Alan Watts: Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life

Alan Watts via KQED" Eastern Wisdom and Modern Life: S1 E4 - The Void | Remastered

The Happiness Project: Shaolin Kung Fu

Inside the Temple of the Shaolin Warrior Monks

(Project Happiness) In the mystical heart of China, in the legendary Shaolin Buddhist Monastery, the Shaolin kung fu warrior monks train. Shaolin kung fu is a martial art that has become a profound philosophy of life over the centuries, intertwining physical strength, spiritual wisdom, and mental acuity. Under the guidance of the great Shifu [Master] Shi Miao and his top student @Sachka.w, we explores how Shaolin kung fu transforms every aspect of existence, emphasizing strength, inner peace, and wisdom. Observe the daily rituals, challenges, and sacrifices that define the path of a Shaolin warrior. Enjoy watching. 🐉

This is Shifu's website to train with him: shimiaohai.com 🌟 Follow adventures on Instagram.

⚡️PROJECT HAPPINESS TEAM⚡️

• PHOTOGRAPHY and EDITING: Nicola Guaita • EDITING: Gianmarco Garimberti • SOUND DESIGN and MIX: Lorenzo Sattin • SOUND DESIGN: Riccardo De Cillis • ITALIAN VOICEOVER: Gabriele Donolato and Alessandro Fattori • TRANSLATIONS and AI: Fabrizio Chia.
• Download OPERA for free: opr.as/07-Opera-Broweser-Proj...
• The Happiness Project, July 1, 2024; Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu, Seth Auberon, Sheldon S. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

The Real Shaolin Zen Temple of Kung Fu

Soft power is more powerful: martial arts magic

Shaolin: Zen Temple of Kung Fu (documentary)

(The Simpsons) Now listen up, Kids. Kung fu is not just for children. Fat guys can, too.

Magic Mural Meditation (Ekaterina Sky)

We're filming a video in front of the mural, Sunday, 5:30-8:00 pm. Wear white shirt to participate in the filming of a music video for local artist Honore's song "Haven"

This is the actual Altadena Mural we created, but it's horizontal on site.

Impact Artist Ekaterina Sky

Up the mountain that is Lake Avenue in Pasadena into Altadena (north of Colorado Blvd. and over the 134/210 Freeway junction) is a magical mural. We painted it under the visionary direction of Impact Artist Ekaterina Sky (Instagram).

It has a secret purpose. It is a giant golden disc (kasina) surrounded by shooting beams of red, white, and maroon lines that produce a pulsating, stroboscopic effect. One takes a meditative seat in front of it on a yoga mat or towel, under the shade tree of what remains of Oh Happy Days Vegan Cafe and the city's main post office parking lot.

• DIRECTIONS: Travel north on Lake Ave. just past the Grocery Outlet. Turn left on Mendocino St. Turn left down first driveway after Jack in the Box. The mural is on the right behind the former site of the post office.

Don't "try" to try; just do it. It's as easy as that.

Using the brilliant gold disc as a Buddhist kasina (disc) or Vedic Hindu mandala (or yantra-chakra), the lines producing a sensation of entering the disc, blurring then erasing the line between subject and object. It is a kind of nondual (advaita) experience of "oneness" in the sense of a Beholder blending with the Beheld.

Can't "concentrate" (unify the mind, gather the faculties to stay on one thing)? Use binaural beats with headphones while softly viewing the disc and doing nothing else.

I hear Chicago's "Colour My World" when I start to sit

Does the world suck, Winston?

In the West we say, "Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder." And so it is. Or at least it can be. Surely, when we feel happy, the whole world seems sunny and sweet. When we're afraid, it may seem cold and grey, dingy like the world did to Winston Smith in George Orwell's dystopian Nineteen Eighty-Four. Is the world this way or that?

Who knows! It might be a utopia. We never see it objectively; we are always looking at it subjectively. So removing the difference between the two and becoming ONE with it, even for a moment, is very instructive for how the world and our experience of it has really been working.

