← Alan Watts Being in the Way
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Teaching meditation is its own skill. You don't need to be a master practitioner to begin learning how to guide others, but you do need real training. Join Buddhist teacher David Nichtern and Professor Robert Thurman for a free online discussion on Tuesday, May 26th at 6:00pm Eastern Time exploring the role of the teacher in the Buddhist tradition, why lineage and transmission matter, and what it means to skillfully support others in meditation practice. Today they'll also discuss Dharma moon and Tibet House's mindfulness meditation teacher training program beginning in June 2026. You'll have a chance to ask questions, meet the teaching team, and find out whether the program might be a good fit for you. Visit dharmamoon.comfriend that's dharmamoon.comfriend for more information and to reserve your spot for the free event on Tuesday, May 26th.
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Welcome to Being in the Way, the Aloance Podcast, and I'm your host Mark Watts. And today we're going to be exploring the archives a bit more and in particular going toward a seminar called Zen Reconsidered. And I was listening to this the other day and it was very interesting because he opens up by talking about his own qualifications to teach about Zen, and he says he hasn't been trained as a Roshi and he hasn't sat for great periods in meditation. And he actually comes into the house from a side window and he compares this to Hinduism, where some teachings come in through the front door, which is reserved for honored guests. Some teachings come in from the back door, which is usually where the garbage is taken out. But those teachings get into the house that way and they stay there because they are important. But he likes to come in through a side window, he says, like a thief, because he really wants to see what it's made out of. He wants to see what's underneath the front stairs that everybody enters on. So this is a uniquely psychological approach. And this struck me as particularly interesting because I've been hearing a lot of AI Alan Watts lately, and it actually seems to me a lot like a brown nosing graduate student who has a lot of information but doesn't really understand much of it. And of course this is rooted in the fact that AI of course can't grasp meaning, but there's something behind that in that it can't understand the psychology or the human need, needs and responses to philosophy in a meaningful way. So when I heard this I was kind of delighted because it gives a good explanation as to why a straightforward approach or an empirical approach, which is what AI uses is not going to be that effective, and I think you'll enjoy it. It has a lot of color and is a great context for diving back into his thoughts on Zen. So we're going to be listening to Alan Watts in another talk from the Being in the Way podcast, Zen reconsidered.
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The whole thing about Zen is really extraordinarily simple. When one doesn't try to be cute about it and beat around the bush, Zen is simply the sensation, totally clear understanding that, to put it In Zen terms, 10,000 formations, one suchness, or you might say the 10,000 things I.e. everything is of one suchness. That is to say that there is simply behind and appearing as the multiplicity of events and creatures in this universe, simply one energy, and you're it, and everything is it. And the. The work of Zen is to understand that as to say so as to feel it in your bones. But Zen has nothing to say about what that energy is. And this, of course, gives the impression in the minds of Westerners that it is, like we would say, blind energy. Because the only alternative to that, that we can suppose, thinking in terms of our traditions, is that it's something like God, that is to say, a kind of cosmic ego, an intelligent being, almost personal. But that, in Buddhistic view, would be as far off the point as thinking of it as blind energy. The reason why this word suchness is used is to leave the whole thing open and absolutely free from definition, because the whole point about this energy is that it should be unformulated. That is not to say formless in the sense of, oh, you know, some kind of goo. Thank you. Which is just a featureless message. It means that at the basis of everything, there is something which, in the nature of things, never could be made. An object discerned, figured out, explained, or in just the same way. Just exactly the same way. The eyes, when seeing, apparently have no color and no form of their own. If the eyes had a form of their own, they would distort all the forms that we see. And perhaps in some sense they do. If the eyes had a color of their own, that is to say, if the lens had a color, it would screen out that color in nature. And so you would never see it, you would never be aware of it. But we are not aware of the color of the eye, of the lens, because it is basic to all sight. And so, in exactly the same way, one would never be aware of the structure, the nature of the basic energy of the world, because you are it and everything is it. And you might say, well, that doesn't make any difference then. And it's true, it doesn't. But it does make a difference in the life and feeling of a person who realizes that that is