Inviting listeners to question the nature of reality, consciousness, and perception, Alan Watts explores the limits of what the mind can truly know.

This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.

Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self.

This time on Being in the Way, Alan Watts explains:

• Solipsism and how it subtly shapes modern human consciousness
• The philosophical case for idealism and the nature of reality as mind-dependent
• Relativity and how things exist for the purpose of other things
• The mind as a mirror and the illusion of an objective, external viewpoint
• Considering how the spiritual world affects the material world
• The enduring philosophical question: What exists when no one is observing?
• The Four Buddhist Inconceivables and the limits of conceptual thought

"Being is always being for something; it is, in other words, relational. The sun is light for eyes. Eyes are organs of vision for a mind. If there are no eyes, the sun gives forth no light. If there are no nerve ends it gives forth no heat. If there are no muscles, nothing is heavy.” –Alan Watts

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In this new, technological age, Alan Watts explains how seeing reality via only one perspective can lead to a fragmented view of the world; instead, he encourages listeners to adopt both the analytical and the organic. 

This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.

Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self.

In this episode, Alan Watts dives into:

• Living in an age of technology in a culture obsessed with rational control 
• How someone can easily be obstructed by their own cautiousness
• The problem of human ecology and how one should best relate to their environment
• Considering what our idea of heaven is and what desires we truly want 
• The western model of the universe (intellectual, architectural, mechanical) 
• Reductive thinking: seeing  the world through a net and making everything into a comprehensible, geometrical unit
• The fundamental difference between a mechanism and an organism 
• How understanding the world through only conscious attention can lead to seeing everything as parts rather than the whole picture
• Combining the academic, analytical mind with the organic, ‘gooey’ mind 

“Go to the science of medicine. You get a specialist who really understands the function of the gall bladder. He studied gall bladders ad infinitum, and he really thinks he knows all about it. But, whenever he looks at a human being, he sees them in terms of the gall bladder.” – Alan Watts

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Diving into the cosmic drama of reality, Alan Watts describes the world as a divine dream which is poetic, playful, and only sometimes serious.

Being in the Way is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.

On this episode of Being in the Way, Alan Watts:

• Exploring how we get caught in the cosmic game and drama of life
• Seeing the universe as the playful expression of divine energy
• Questioning identity: the tension between acting and simply being.
• Confronting the spiritual taboo of realizing the self as God—tat tvam asi.
• Indirect awareness of the networks and systems in the physical world 
• Music and the pure delight in complex orders of sound
• Embracing the paradox of existence as poetic, musical, and playful, while still being serious.
• Considering all of the senses as forms of one, larger sense of touch
• The oneness of up and down, black and white, being and non-being 
• Complexities of human culture that arise out of duality 

Today's podcast is sponsored by Betterhelp & Dharma Seed:

Being in the Way is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self.

Join Krishna Das, the most well-known voice of Bhakti chanting (Kirtan) in the West, and David Nichtern - a senior Buddhist teacher, founder of Dharma Moon, guitarist in Krishna Das’ band, and producer of several of his albums - for a warm and engaging conversation about these two paths, their shared roots, and how they intersect in contemporary spiritual practice. Learn more about this FREE online gathering - THE HEART & MIND OF PRACTICE: BUDDHISM & BHAKTI

"The real taboo is 'that art thou'. You, lurking behind the mask of being an impermanent human person, are really responsible for the whole thing. If anybody claims that in our culture, we put them straight away into an asylum. That is the very hallmark of insanity. But, in India, if someone suddenly wakes up one morning and says 'My goodness, I'm God', everybody says, instead of you're crazy or blasphemous, they say 'Congratulations, at last you've found out'". – Alan Watts

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Breaking free from cause-and-effect and the formal ideas of Confucianism, Alan Watts describes mutual arising as the key idea of the Tao.

Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self.

This time on Being in the Way, Alan Watts describes:

• Chinese philosophies of Taoism and Confucianism
• Our roles in social life and Confucianism as the way for people involved in the world
• Taoism as the way for those who do not prescribe to formal patterns
• How the Taoist goes with nature rather than against nature
• Ideologies of God as a ruler or a lord versus the Taoist perspective
• Experiences in terms of their polar experience (loud vs. soft)
• Mutual arising as they key idea of the Tao
• Man as being within nature rather than dominating it
• How Taoism gets rid of karma without challenging it
• The Chinese philosophy of time
• Sensing the flow of the present and flow of the Tao

This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.

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Re-familiarizing us with Zen traditions, Alan Watts inspires listeners to move beyond going through the motions of practice.

Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self.

In this episode of Being in the Way, Alan Watts explains:

• Our lack of awareness of the basic structure of the world
• The world itself as meaningless (non-symbolic)
• Realizing fundamental energy and Zen as the religion of no religion
• The metaphysical in terms of the everyday
• The composition of Zen practice
• How westerners are bothered by ritual and splendor
• How Buddhism has degenerated over the years
• A re-familiarization with Buddhism for modernity

This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.

“There is this tremendous problem, unless the Buddhist tradition is to go down the drain completely, of re-familiarizing the Japanese with what it’s all about. Over the years it has degenerated into going through the motions and into being something which is just a kind of magic.” – Alan Watts

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Focusing on cosmic balance, Alan Watts outlines the fundamentals of Taoism and how to skillfully interfere with our environment.