HEMI SYNC FLOW STATE THETA 4HZ BINAURAL BEATS

The secret to meditative absorption, what the Buddha called jhana (Sanskrit dhyana), which literally translates as "meditation," is happiness. There is no "way to happiness," some wit once said. Why? It is because happiness is the way! Happiness and singlepointed attention on certain objects leads to piti, a blissful welling up of joy from within. It isn't that the world has changed and given us permission to be happy. It is that our cultivated happiness has all of a sudden bloomed and blossomed, sprouted and shot up. It is a kind of rapture, or better to say an effortless effervescence.

If stared at long enough, with a soft focus not tightness, it moves on its own.

Artist a work play.

Recently someone on Wisdom Quarterly called it a very pleasant "body buzz" (Michael Taft). The whole body tingles and seems to levitate or at least become very light when we take ourselves lightly. It IS possible to feel that floaty feeling when we no longer take things so seriously and instead just let them be. That's what McCarthy said to do in that Beatles' song. "Mother Mary [Magdelene] comes to me, speaking words of wisdom: 'Let it be.'"

• I can't "do" it! No, you can't. But it (jhana) can happen when we set up the circumstances for it to arise by itself, like gardening. No one can garden, that is, no one can make a plant grow. But anyone can set up the circumstances for a seed to sprout and a plant to come into being. Bhavana, often translated as "meditation," means "cultivation" and literally "bringing into being." Leigh Brasington tells Dan Harris it's deceptively simple. Stop "doing." Just attend to the object.
• Samadhi is a super-conscious, coherent unification of mind accompanied by profound attention and stillness.

What is the Prayer for the Earth?

However things are, that's okay. Let 'em be. They have to be just as they are because we are allowing not opposing, accepting not fighting, seeing clearly rather than distorting or trying to make them some other way. The Buddha's Path to Freedom, the path to mental purification, starts with this level of absorption that is employed in "clear-seeing" (vipassana). There isn't one or the other; there's both. There is no pyramid peak without a solid foundation.

Oh, I see it now, at my third eye.

Absorption (blissful sustained attention) is that base. The peak is insight, clearly seeing. Vayānupassanā means "contemplation of vanishing" and is one of the 18 chief kinds of insight (vipassāna). So whatever we can do to still the mind and turn it into a laser beam of attention rather than the scattered, weak, diffused, dingy, and easily distracted fluorescence of our dull glow is a good thing to be doing -- Ashtanga (Eight Limbs of Yoga) and the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path.

(Why do they call it "noble"? The word is Aryan, and it literally means "Enlightening," so we should call it the Ennobling Eightfold Path, the practice of which brings us to bodhi and nirvana, awakening and the ultimate truth).

Altered States (trailer)

(Sierra Fotuhi) Who would ever make a song about little ol' Altadena?

We are going to return soon to film a music video with the mural. Then we are going to move it. It's portable. So this free meditation is a limited-time offer. At the next stop it will have its QR code to listen to the prayers embedded behind the gold. Do you know what alta means in Spanish? "High." Not because it's above Pasadena, but because it's a place for a natural altered state.

• (Sleeping on Trees) We create our reality without knowing it
• Dhr. Seven and Ekaterina Sky, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly; Sri Yantra (Pin de Jen Browne |  Arte de la geometría sagrada, Arte fractal)

Jhanas: Leigh Brasington (10% Happier)

The true purpose of yoga is meditation: Meditation Sutra: Sthira Sukham Asanam

Can regular people do jhana meditation? | Leigh Brasington | Ten Percent Happier Podcast-Dan Harris

(10% Happier) What is jhana (Sanskrit dhyana) meditation? And can I do it? [What's the secret to the extent there is one? "Relaxed diligence" or balanced persistence that is happy and not overdoing it: sthira-sukha, "stiff-soft," "effort-ease," "strive-release." Relax.]

Teacher Leigh Brasington

American meditation master Leigh Brasington (LeighB.com, a successful lay student of German Jewish Theravada Buddhist nun Ayya Khema) and the famous Thai Theravada Buddhist monk Ven. Buddhadasa (meditation center: suanmokkh.org). He has been practicing meditation for decades and is one of the most prominent American teachers of the jhanas (meditative absorptions).

Right Concentration: Practical Guide to the Jhanas

The jhanas are a set of altered states of consciousness associated with profound amounts of bliss, glee, joy (piti), happiness (sukha), and ecstasy (rapture).

Entering jhana is done through meditating with intense "concentration" (stillness, focus, sustained attention, singlemindedness), and it's considered a controversial topic by some [misguided thinkers] in the Buddhist world.