so, although it doesn't make any particular difference to anything that happens except this one important matter. If there were no eye, there would be no sight. It's true, we have this sight and that, and the structure of the eye doesn't make any difference to this side and that. But upon it depends the possibility of seeing. And so upon this energy depends the whole possibility of there being a universe. That's rather important, but it's so important that we overlook, doesn't enter, shall we say, into practical considerations and prognostications. That's true. And therefore modern logicians in the philosophy departments will argue that all assertions about this energy as that it is there at all, are meaningless. And that, in a way, is true, because the world itself is, from the point of view of strict logic, quite meaningless in the sense that it is not a sign, a symbol pointing to something else. So then, while that is all taken for granted, it nevertheless makes a great deal of difference to how you feel about this world and therefore to how you act. If you know that there is just this and that it is you, and that it is beyond time, beyond space, beyond definition, and that if you clearly come to a realization that this is how things are, it gives you a certain bounce. You can enter into life with a. An abandoned, with a freedom from basic terror which you would not ordinarily have. Yes, you can be very hooked on the form of life which you are now living. You can consider that myself, say, as Alan Watts, is an immensely important event and one which I wish to preserve and continue as long as possible. But the truth of the matter is that I know I won't be able to, and that everything falls apart in the end. But if you realize this fundamental energy you have, the prospect of appearing again in innumerable forms, all of which, when you're in them, will seem just as important as this one you have now, just as problematic perhaps too. Only this is not something to be believed in, because if you believe that that is so upon hearsay, then you have missed the point. You don't need to believe in this, you don't need to formulate it, you don't need to hang on to it in any way, because you can't get away from it. There is no need to believe in it. And if you do believe in it, it indicates that you have Some doubts in the matter. That is why Zen has been called the religion of no religion. You don't need, as it were, to cling to yourself. Faith in yourself is not holding on to yourself. And that is why when some Zen master is given by his Student the statement 10,000 formations, one suchness, the Zen master says, get rid of it. And that is why also in the practice of certain forms of Zen meditation, there is a rugged struggle of the person to get beyond all formulations whatsoever, to throw away all hang ups, to endure long hours of sitting with aching knees and perpetual frustration in trying to get hold of what all this is about with tremendous earnestness. I've got to find out what the mystery of life is, who I am, what this energy is. And you go and go and he knocks down every formulation you bring to him, because you don't need one. Only the ordinary person, on hearing that you don't need one, will forget all about it and go and think about something else. So he never crosses the barrier. And when you do see is so obvious, so totally obvious, that there is just one energy. And that consciousness and unconsciousness, being and not being, life and death are its polarities. It is always undulating in this way. Now you see it, now you don't. Now it's here, now it isn't. Because that on and off is. Is the energy. We wouldn't know the energy was there unless it was vibrating. And the only way to vibrate is to go on and off. So life and death, it's like that. And that's what's in about. And that's all. It's of course, other things derive from that. In Zen training, the first thing to do is to understand that, to get the feeling of its complete obviousness. But then what follows from that is how do, how does a person who feels that way live in this world? What do you do about other people who don't see that? That's. So what do you do about conducting yourself in this world? That is the really difficult part of Zen training. There is at first the breakthrough which involves certain difficulties. But thereafter, there's the whole question of learning compassion and tact and skill. As Jesus put it, to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves. And that is really what takes most of the time. You might divide them, the training in Zen into two stages, corresponding to the two great schools of Buddhism, the Hinayana stage and the Mahayana stage. The Hinayana stage is to get to Nirvana, to get to living in the great void. But then The Mahayana stage is to come back as the Bodhisattva comes back from Nirvana out of compassion for all sentient beings, to help even the grass to become enlightened. And so it is that Mahayana aspect of Zen which occupies most of the time of learning to be proficient in Zen. Well, I say this by way of introduction, just to make everything clear from the start and without being deceptive about it or befuddling you with Zen stories, where, although they are really quite clear, the point doesn't get across very easily to Westerners, except as something fascinating. The principle, of