In the West we tend to believe “you can't get something for nothing,” but in this program Watts explores the possibility that nothing may be the very basis of something — and uses the example of sounds emerging out of silence to explain what is discovered in Zen practice.
Watch the full 26-minute version of "Nothingness" along with 33 more full videos and over 70 more audio programs with a low-cost subscription to the official Alan Watts streaming platform COMMERCIAL-FREE at play.alanwatts.org. #alanwatts #alanwattsphilosophy #alanwattswisdom
One of the most daring and creative episodes was their trip to India for a wedding, all told backwards.
The show was so about US culture, it featured Nazis sometimes - not Yev "the Soup Nazi" Kassem, a Jewish connoisseur, but the one with George, in a case of mistaken identity, as racist writer O'Brien, and he falls for the devoted blond Nazi bodyguard protecting him: The Limo (lol).
We we're gonna call it Alexander
When it comes to successful American sitcoms (like I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Tyler Moore, etc.), Seinfeld often takes pride of being at the top of the list.
With its unique cast and striking [very Jewish] sense of humor, fans quickly fell in love with a fictionalized version of Jerry Seinfeld and his oddball group of New Yorker friends.
Not only did this series receive a ton of acclaim from critics, but it also worked its way into the foundation of modern pop culture, with many viewers still using these catchphrases today.
What's Seinfeld co-creator Larry David think?
Residuals are great, gave us Veep
One of the things that helped to make this sitcom a hit was the fact that many of the episodes were inspired by true events.
Since writers Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David (Curb Your Enthusiasm) were already household names at this point, they were able to present their hilarious anecdotes in a completely new format.
[It is, after all, "the show about nothing" but petty day-to-day All-American nonsense and our obsession with romantic relationships of all kinds].
Thus, these true-to-life episodes seem to be the sitcom's best selling point for a lot of long-time fans.
If I'm a loser, then why am I rich?
Seinfeld worked to have a lot of subplots in a single episode, ensuring that the jokes could keep on flying out of every angle.
The lasting impact: Festivus
In one episode, Jerry accidentally insults his cousin, Manya, by stating that he hates anyone who had a pony growing up.
Of course, Manya had a pony growing up in Poland and quickly took Jerry's crass comments to heart.
Alongside all of this mini-drama, Kramer sets up a bet that would later lead to his encompassing gambling addiction. This episode was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series.
"Emptiness is not nothing," says Thich Nhat Hanh (Thay) as he talks about shunyata, the impersonal or not-independent nature of all things. He emphasizes the interbeing of all things.
For a thing that is empty, what is it empty of? It is empty of separate existence, which is to say, every dependently originated thing may have the whole cosmos in it other than that thing it seems to be.
For example, in a flower there are only non-flower elements: cloud (rain), mud (minerals), air (nitrogen), space, color, sunshine, fragrance, and so on.
The same is true of bread. In bread there are only non-bread ingredients: plant, cloud, leavening, heat, and so on.
Moreover, in a person, there are only impersonal (empty) elements: the Five Aggregates clung to as a separate "self," as a separate entity, as separate from these five components of which it is comprised. They are devoid of enduring essence.
Western Zen Buddhist Spiritual Entertainer Alan Watts: Emptiness
This emphasis on emptiness (shunyata) and suchness (tathata) is popular in Mahayana Buddhism. But it is made more of in Theravada Buddhism, which speaks ofanatta, "not-self," the impersonal nature of a person, of I, me, or all that is imagined to be mine.
[Aha, wait! Who imagines it to be "mine"? Isn't that the self, the soul, the atta or atman? No, not who but what? Form forms, feeling feels, perception perceives, volition wills, and consciousness is conscious without a true self in there. These are the Five Aggregates we cling to as if they were a self when there are only heaps. There is no homunculus.]
Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva (Kwan Yin)
The historical Buddha (not the Mahayana buddhas/Godslike Amitabha and Vairocana) approached it in this way.
Everything may be empty, but that the viewer, feeler, watcher, experiencer is empty/impersonal, that is the mind blowing thing. That is what differentiates the enlightened from the unenlightened.
One will not win the first stage of enlightenment, called "stream winning," without that essential insight. It is actually what the Heart Sutra (the Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra) is all about.
The Buddha gives many similes in the texts. The aggregates or "heaps" may be compared to an onion, layers of which can be peeled away, and yet no heart will be revealed. The Buddha used the trunk of a banana tree to make this comparison. There is no heartwood in it, only layers, just like the onion.
