs and the undertow. But I learned to swim kind of like learning to walk only not so efficiently. I doubt I would be likely to drown, but no one will ever want me on their swim team because I made it all up as I went and I'm not a competent swimmer. At all.
I wonder what that says about my relationship with god and godlessness? Probably an accurate metaphor, just a place where I flail around…
Hi both, I've been away for a while, something called 'tynt' kept hanging my computer when I tried to access gaia till I mentioned it to Matthew, who mentioned it to a couple of others and now I'm back and 'tynt', hopefully has been dynamited. Also, I've switched to Safari which seems to access gaia much more easily than FF. What a relief. Facebook is okay, but gaia is home.
Thanks for visiting Samme.
And Jeannie, I fell for Alan Watts too, the moment I heard what he had to say in 'This Is It!'
'Flailing around' describes most of last year and this one too for me. Actually, most of my life, why am I kidding myself. And I like it. Life is uncertain. There are formulas for dealing with stuff, but when I actually pay attention to the debris in my life and decide to just pay attention to it, acknowledge its presence instead of shifting around all night like the princess with a pea in her bed - oh, that's the moment when I surrender! That's when I get to swim - I'm mixing metaphors - and play with the elements of the debris. And that's the place where it all gets born for me. Am I doing it well? Badly? Who cares - I invented, or discovered or shed a light on a pathway by just being with the pain and the fear and going beyond, just to see what is there, and experience it!
I should actually get down to specifics of the debris but I'm sleepy now - off to breathe through my heels!
I'm so happy I'm a Water Sign…I TOTALLY get this. LOL :-P
Thank You, Praveer~~<3
I love Zen. Tink, I had a crush on Watts too. I went through my Beatnik phase, fueled by articles in Playboy magazine back in the late 50's. Maybe that's why I evolved into Zen today. Thanks Praveer for this lovely little piece that rings so true and just fills me up - there's a way to be that involves letting go that has to be discovered and accepted, almost like a new reality. Somewhere — where you trust yourself and the moment and it's all ok right now and you just breathe. I loved this piece first thing this morning. I feel its power.
You're welcome, Pam and Mimi
Playboy, huh? Come to think of it, that magazine really had some good pieces in it aside from girly pix.
uh huh. Everyone reads playboy for the articles…
Strangest thing, though. I remember some great interviews, analyses, and articles in there even after all these years (last playboy I read must have been 20 years ago)- Milton Friedman, Woody Allen, Tricky Dicky, Golda Meier, Keith Richards… But the women? Uh huh - cant' remember a single photo! Maybe I'm weird, maybe it was like being hit by a truck - “Did you get her number?” uhh - nope!” Too much of a good thing?
ROTFLMAO…there just wasn't a good Men's Magazine back then…how else to get men to read? Men are visual first LOL :-D