course, underlying Zen stories, with all their strangely seeming irrelevant remarks, is quite simple. It's all explained in the sutra of the sixth patriarch, Hui Nung, when he says, if somebody asks you a question about matters sacred, always answer in terms of matters profane. If they ask you about ultimate reality, answer in terms of everyday life. If they ask you about everyday life, answer in terms of ultimate reality. Master, please hand me the knife. And he hands him the knife blade first. Please give me the other end. What would you do with the other end? This is answering an everyday matter in terms of the metaphysical. Master, what is the fundamental principle of Buddhism? There is enough breeze in this fan to keep me cool. That is answering the metaphysical in terms of the everyday. And that's more or less the principle it works on. Now, people who go to Japan to study them have read about it in the writings of Suzuki and R.H. blythe and myself, and very often they're in for a curious shock. They suppose that Zen people are kind of Quakery, that is to say, very simple, very unritualistic, iconoclastic, because they've read stories about tearing up sutras and burning Buddhas. And they suppose also that Zen people live with the utmost frugality in simplicity, in very plain dwellings. And they are shocked to find that procedures in a Zen monastery in Zen temples are highly ritualistic, that the temple buildings and grounds are positively sumptuous, and that Zen is existing in terms of a big ecclesiastical organization with hierarchies, with formulations, with all the things that one would recognize as characteristic of ecclesiastical organizations all over the world. I have perhaps the advantage over some students of having been deeply involved in Christian ecclesiastical organizations. And therefore I'm able to recognize the traits and the foibles of this sort of professional community anywhere in the world. But in order to see that you have first to penetrate through a certain superficial glamour, Zen to Zen people is quite an everyday matter. But to the outsider, the chance the incense the mysterious iconography of the Buddhas, the serene expressions of Zen masters, the real mysterious east, the occult tradition, the great masters of wisdom. And I suppose, likewise to some Indian or Japanese visitor, the mysteries of the Catholic Church must be very glamorous and appear in much the same guise as their things appear to us now. It must be understood, therefore, that Zen in Japan today has indeed hardened into a traditional ecclesiastical tradition. You know, most of the monks in the monasteries are the sons of priests. You see, when you. A Zen monastery is a seminary more than a monastery. It's a training school. It isn't a monastery in our sense, where you take life vows and you be enter into the monastery for your whole life with the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. It's a training school from which you graduate in due course when the teacher thinks you're ready. And after you graduate from the sodo, which simply means the soul, is a Sino Japanese way of pronouncing Sangha, which means the order of followers of the Buddha who have taken the vows of the Buddha. Bhiku, or we would say monk. Monk isn't really the right word, and do means hall. So when you've taken the training, there are various options open to you, and the usual one is to become a temple priest. Every Zen monastery stands in the middle of an enormous campus. There is the training center, and then surrounding it, ever so many separate buildings which are individual temples. And these temples were originally built by wealthy patrons of the monastery to provide a place where a priest would for all time, chance sutras for the future assistance of the wealthy patron through his future incarnations. And likewise, in villages all over Japan, there are temples of the various sects of Buddhism to serve the villages where the priest will recite the sutras on the occasion of the death, or help out in sickness or offer memorial services for the ancestors. And that's the main job of these people. Occasionally they will take a few students for meditation. But by and large, the Zen priest is a sutra chanter. And this is true of almost all Buddhist priests serving the community in much the same way as a Catholic priest serves a parish. But you see, these temples are passed down in the family from father to son. So my oldest son should take over the temple from me if I'm a priest. So I say you call it. You go to this, to the Zen monastery, and you train there until the teacher says you're ready. And then you can come back and help me out around the temple. And when I die or retire, you take it over. So Most of the boys, and they are boys, many of them just out of high school, some of them are just out of college. The Zen sect runs one or two colleges to prepare its students for the the monastery. And therefore the college curriculum is oriented in a Buddhist direction, as well as teaching some basic subjects, mathematics and literature and so on at college level. But they, therefore the, the boys in there are not really there because they have a strong vocation for it. They are there because they've been sent there through parental authority. And therefore it is not surprising that their attitude to Zen is rather mechanical. I noticed this more in the Soto sect than in the Rinzai sect. I made two visits to Eheiji, which is a most gorgeous monastery about 120 miles north of Kyoto in the mountains. