Alan Watts on yoga and non-thinking (audio)

Oh, how to herd this wayward ox?

The great British Californian Alan Watts, Zen explainer with an irreducible element of rascality intact, discusses the various forms of yoga ("union"), karma ("action"), and approaches to advancing spiritually by abandoning discursive thinking as a crutch to attempt to comprehend the subject-object distinction. Suddenly, many problems cease when we cease to cling to notions of self. If this is me, these are my boundaries, this is myself, then I am acted upon by the universe, the actor, the doer, the decider. But it is not that way. We act, and there is only the universe. All else is a convenient illusion. But if not thinking, then what? Direct knowing, direct seeing, direct experience of what (really) is rather than all that is constantly imagined by restless and redundant thinking.

Are we interdependent with our environment?

• FULL AUDIO: Alan Watts - KPFK 90.7 FM
• Buddhist Radio, Los Angeles: Pacifica Online Archives - KPFK 90.7 FM, 8:00 am, Sundays
• Daily Schedule, KPFK, Los Angeles 90.7 FM
• Something's Happening in Memory of Roy of Hollywood (kpfk.org, 8/11/24); Eds., Wisdom Quarterly