Can regular people access the jhanas? Are they even real?

I was really happy then the mind paid attention.

ABOUT: Learn more about Ten Percent Happier podcast at tenpercent.com/podcast. Check out guided meditations alongside practical teachings in the Ten Percent Happier app. Click here [10percenthappier.app.link/ins...] to get started.

• Sthira-Sukha: The Fundamental Paradox of Practice
• Walking Stick Yoga: Danda Pada Yoga or "The Path of the Staff": Dr. Lori Marsh, Yogi Seven (chapter on sthira-sukha)
• Thesis | Own Your Mind (we're on too much dopamine)
• The ultimate purpose of jhana is successful vipassana

Subscribe to watch more Ten Percent Happier videos: tenpercenthappier. Listen to the Full Podcast: link.chtbl.com/Y_729H6p.

Yoga with a staff for better balance and stillness

FOLLOW DAN HARRIS PODCASTS ON SOCIAL Dan Harris on Twitter (danbharris), Instagram (danharris), TikTok (danbharris), Facebook (danharrisabc). FOLLOW TEN PERCENT HAPPIER ON SOCIAL Ten Percent Happier on Facebook (tenpercenthappier), Twitter (10percent), Instagram (tenpercent).

#tenpercenthappier #10percent #danharris #meditation #mentalhealth #mindfulness #dhamma #dharma #podcast #mindfulnessteacher #adults #anxiety #buddha #buddhism #fitness #health #interview #meditate #men #mental #help #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthmatters #mentalhealthtips #mindfulnessmeditation #science #selfawareness #selfhelp #selfhealing #tph #tenpercenthappier #tenpercent #panicattack #panicattackrelief #anxietyrelief #anxietytips

• Alan Watts (bend); Leigh Brasington (leighb.com), Dan Harris (YouTube, Aug. 12, 2023); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Sayalay Aloka and Mom (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Why Zen is the 'easiest' path to satori

Whatcha doin, SpongeBob? - Just sitting. - You mean shikantaza? - Uh, what? I mean, yeah, that.

Why Zen is the EASIEST path to enlightenment (but few understand it)

Can we speed this up? I've got things to do.

(Cinematic Bible Lore) May 16, 2025: 🌿 Is Enlightenment (redefined in Zen as satori or kensho rather than bodhi) really about effort, rituals, or sutra study, or could the simplest path be the most powerful?

⏱️ TIMESTAMPS

• 0:00 What is Zen? [It's not monkey mind]
• 0:45 Bodhidharma: The Origin of Chan
• 2:48 Dōgen Zenji’s awakening
• 4:55 Why zazen is not meditation
• 6:58 Living [in] the present moment
• 8:20 Zen in daily life
• 11:08 How to practice zazen
• 16:41 The power of just sitting
• 18:49 Zen is Now

Don't think, Monkey. Zen mind is beginner's mind

This video dives deeply into the essence of Zen Buddhism — a tradition that goes beyond concepts and leads to direct experience of awakening through simplicity.

Discover the story of Bodhidharma, the teachings of Dōgen Zenji, and why zazen (seated meditation) is not just a technique — but a way of mindfully living in the here and now.

Whether new to Zen or deep in practice, this guide reveals why Zen is the easiest — and most overlooked — path to enlightenment.

🧘 LEARN:

• Why Zen rejects dogma, rituals, and intellectual striving
• The power of zazen: how “just sitting” (shikantaza) becomes awakening
• How Dōgen’s teachings dissolve the illusion of time and ego
• Why the present moment holds everything we seek
• How to bring Zen into daily acts like washing, walking, or breathing

💬 Question: Ever felt fully present — free from discursive thought, self, and striving? Share the experience in the comments.

📺 Explore more: 🎥 The Deepest Teaching of Buddha 🎥 The Secret Behind Zazen Meditation 🎥 Buddhism vs. Zen – What's the real difference?

👉 Like, share, and subscribe to join in weekly journeys through the world’s deepest spiritual traditions. 📌 Hashtags #ZenBuddhism #ZazenMeditation #DogenZenji #SimplePathToEnlightenment #PresentMomentPractice #ZenExplained #Mindfulness

• Cinematic Bible Lore; May 16, 2025; Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

What is Zen Buddhism? Shaolin Temple

What is Zen Buddhism?