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth, tremendous place, and about a hundred and odd monks are studying there. But those monks are, as far as I can see, principally preoccupied with manners. They are absolutely fanatical, one might say, about good form. And it's true, they are beautiful looking people, very industrious, very. They are neat to a fault. You could lick the floor in the toilets, it's so clean, it's orderly, precise. And the chief monks and priors, you might call them, are very strict, but to a great extent it is a kind of mechanical existence. They are going through a prolonged hazing process, as it were, in order to be fit to take over father's job and to have Zen style. Zen style is very important, just as we train physicians to have a good bedside manner or a priest, to behave as a priest in the style of a priest. And that carries with it a certain aura of tradition and authority and conviction. And so these boys are trained very carefully to walk, to carry themselves, to speak and behave according to Zen style. And it's very pleasant. I must say they are very presentable people. They are unlike ordinary Japanese people in that they're not nervous, they don't giggle when embarrassed, difficult to embarrass them, and occasionally, every now and then, one of them turns out to be an enthusiast and really gets through with Zen. But by and large, I'm sorry to say that in both the Rinzai and the Soto schools, a large number of products are graduated who really have no feeling for Zen, who never quite got the point, but managed to struggle through the motions. And thus there are increasingly few great teachers of Zen in the country. There is, however, an awakening going on and times are beginning to change. And to a great extent this is the result of the Western interest in Zen. As a matter of fact, this sort of revival is true all over Asia. If you read a book by Ernst Benz called Buddhism or Communism, very fascinating. And he shows to what extent there has been a Buddhist revival in Asia through Western intervention interest and so on. And this is particularly true in Japan. It all started with Suzuki giving his fascinating come on for everybody making Zen, bringing out its. Its great profundity. So people came over and began asking questions and some of those old teachers were just. Were suddenly startled. What's all this about? Have to drag out the old coans and dust them off and try to think about how to present this to Westerners. Well, that was very good for the situation, but in the ordinary way, I must tell you, it is so funny. I went to the opening service of the ecclesiastical year at Daitokaji, and on this occasion there is a fantastic beating of drums to rouse everybody throughout the campus. Big area and wonderful drum beats. It sounds so almost African. And gradually all the temple priests come from their various parts of the precincts and gather in the sodo, the monk's hall. And then all the monks come and they. As the drumming ends, they have a great chanting. They chant several sutras. And then the master gives a lecture called Tesho. And he sits in his throne with a reading stand held up in front of him by one of the monks. And opposite him is the Buddha sitting in his shrine. And the Tesho is a commentary on some old Zen text like the Rinzai Roku, in which the master has a dialogue with the Buddha. He. He gives it in a very monotonous way, hardly ever raises his voice. And if some interruption occurs, like a rainstorm or something like that, he just goes straight on. He doesn't stop because it doesn't seem to be of the slightest importance whether anybody listens. During this period, clever monks go to sleep. You can tell by a slight drop of their shoulders. They're sitting there looking as if they're meditating, but actually they're asleep. And they've worked out a system whereby, you know how you can work an alarm clock to wake yourself up at a given time. They wake up the. The monk in charge who has to hit the clapper or ring the bell, is always awake about five minutes before the lecture ends. It's quite long, as I remember sitting Japanese fashion, through its duration with a tape recorder beside me, looking like a suitcase, this one. But there were these monks, they were asleep, so they are just exactly like schoolboys and undergraduate fraternity men and seminarists. The World over. They would much rather be over the wall, smoking a cigarette or dating girls in town. But as I say, every so often, one of them really comes through. So then Westerners, you see, are bothered also by the ritual and the splendor to give. I'm sure many of you here have been to Japan, seen these things. But it's a what I would call aesthetic luxury. Imagine living in rooms where the Fusuma, the screens that divide rooms, are covered in gold leaf and painted by the most gorgeous artists of all time. Sessu, the Kano School, and so on. Here you are, and you've got outside your window gardens which are beyond belief in beauty and marvelously tended. It's true, you do yourself, even as a temple priest, kind of a top dog. You do a certain amount of the work yourself in keeping this place tidy. But that's pretty much what you have to