Although we like to think about it and debate, the realization attributed to Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva (Kwan Yin, Goddess of Compassion) is not won by thinking. It is won by direct realization, the culmination of calm and insight, of deep compassion and systematic mindfulness.
In the fine-material world (see Deva II) the faculties of seeing and hearing, which together with the other sense faculties, are temporarily suspended in the four meditative absorptions (jhanas, zens).
In the immaterial world (see Deva III) there is no corporeality/materiality whatsoever. There are only the four mental aggregates (see "The Five Aggregates clung to as Self" called the khandha) existing there.
Although the term loka is not applied in the sutras to these three spheres, but rather only the term bhava ("existence," e.g., MN 43), there is no doubt that the teaching about the three spheres belongs to the earliest (i.e., the sutra period) Buddhist texts, as many relevant passages show.
In the sutra texts (e.g., D.33, A.IX.24) nine abodes of beings or satta vasa are mentioned. According to the Buddha: "There are, O meditators, nine abodes of beings, namely:
1. "There are beings who are different in body and different in perception (mind), such as human beings, some celestial beings [akasha devas], and some beings living in the world of suffering (vinipātika).
[The "human world" is a plane of existence (loka) not limited to earth. It extends in 10,000 directions to many other places in the universe, wherever there are humanoids.]
2. "There are beings who are different in body but equal in perception, such as the first-born brahmas (a kind of deva) of the Brahma-world (i.e., at the beginning of each new world-formation or great aeon, maha kalpa; see Deva II).
3. "There are beings who are equal in body but different in perception, such as the radiant devas (ābhassara, see Deva II).
4. "There are beings who are equal in body and equal in perception, such as the all-illuminating devas (subha-kinha; see Deva II).
5. "There are beings without perception and feeling, such as the unconscious beings (asañña-satta).
6. "There are beings who -- through the complete overcoming of perceptions of matter (rūpa-sañña), the disappearance of perceptions of sense-reaction (patigha-sañña), and non-attention to perceptions of variety -- by thinking 'Boundless is space' are reborn in the Sphere of Boundless Space (see Deva III; Jhāna 5).
7. "There are beings who -- through the complete overcoming of the Sphere of Boundless Space -- by thinking 'Boundless is consciousness' are reborn in the Sphere of Boundless Consciousness (see Jhāna
6).
8. "There are beings who -- through the complete overcoming of the Sphere of Boundless Consciousness -- by thinking 'Nothing is there' are reborn in the Sphere of Nothingness (see Jhāna 7).
9. "There are beings who -- through the complete overcoming of the Sphere of Nothingness -- are reborn in the Sphere of Neither-Perception-Nor-Non-Perception (see Jhāna 8) (A.IX.24).
Commentary
According to the Commentary to this division of the sutra texts, the partially enlightened beings of the "Pure Abodes" (suddhāvāsa) are not mentioned here because they exist only in those world-periods (aeons, kalpas) in which fully enlightened teaching buddhas appear. Compare with viññāna-tthiti. Source
How do you think about time? Most people experience it as Newton described it -- as something that passes independent of other events, that’s the same for everyone everywhere, and moves in a straight line. Still, others have come to embrace Einstein’s view that time instead forms a matrix with space and acts like a substance in which we are submerged. But author and physicist Carlo Rovelli has an even different approach to time. He’s working on a way to quantify gravity in which time doesn’t exist. He joins Science Friday's Ira Flatow to discuss his theories detailed in his book, The Order of Time. Read excerpt: The Order of Time.
Scattered throughout the Buddhist sutras are references to as many as 31 distinct "planes" or "realms" of existence.
Onto these planes beings are reborn during their long coursing through samsara, the Wheel of Life and Death or literally the "Continued Wandering On [Through Rebirth]."
These realms range from the extraordinarily grim and painful hell realms all the way up to the most exquisitely refined and blissful celestial realms.
Existence in any and every realm is temporary, although the lifespan there may last aeons. In Buddhist cosmology there is no such thing as an eternal heaven or hell.
Beings are reborn into a particular realm according to their karma (actions of thought, speech, deed).
When we pass away, we take rebirth again elsewhere according to the quality of our karma: wholesome actions bring about a desirable rebirth, whereas unwholesome actions lead to an unwanted one. And so the wearisome cycle continues without end [or until enlightenment and final liberation].
The countless worlds in the realms of existence [categorized roughly into 31 varieties] are customarily further divided into three distinct "spheres" (loka), listed here in descending order of refinement:
These realms are accessible to those who have attained at least some level of meditative absorption and who have thereby managed to (temporarily) suppress aversion and ill-will.