Did the great South Indian Buddhist sage Bodhidharma teach Shaolin kung fu to China?

.

Shaolin Monastery training is very severe.

(ReligionForBreakfast) April 24, 2025: [What is "Zen"? It is a Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chan (channa), which itself is the Chinese approximation of the Pali word jhana, which derives from the Sanskrit dhyana.

It refers to "meditative absorption," a profound meditative state of still or samadhi, which used to be misleadingly translated into English as "trance" but would have been better rendered "stillness" or "integrated coherence of mind," an all-one (unified, yogic) state of mind necessary for temporary mental purification that puts one in a position of being ready for sudden understanding, kensho or satori, or "insight" (Pali vipassana).

How do we find "Zen" directly?

(T&H Inspiration and Motivation) Alan Watts on finding Zen

All the Taoist, Brahminical, Shinto, Pure Land, Mahayana, Chinese and Japanese cultural baggage got blended into what we now refer to as "Zen Buddhism." Alan Watts does an excellent job of unpacking Zen at a detailed level. Here RFB does an admirable job of describing more generally the history and frame of what came to be modern Zen.

"If you meet the Buddha (a cult of personality or ultimate authority figure) on the road, [unalive] him" then means that the Truth we seek cannot be found outside ourselves, so the death of the ego is what is needed, the realization that there is, ultimately speaking, no self.]

• 00:00 Intro
• 1:42 The Legendary Origins
• 2:26 Bodhidharma and Buddha Nature
• 5:58 A special transmission outside of scriptures (sutra texts)
• 9:22 Lineage
• 10:13 Sudden Awakening
• 14:45 Zazen explained
• 17:04 Chan (Zen) moves to Japan
• 22:38 Zen Buddhism goes abroad
• Is the Shaolin Monastery a myth?

Use code RFBINCOGNI at the link below to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan: incogni.com/rfbincogni. Join Patreon community: religionforbreakfast. Select imagery/video supplied by Getty Images and Reuters.

• Religion for Breakfast, April 24, 2025; Alan Watts (alanwatts.org) via T&H Inspiration and Motivation; TEXT: Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Why Zen? Alan Watts on experience

Alan Watts, Something's Happening, KPFK.org, March 9, 2025

Zen as Taoism and Mahayana-Hinduism

I'd rather talk about Taoism than Dhamma

The Tao is not Buddhism, but it has been made into Buddhism (at least the version of Buddhism called Zen) by incorporating Taoist philosophy into the Buddhism of Japan, China, Korea, and Vietnam. It is far from the only form of Buddhism, in some ways straying so far from the historical Buddha's Teaching or Dharma that one could call it into question as a syncretism or apocryphal Mahayana doctrine. Who has time for the sutras the Buddha spoke when we can look at koans ("public cases") and puzzle over them to get out of our intellectual minds? They're funnier, more surprising, paradoxical riddles and entertaining stories. We might never learn what the Buddha taught, but hey, come on, life is short, and we have all the time in the world to waste. Plus, Zen looks cool, and that's half the battle right there. We might even get a cool Japanese name. Right, Doggone?

Can I get the name Kwan Chan Kane?

The Japanese term kōan is the Sino-Japanese reading of the Chinese word gong'an (Chinese 公案, pinyin gōng'àn, Wade–Giles kung-an, lit. "public case"). The Zen term is a compound word, consisting of the characters 公 ("public; official; governmental; common; collective; fair; equitable") and 案 ("table; desk, altar; [law] case; record; file; plan; mandate, proposal.") More

It's funny in that, if it leads to a sudden realization (kensho, epiphany, satori), the way a joke is funny because we are led down one road in the setup and down another in the punchline, it's like someone hitting a gong, at least in the sitcom world of our imagination and American TV shows depicting Asian or "Oriental" way of speaking, full of deep wisdom and a sudden change of perspective. For example, Douglas Adams was famous for his ability to turn a phrase, one time depicting the ET character Ford Prefect (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) complaining to the human Arthur Dent:

• FORD: "It feels unpleasantly like being drunk."
• ARTHUR: "Well, what's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
• FORD: "You ask a glass of water."