do. And a scrounge around for fun. That's a real problem these days. Since just before the Second World War, the Buddhist church or Buddhist churches were disestablished. They were deprived of an enormous amount of their lands and endowments by the government. And so, as a result of that, every temple on a temple campus has to make do somehow. So what do they do? Some of them have opened restaurants, very good restaurants. Some of them are tourist centers. And then, like daisen in. In Daitokuji, where they encourage people to come and look at the garden. And one of the monks gives a lecture, even in English, which he's learned by heart, to explain the symbolism of the garden. He invented it himself, I found out. Yes, yes, he made it up. And he gives the speech in English with great eloquence and with a wonderful twinkle in his eye. He's a very nice fellow. So. But therefore they do these things. Like Mr. Ogata, as Shokokuji, has opened a studies center for Westerners with a library. All this is done to maintain the temple in existence. And otherwise they just get closed down and they fall apart. The government does give some grants, especially where a temple houses a national treasure. Say there's a temple in Daitokoji where the priest is a Mr. Kobori, and he's descended from the great family of Kobori Enshu, who was a master gardener. And he's a wonderful man, speaks beautiful English and is very good at calligraphy. And his temple houses two of the most valuable paintings in the world, which are the Persimmons and the Chestnuts by Moo Chi. And so he is very happy to entertain Westerners on a sort of individual basis to see these things and drink tea, realizing that these Westerners will kick in a donation. And the temple badly needs a donation because it has to be completely repaired. They're very clever at that, the Japanese carpenters. They can take an old building and underpin it, reconstruct it, put in new beams and everything, and it's exactly like it was before they started, except it's been simply reformulated. If a temple gets burned down, they have models and plans and they can make it exactly as it was. Most of the ancient buildings in Japan have all been burned down and they're actually quite modern, but they're perfect replicas. After Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilion, you know, in the story by Mishima, was burned down by a mad monk. It's been, it's, it's there again shining with gold as it was in the old days when it was brand new. So this, this, I think this impoverishment has been very healthy because otherwise if they had sat back on their donations and they would have just gone to sleep. As it is, they have to do something to function as a temple in some way. And this also has been a helpful influence in bringing about some kind of a revival. The success in education or religion is of a deadly thing. I know so many worthwhile causes that started out struggling and they had something really great. Then when they succeeded, they became sloppy and eventually fell apart, or they meant what still worse still, instead of falling apart, they just go on and on and on being dull. That so easily happens. So this poverty has been a good thing, but the real struggle and the real problem is this. The younger generation in Japan is not interested in Buddhism, period. If you ask a Japanese, say roughly between 30 and 40, what's your religion, he's apt to say, my parents are Buddhists. As for himself, he has no interest and he knows nothing about it. When they hear sutra chanting, they think, oh, what a bore. Nobody understands it anyway because the sutras are chanted in the Sino Japanese. That is to say, it is a peculiar Japanese way of pronouncing Chinese. It is not the Japanese way of pronouncing Japanese. And so nobody knows what's it about. Most of the people who are chanting don't know what it's about. And of course, some of it, insofar as it's what's called dharani, didn't mean anything in the first place. And so they have this modern feeling. What does it all mean? Second generation Japanese in the United States can't Stand it. When the priests chant a sutra to pacify the old folks, they want the whole thing changed. And they sing in the Buddhist churches in the United States. Buddha loves me this I know for the sutra tells me so they have Sunday school and everything. They organize just like a Protestant church, because the Nisei and the sunset second and third generation Japanese want to slip into the American scene. And unlike the Chinese, who are very retentive of their culture, the Japanese settlers here seem to want to lose it and become Rotarian. And so in Japan today, the much the same situation prevails. There is an extraordinary outbreak of new religions which we would hear would call cults like tenriku and so on. But so far as Buddhism is concerned, the younger generation couldn't care less. And that's why, you see, the only young people who frequent the temples, by and large, are priest sons. The average young man in Japan today is full of energy. So the girls, they are the most marvelous people. The children would thrill you. They are so beautiful and intelligent and polite and gay and. But they are breaking away totally from the older, older people. In fact, many, many young people in Japan hate to go home after school because they feel the atmosphere of disapproval