The beings here are said to possess extremely refined bodies of pure light.
The highest of these realms, the "Pure Abodes," are accessible only to those who have attained to the third stage of enlightenment or awakening called "non-returning."
The ethereal Fine-Material World and the formless Immaterial World together constitute the "heavens" (sagga) along with the highest of the Sensual Sphere realms.
The Sensual Sphere (kama-loka) consists of 11 realms [including the human world which is much bigger than our minuscule earth] in which experience -- both pleasurable and unpleasant -- is dominated by the five senses.
Seven of these realms are desirable destinations, and include our own human plane as well as several realms occupied by sensual/light body devas (a word that literally means "shining ones").
The lowest realms are the four "bad" or unwanted destinations, which consist of the animal, ghost, titan, and hell realms.
33. Now it so happened that Puck of the Malla clan, a disciple of Alāra Kālama,* was passing by on his way from Kusinārā to Pāvā.
*Alara Kalama was one of the ascetic Siddhartha's teachers before his enlightenment at which time he became the Buddha, the "Awakened One." He taught the Bodhisattva (Buddha-to-be) how to attain the seventh meditative absorption known as the "sphere of nothingness" but could not show him the path to nirvana and final (permanent) liberation.
34. When he saw the Blessed One seated at the foot of a tree, he approached, greeted him, sat respectfully to one side, and said:
"Marvelous it is, venerable sir! Most wonderful it is, O venerable sir, the state of serenity in which abide those who have gone forth from the world [become ascetic renouncing the life of an ordinary layperson].
35. "For at one time, venerable sir, Alara Kalama was on a journey, and he turned aside from the highway and sat down by the wayside at the foot of a tree to pass the heat of the day.
"It came about, venerable sir, that a great number of carts, 500, passed by him one by one. Then, venerable sir, a man following behind the carts approached him and said: 'Sir, did you see a great number of carts that passed?' Alara Kalama answered: 'I did not see them, brother.'
"'But the noise, sir, surely you heard it?' 'I did not hear it, brother.' The man continued: 'Then, sir, perhaps you slept?' 'No, brother, I was not sleeping.' 'Sir, were you conscious?' 'I was, brother.'
"'Then, sir, while conscious and awake you still did not see the great number of carts, 500, that passed you by one after another, nor heard the noise? Sir, your robe is covered with their dust!' Alara Kalama replied, saying: 'So it is, brother.'
36. "To that man, O venerable sir, came the thought: 'Marvelous it is! Most wonderful, indeed, isthe state of serenity in which abide those who have gone forth from the world!' There arose in him great confidence in Alara Kalama, and he went his way."
The Buddhist word we translate as "meditation" is bhavana, "mental development." It literally means "bringing into being, "calling into existence," "producing," "cultivating," "developing." There are two kinds:
the development of tranquillity orserenity by concentration,
the development of wisdom orinsight by mindfulness.
These two important terms, serenity and insight (samatha-vipassanā), are often met with and explained in the sutras as well as the "Higher Teachings."
Serenity is the concentrated, unshaken, peaceful, and therefore undefiled temporary state of mind, whereas insight (vipassanā) is the intuitive penetration of the truth, directly knowing-and-seeing the
Serenity, which is the result of concentration (coherence, collectedness, bringing together) of mind, according to Sankhepavannana (Commentary to Abhidhammattha-sangaha), bestows a threefold blessing:
favorable rebirth
happy present life
purity of mind which is the supporting condition of insight.
Concentration is the indispensable foundation and precondition of insight. This is because it purifies the mind of the Five Hindrances or mental defilements, whereas insight produces the four supra mundane stages of enlightenment (each a path and fruition moment making it eight stages) and deliverance of mind.
The Buddha therefore says: "Develop mental concentration, O meditators, for one who is mentally concentrated sees things according to reality" (S.XXII.5).
And in the Questions of the Greek King Milinda it is said: "Just as when a lit lamp is brought into a dark place, the lamp-light will destroy the darkness and produce and spread the light, just so will insight, once arisen, destroy the darkness of ignorance and produce the light of knowledge."
The Path of Purification (Vis.M. III-XI) gives full directions on how to attain full concentration and the meditative absorptions... More
Deep meditation
"Thunder bolts and lightning are very, very frightening" explains Freddie Mercury (Z).
Sitting in comfortable pose, seeing nimitta (vivid image) at point of concentration.