We thought "drunk" referred to being intoxicated then suddenly find out Ford meant the past tense of drink. This kind of turning led to a whole class of Orientalisms (intended in the pejorative sense of Westerners stereotyping an Asian manner of speaking), leading to a famous class of jokes like:

"Man who fart in church sit in his own pew" where pew is pronounced phew!

This is significant because the Tao is translated as "the Way," but the Buddha taught that "Way" or "Path" was magga, the Noble (Ennobling, Enlightening) Eightfold Path, not following the Tao or "path of least resistance," going with the flow, just doing whatever.

Soto Zen monk in meditation pose

Alan Watts knows that, but do his listeners realize he is most of the time talking about Taoism and Vedic Hinduism rather than what the Buddha taught, for that is what Mahayana concerns itself (the former, not so much the latter). Ask a Mahayana Buddhist what the historical Buddha taught, and they won't know much of anything beyond lists, which they imagine are very rudimentary and obvious, whereas they extol their apocryphal texts as being "the real thing" Siddhartha Gautama meant but never said. The most famous Buddhist sutras are not the Buddha's teaching but derivative works of clever invention: the Heart Sutra, Diamond Sutra, Platform Sutra, Flower Adornment Sūtra, all kinds of nice-sounding Sanskrit texts, leaving to the wayside what the Buddha taught as key to enlightenment and progress in wisdom and compassion. Alan Watts hardly ever mentions Theravada (Pali canon) or Sarvastivada Buddhism, preferring instead the Eastern philosophy of India, China, and Japan. As long as listeners know that, he is a great "philosophical entertainer." If they do not realize that, he must be very confusing.

• Alan Watts - KPFK 90.7 FM
• KPFK 90.7 FM - Listen Live
• Alan Watts (alanwatts.org) via Something's Happening  with Diane Tuckman, RN (KPFK.org, March 9, 2025); Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Intro to Zen, empty mind, how to (video)

Empty the Mind: A powerful Zen story for life

(The Fictionist) Join Akira on a transformative journey as he learns the power of emptying the mind in this Zen story. Overcome worry, embrace mindfulness, and find inner peace.

Zen: An Introduction

Chill out, be cool, and go with the flow.

(Share Ideas) Zen is a form of Mahayana Buddhism that developed in the 7th and 8th centuries in China, when Buddhism arrived from India and interacted with the indigenous Taoist tradition. The word "Zen" reflects this: It is the Japanese way pronouncing the Chinese chan (from channa), which is derived from the Indian Buddhist term jhana, from the Sanskrit dhyana, which originally meant "meditation." So Chan Buddhism or Zen Buddhism literally means a particular school that emphasizes meditation (which originally meant meditative absorption as the central practice). March 4th, 2018.

Video script written by David Loy. Narration by Luke Mullins. Film by Digifish. Websites: David Loy (http://www.davidloy.org/), Luke Mullins (https://voice123.com/profiles/lukemul...), Digifish (http://www.digifish.tv/).

Hindu monk Dandapani: How to control the mind (brainwash yourself) to achieve anything

(Be Inspired) Aug. 7, 2018: Try this for 21 days, and see a huge difference in your life. ►If you struggle and have a hard time, consider taking an online therapy session with partner BetterHelp. http://tryonlinetherapy.com/beinspired, which receives commissions for referrals to BetterHelp. BeInspired only recommends products it knows and trusts. ►Motivational Alarm Tones

An Irish dojo is an emerald zendo in Ireland.

(The Fictionist) May 15, 2023. #ZenStory #EmptyYourMind #findingpeace💡 Catch the latest videos exploring groundbreaking techniques to master the mind and enhance life: How an Introvert Learned from a Zen Master | A Story of YOU. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unfazed_211... TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thefictionist... To read the story: https://thefictionist2116.blogspot.co... Want your videos to look amazing? Use the following video editor: https://www.mvvitrk.com/71fXJa. Image by: https://hannahjanewrites.com/2015/02/... #ZenStory #EmptyYourMind #FindingPeace #OvercomingAnxiety #Mindfulness #SelfDiscovery #InnerPeace #LettingGo #LivinginthePresent #ZenWisdom #FindingClarity #MeditationJourney #TransformYourLife #EmbracingtheMoment #PeacefulExistence