on the part of their parents and grandparents is so thick you could cut it with a knife. So instead of that, they wander the streets, not in a rowdy way at all, but they just like to be away and be on their own. So they go to, first of all, pachinko parlors. Pachinko parlor would be a store about the size of this one, lined entirely with pinball machines. And you get a handful of steel ball bearings and you put those into that machine. And with fascination, you watch that hour after hour after hour, and. And the machine is rigged so as to give you back just enough balls to keep you going, you see, and you win little prizes, like a package of cigarettes or something like that. Nothing much. It's not real gambling at all. It's just a fascination. And you can hear these things going. Chinka, clank, a clank, clatter, clatter, clatter. Every village has one, at least one. The other thing they do is go to coffee houses. And coffee houses are of various kinds according to musical classification. Western, classical, modern, jazz, Dixieland, various things of that kind. And the music is turned up full strength. There are two reasons for this. One is that in the Far east, people don't feel they're getting their money's worth unless they get their radio as loud as possible and keep it on all the time. The other Is the loud music drowns out voices so that you can talk to another individual without being overheard. And so the coffee house is a great center for dating. You take a girl there and they have a thing they call getting to know each other, which has never happened in Japan before. The only way in the old style high civilization of Japan to meet a girl was to have tea ceremony at which of course there would be chaperones and the conversation would be utterly stilted. So getting to know a woman. The only possible way of getting to know a woman in the old world of Japan was to make friends with a geisha. Geisha are entertaining girls. They're not harlots, they're not prostitutes. They are highly cultured women specially trained to entertain men and to help men entertain their men friends. So the. And that's rather expensive to hire geisha. So that's a luxury for the ordinary person. To get to know a girl was very difficult. I mean get to know a girl as a human being, as a person. But this is what is now happening. And the parents disapprove and they disapprove of everything the young people are doing. Their clothes, their interests, their lack of reverence for the ancient traditions and their increasing westernization. So there it goes down the drain. The whole culture of the past rather swiftly. It's true that the Japanese have their own way of being westernized. Their television is distinctly better than ours. Some of their nightclubs fascinating. Some of their mechanical products beyond belief. Their trains are magnificent. Their architecture deplorable. I mean their modern industrial architecture. It is ghastly. In the middle of Kyoto of all places, they've erected a thing that beggars description. It's like a gigantic candle, you know, kind of fake plastic Christmas candle towering into the sky on top of a thing shaped like this. Like you know, the control tower on an airport which is built of steel and glass. And you know, it's steel and glass. There's no refinement, it's just steel frame with glass in it. And it goes around like that in the restaurant. All that is on top of a very big department store Here it is disfiguring this glorious ancient city. Know there are all sorts of things like that, horrors, You see. They are therefore slowly losing their taste in it's. It's all for reasons of practicality. If, for example, when you took a bath in the not so long ago Japanese bath, you don't get in the tub until you're washed and you wash outside the tub by scooping up water and throwing it over yourself and washing and then rinsing yourself off. And then you get in the tub and you sit there and loaf for a while. Beautiful. Those are all the family getting together and so on. But whereas they used to have very attractive wooden tubs to do this with, they now have repulsive blue plastic ones. Plastic is taking Japan over the beaches, for example, where you get the high tide lime with all the seaweed. The seaweed is universally interspersed with indestructible plastic sandals, sun lotion bottles, all kinds of things littering the whole place. Well, what's the reason? Oh incidentally, plastic sandals. And instead of their marvelous umbrellas called casa, which you can still buy, most people use a wretched little tinny looking umbrellas with Western style only rather small. They are horrid clothes. For example, increasingly the traditional kimono is abandoned. You can understand why women abandon it because the women's kimono is extremely uncomfortable, men's is very comfortable. But instead the women wear what can only be called frocks, cheap prints. The men wear our business suits which don't fit them. You know, they're very long. They tend to be long from the shoulders to the hips and short in the legs. And so you get this funny feeling of a long coat with tiny little trousers underneath. And it. Very few Japanese dress elegantly in the Western style. Mostly it's shabby and but chic, you know, they think this is really up to date. And so funnily enough, you see, they have no antibodies, shall I say aesthetic antibodies