Find the full Zen and the Art of the Controlled Accident series of talks at play.alanwatts.org.

Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self.

This time on Being in the Way, Alan Watts shares a lecture on:

• The philosophy of Taoism
• Taoism as the flow of things / the course of nature
• The pervasive illusion of separateness and seeing it within our language
• How we only experience the world bit-by-bit
• A transformation of our everyday consciousness into oneness
• How we are all indestructible beyond the ego
• Life as a game of yin and yang, crests and troughs
• The fundamental idea of mutual arising
• How everything we do interferes with our environment
• Learning how to interfere skillfully

This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.

“We are not ordinarily aware of how we’re aware, and as a result of that, we don’t understand our connection with the world, and we don’t understand what our real self is. We get anxious; we’re afraid that death may be the end of us. This is, of course, the purest superstition, because everybody is indestructible.” – Alan Watts

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Explaining the delicate balance of religiousness, Alan Watts lectures on the principle of leaving no trace.

“Religion of No Religion” is part of the Japan Tour 1965 series of talks that you can listen to in full over at the Alan Watts Streaming Channel

Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self.

In this episode, Alan Watts explains:

• How the highest kind of a Buddha is like an ordinary person
• Imitation and how all religious comments about life become cliches
• The way of the enlightened man as the track of a bird in the sky
• Zen Buddhism and the dance between metaphysical and ordinary
• Balance and compatibility between universality and the particulars
• The problem with being too spiritual or too worldly
• The connection of all events in the universe, past, present, and future
• How everything in the universe depends upon each other

This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.

“All religion, all religious comments about life, eventually become cliches. That’s why religion always is falling apart and becoming a certain kind of going through the motions, a kind of imitation of attitudes.” – Alan Watts

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In a lecture on symbolic reality versus real reality, Alan Watts explains the importance of total sensory awareness and looking at our motivations.

"Symbolic Reality vs. Real Reality" is part of Flow, a three-part session in the TAO for NOW series of talks that you can listen to in full over at the Alan Watts Streaming Channel

Today’s episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/alan and get on your way to being your best self.

This time on Being in the Way, Alan Watts discusses:

• Being aware of all sensory inputs while meditating
• Allowing oneself ‘to be’ in a non-conceptual way
• Confusing the world of symbols for reality
• The limits to what we can enjoy in a material sense
• The uselessness of guilt
• Money, tithes, and western religion versus gurus
• Why our motivation and intention matters
• Experiencing life naked and directly
• The Taoist approach to letting go of your body-mind
• Using all five of our senses to witness our surroundings

This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.

“The point is to be wide, wide awake and aware of your total sensory input without confusing it with the symbolic world of words and concepts so that you experience life naked and directly. Experience YOU naked and directly, without having in your head the concept of who you are a a role player, as a personality, as an ego.” – Alan Watts

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Join us on a journey of contemplation and enlightenment in this captivating introduction to Taoism.

Discover the profound wisdom of Taoist philosophy with Alan Watts as he invites us to embrace the course of nature. Through insightful exploration, he delves into the timeless significance of Yin and Yang, illustrating their inseparable connection and guiding us toward a deeper understanding of harmony and balance in existence.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan

In this episode, Alan Watts speaks about:

• Ancient Chinese philosophies
• How social institutions are mistaken for the real world
• The self, Confucianism, and the roles we play in life
• Taoism and the basic energy of the universe
• Tao as the force of nature
• How space and solid are two facets of one reality
• Yang and Yin, positive and negative, male and female
• Conscious dying and preparing to let go
• Acting in accordance with nature

This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit Alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.

“It is the inner connection, or rather the inseparability of Yang and Yin, which is what is meant by Tao. That’s why Tao cannot be explained. The reason again if I may put it in another way is that all thinking is classification. It’s asking ‘is you is or is you aint’. Is it this or is it that. After all, if you want to say something is inside it requires an outside. You can’t have an inside without an outside or an outside without an inside.” – Alan Watts

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Taking a trip through the constructs of form and labeling, Alan Watts philosophizes about the limits of language.

This series is brought to you by the Alan Watts Organization and Ram Dass’ Love Serve Remember Foundation. Visit play.alanwatts.org for full talks from Alan Watts.

Today's podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp. Click to receive 10% off your first month with your own licensed professional therapist: betterhelp.com/alan

This time on Being in the Way, Alan Watts philosophizes about:

• Unexamined systems of belief underneath language
• Ideas that are built into our common sense
• The substance of form, pattern, and organization
• The profound mystery of matter
• Limitations in trying to use language to define the ineffable
• ‘Matter’ as a root word for many things
• Chinese views of nature
• Why verbs do not necessarily need subjects
• Being at peace with ourselves in a world of form
• Recognizing the universe as a process

“When we divide the world into operations and agents, doers and doings, then we ask such silly questions as ‘who knows, who does it, what does it?’ When the what that is supposed to do it is the same as the doing. You could very easily see that the whole process of the universe may be understood as process, nobody is doing it.” – Alan Watts

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