37. "Now what do you think, Puck? What is more difficult to do, more difficult to meet with -- a person, who while conscious and awake, should not see a great number of carts, even 500, that passes one after another nor hear their noise, or that one conscious and awake, in the midst of a heavy rain, with thunder rolling and crashing and lightning flashing, should neither see it nor hear the noise?"
38. "O, venerable sir, what are 500 carts -- even 600, 700, 800, 900 or 1,000 or even hundreds of thousands of carts -- compared to this?"
39. "Now one time, Puck, I was staying at Atuma and stayed in a barn there. At that time there was a heavy rain, with thunder rolling, lightning flashing, and thunderbolts crashing. Two farmers who were brothers were killed close to the barn, together with four oxen, and a great crowd came forth from Atuma to the spot where they had been killed.
40. "Now at that time, Puck, I had come out of the barn and was walking up and down [walking meditation for exercise] in thought before the door. And a certain man from the great crowd approached me, greeted me, and respectfully stood at one side.
41. "I asked him: 'Why, brother, has this great crowd gathered?' He answered me: 'Just now, venerable sir, there was a heavy rain, with thunder rolling, lightning flashing, and thunderbolts crashing. Two farmers who were brothers were killed close by, together with four oxen. It is because of this that the great crowd has gathered. Where, venerable sir, were you?'
"'I was here, brother.' 'Yet, venerable sir, did you not see it?' 'I did not see it, brother.' 'But the noise, venerable sir, you surely heard?' 'I did not hear it, brother.' Then he asked me: 'Then, venerable sir, perhaps you slept?'
"'No, brother, I was not sleeping.' 'Then, venerable sir, you were conscious?' 'I was, brother.' That man continued: 'Then, venerable sir, while conscious and awake, in the midst of a heavy rain, with thunder rolling, lightning flashing, and thunderbolts crashing, you neither saw it nor heard the noise?' And I answered him: 'I did not, brother.'
42. "To that man, Puck, came the thought: 'Marvellous it is! Most wonderful, indeed, it is the state of serenity within which abide those who have gone forth from the world!' And there arose in him great confidence in me, and he saluted me, and respectfully keeping his right side towards me, he went his way."
Puck's confidence
43. When this was said, Puck of the Malla clan said to the Blessed One: "The confidence, venerable sir, that I had in Alara Kalama I now scatter to the mighty wind. I let it be carried away as by a flowing stream! Excellent, O venerable sir! Most excellent, O venerable sir!
"Venerable sir, it is as if one were to set upright what had been overthrown, or to reveal what had been hidden, or to show the path to one who had gone astray, or to light a lamp in the darkness so that those having eyes might see -- even so has the Blessed One set forth the Dharma in many ways.
"And so, O venerable sir, I go for guidance to the Blessed One, to the Dharma, and to the Sangha. May the Blessed One accept me as a disciple, one who has gone for guidance until the end of life."
44. Then Puck of the Malla clan spoke to a certain man, saying: "Friend, bring me at once two sets of golden-hued robes, burnished and ready for wear." The man answered, "So be it, sir."
45. When the robes were brought, Puck of the Malla clan offered them to the Blessed One, saying: "May the Blessed One, O venerable sir, out of compassion, accept this from me." And the Blessed One said, "Robe me, then in one, Puck, and in the other robe Ananda."
"So be it, venerable sir." He thereupon robed the Blessed One in one and in the other robed Ven. Ananda.
46. Then the Blessed One instructed Puck of the Malla clan in the Dharma: He roused, edified, and gladdened him. And after that, Puck rose from his seat, respectfully saluted the Blessed One, and keeping his right side towards him, went his way.
47. Soon after Puck of the Malla clan had departed, Ven. Ananda arranged the set of golden-hued robes, burnished and ready for wear, about the body of the Blessed One. But when the set of robes was arranged upon the body of the Blessed One, it became as though faded, and its splendor dimmed.
48. Ven. Ananda said to the Blessed One: "Marvelous it is, O venerable sir! Most wonderful, indeed, it is how clear and radiant the skin of the Wayfarer appears! This set of golden-hued robes, burnished and ready for wear, venerable sir, now that it is arranged upon the body of the Blessed One seems to have become faded, its splendor dimmed."
49. "It is so, Ananda. There are two occasions, Ananda, when the skin of the Wayfarer appears exceedingly clear and radiant. What are the two?
The Buddha walks on (dreamstime.com)
Ananda, they are the night when the Wayfarer becomes fully enlightened in unsurpassed, supreme enlightenment and the night when the Wayfarer comes to his final passing away into the state of nirvana with no element of clinging remaining.