to Western styles and therefore they catch our diseases before they catch our merits. I suppose the same may be said of us. It's difficult to see how Japanese would see our acceptance of Japanese institutions and art forms. They must think it's very funny. But in the west these things are accepted only really by sort of intellectuals. It hasn't hit the mass of the people at all. Whereas in Japan Western styles have hit the mass of the people. So with this very rapid cultural change going on, the Japanese have not discovered Buddhism. And I suppose one of the great benefits that could be done for the Japanese would be to retranslate Buddhism for them out of the old language into some sort of modern idiom. I've often thought of writing a textbook on Buddhism for Japanese teenagers and I would write it in hipster language in English and then get some very competent Japanese to translate it into the equivalent argot. It would be difficult, but it would be a great eye opener to Japanese people. I've had this experience because in Taking groups of people to Japan and giving seminars on Buddhism. Very often the person who is our interpreter will listen in and he never knew at all that that was what it was about, that these things were contained in it. And I've had very interesting experiences. I was talking on certain problems with a very learned Shingon priest. Shingon is another school in Zen and his wife speaks beautiful English. And we had a very competent interpreter present and he got to some points and they both said, I am sorry, we have no idea how to translate into English. This is very difficult word. So I said to the priest, ask him to write it in Chinese. And as I can pick out about one character in three, gradually by this process, a very complicated form of communication can be established. But they don't know what those words mean. The, they're even too used to them. They know what they mean, but can't possibly think what the equivalent in English would be. Or else they just don't know. So there is this tremendous problem of unless the Buddhist tradition is to go down the drain completely of re familiarizing the Japanese with what it's all about. But they don't know what it's about because of the fact that over the years it has degenerated into going through the motions and into being something which is just a kind of magic. For example, the headquarters of the Shingon school on Mount Koya is really two things. It's an enormous funerary establishment and a tourist center. The main thing at Shingon is a gigantic graveyard, very beautiful, all among cryptomeria trees which are like somewhat like the sequoia. And here are tombs and tombs and tombs all in the style of Buddhist little stupas or pagoda like structures. Wealthy families have huge ones all decked about with bells and magical inscriptions and Tibetan Sanskrit and so on. And there are many temples, but their principal function is to drone sutras for the, we would say the repose of the souls of the departed. And so they train. I. I witnessed the training of all these young boys who are of course priest sons. And they in their training hall, each priest, monk, trainee has a little desk with all the ritual objects on it all alike, row after row after row. And they teach them how to go through the motions of the various ceremonies and rituals. It's completely mechanical and so it exists as a kind of prayer wheel bit for people to come there and be buried with the hope that this magic will do something. It's magic, pure and simple. You can buy sheets of paper printed with all sorts of mysterious characters and you put these in a little holder and you could stick it up in your car as a good luck thing. And what says on the papers, it says nothing at all. It's just magical signs, like a kind of abracadabra. Well, the Japanese, modern Japanese, think this is ridiculous. They have no patience with it whatsoever. It has no mystery to it, no magic to us. It reminds Mount Koya, reminds you of going to Tibet. It's the nearest thing in Japan to Tibetan Buddhism. And the mysterious effigies and the marvelous construction of the temples and the. Is most extraordinary. And from a scholarly point of view, from point of view of a historian of Buddhist symbology, it is, it's fascinating, but nobody there seems to appreciate it very much. Something they're used to, they just go through. So either the modern Japanese are going to let the whole thing go down the drain or else somehow it's got to be represented to them in a modern idiom. They wake up and realize that they have a treasure. Well, let's take an intermission.
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Thank you for joining us today for the Alan Watts Podcast. You've been listening to Zen Reconsidered, and our talk today was brought to you in conjunction with the Ram Dass Be Here now podcast network. And our theme music is by Zakir Hussain, courtesy of Moment Records. For more information and to learn more about the context of this great talk, Please visit Alan Watts.org and from there you can link to our streaming channel, to downloads and just get a lot more information about my father's work. So that was Alan Watts in Zen Reconsidered. And I'm Mark Watts and we'll see you again next time for another exploration of the Alan Watts archives.
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Sa.