These, Ananda, are the two occasions on which the skin of the Wayfarer appears exceedingly clear and radiant.
50. "And now today, in the last watch of this very night, Ananda, in the Mallas' Sal Grove, in the vicinity of Kusinara, between two sal trees, the Wayfarer will come to his final nirvana. So now, Ananda, let us go to the Kakuttha River."
51. Clad in Puck's gift, the golden robes, the Teacher's form was radiant to behold.More
Encouragingor praising suicide, war, abortion...is the karma of "killing." Ask Carter.
Nothing Higher to Live For: A Buddhist View of Romantic Love
Ven. Nyanasobhano (formerly Leonard Price)
Wisdom Quarterly tackles tough topics.
Practically nobody questions the supremacy of romantic love, which is good enough reason to do a little poking around the foundations of its pedestal. Who is entirely satisfied with the romance in his or her life?
Who has found the sublime rapture previously imagined? And if one has actually found such a thing, does it last, or does it not rather change and decline from the peak of ecstasy? And if it declines what becomes of one's purpose in life? If a purpose is achieved it is no longer a purpose; it can no longer guide or sustain us. Does one taste of nectar satisfy us forever?
When we tire of crass, material goals we may go searching for love instead of, say, religious insight, because love seems both more accessible and more urgent and because so much of institutional religion in our time has degenerated into insipid humanism.
Some claim refuge here but many more, longing for authentic and moving experience, turn to the vision of the "lover," that source of wonder, joy, and transcendence, who it is thought must be pursued and if captured perfected and if perfected then enjoyed forever -- or until some other lover lights up the horizon.
If you loved him/her you'd "prove" it?
Love is its own justification, especially for the young who have no other inspiration or no career or responsibilities to dull themselves with as their plodding elders do. Longing bursts through this one channel that seems open, dizzily insisting that the life of unreflecting passion is the highest they can aspire to. They do not reason, but fall.
Their elders do reason -- obsessively -- but fall all the same, thereby admitting that, with all their thought and experience, they find, when driven to extremity, they have nothing but love to live for.
Who should you date, a cub or a cougar?
This is not to say that such a surrender must be bad, only that it happens out of instinct and uninformed passion. Love is sweet and it is our nature to give way. But why do we worship it so ardently, and why do we break off our search for fulfillment here? Perhaps because we see no other gods [Kama Deva, "Cupid," Lucifer as Tempter figure in Christianity, slick Mara in Buddhism].
Yet, if love is the highest thing to live for then this is a hopeless universe, because we should see in a calm hour that Cupid's arrows not only thrill us but make us bleed.
Gays on morning drive L.A.radio, KROQ
"Man Kills Estranged Lover Then Self.""Wife Stabs Husband in Domestic Quarrel." "Love Triangle Leads To Shooting." So read the headlines with depressing regularity. The stories behind these are only the most shocking of countless tales of passion, but they do forcefully suggest that romantic love is not always a blessing.
One might object that hate, not love, spawns such tragedies, but where has such hate come from if not from a prior attachment now broken? We should know from experience how easily what we call love can turn to bitterness, jealousy, and malice, and though we protest that this is not the fault of love, we ought to notice that where one passion arises another is likely to follow. Passions are unreliable, volatile, dangerous, and a poor foundation for happiness.
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Beauty and supreme songstress Lana Del Rey obsessed withdysfunctional relationships.
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Divorces, suicides, dissipation, violence, depravity, fanaticism, and other miseries great and small follow from passion, and yet passion is still, in the public mind, considered commendable, a mark of vigor and liveliness.
Though everybody will admit that passion gone awry is dangerous, few realize that passion is by its nature likely to go awry. Romantic love is a chancy passion that may result in the opposite of what is desired. It may have happy consequences, too -- else it would not have so many votaries -- but it raises the stakes in the gamble of life and makes us more vulnerable both to our own weaknesses and to unpredictable fortune.
As most of us count the joys of successful love (however we define success) worth the pain involved in its pursuit, we must learn to step lightly and with intelligence.
No demonstrators gather for dumb b/f killer.
We believe, with some reason, that love can ennoble and redeem us and call forth our purest energies, but we are slower to see that when the lamp of love flickers out, as it tragically tends to do, we might lose our way in a fearful labyrinth of suffering.
Granted that few will shun the pursuit of romance out of fear of unhappy consequences...More
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One of the most daring and creative episodes was their trip to India for a wedding, all told backwards.
Existence in any and every realm is temporary, although the lifespan there may last aeons. In Buddhist cosmology there is no such thing as an eternal heaven or hell.
