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shopper 101

Speechless

Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2014

Verified Purchase

Its hard to believe these lectures are 50+ years old. There is absolutely no sense of these tracks being dated in any way. I can listen to the same lecture/episode/track over and over again; like others, I just like listening to his voice. I was already familiar with AW as I used to have some of his tapes in my car in a previous era.

Very few lemons in this bunch, in fact, perhaps only two or three out of the 100+ sections. Best investment I've made in some time.

Its difficult to summarize the content. Perhaps a simple table of contents would be useful (sure wish amazon would make a habit of publishing these!).

CD 1. The nature of consciousness, Part 1
1. Intro
2. Our image of the world
3. The myth of the ceramic construct
4. The myth of the automatic universe
5. A wiggly world
6. A game that's worth the candle
7. An independent system
8. Whose game is it?
9. The world as a drama

CD 2. The nature of consciousness, Part 2
1. Intro
2. Being aware of awareness
3. Captivated by the drama
4. The game of hide and seek
5. Consciousness beyond awareness
6. How do we define ourselves?
7. What it is to see
8. The road to here
9. A re-examination of common sense

CD 3. The web of life, Part 1
1. Intro
2. What did you forget?
3. A spontaneous life
4. Seeing beyond our separateness
5. Intervals between what happens
6. Existence as a function of relationship
7. Understanding the unitive world
8. An implicit agreement
9. To be aware of the melody

CD 4. The web of life, Part 2
1. Intro
2. Web as mutuality
3. The nature of selfishness
4. A perfectly genuine act
5. The sound of rain needs no translation
6. What game would you like to play?
7. Is is serious?
8. An invitation to act

CD 5. The inevitable ecstasy, Part 1
1. Intro
2. Undifferentiated vs. differentiated awareness
3. The marriage of an illusion to a futility
4. The awareness of a baby
5. The fallacy of misplaced concreteness
6. The sensation of the happening
7. Of pain and suffering
8. Must life go on and on?
9. A natural satori
10. The aversion to death
11. The eroticism of pain
12. The spectrum of vibrations

CD 6. The inevitable ecstasy, Part 2
1. Intro
2. Seeing beyond the game
3. A conspiracy we play on ourselves
4. The illusion of the ego
5, The meaningless life
6. This is the game
7. So what is the problem?
8. Every incarnation is this one
9. The state of nothing
10. The line of least resistance

CD 7. The world as just so, Part 1
1. Intro
2. To say what can't be said
3. Zen's appeal to the West
4. Direct pointing
5. The origins of Zen
6. The golden age of Zen
7. No mind, no deliberation
8. Who are you?
9. Disturbing confusions of the mind
10. Who is the thinker behind the thoughts?

CD 8. The world as just so, Part 2
1. Intro
2. Escaping the tangle
3. The in defines the out defines the in
4. The Japanese Zen monastery
5. Entering the temple
6. Answering the koan
7. Seeing past the illusion
8. The decline of modern temples
9. The truth of the birthless mind

CD 9. The world as self, Part 1
1. Intro
2. The totality of all being
3. Awareness of the self
4. The fundamental I
5. Self as play
6. The rhythmic dance
7. Rules of the game
8. The Hindu Yogas
9. Western difficulty with Hindu mythology

CD 10. The world as self, Part 2
1. Intro
2. The human world as self
3. Stages of citizenship in India
4. Shedding the masks
5. The limits of self-awareness
6. The role of the trickster
7. The journey to where you already are
8. Fear of enlightenment
9. The Yoga Sutra
10. How not to use the mind
11. Gamesmanship in spiritual practice
12. A place for the hermit

CD 11. The world as emptiness, Part 1
1. Intro
2. The essence of Hinduism
3. The Four Noble Truths
4. The cause of suffering
5. The Eight-Fold Path
6. The Five Good Conducts
7. Presence of mind
8. A finger point at the moon
9. The nature of change
10. The mystery of change
11. Peaks and valleys go together as one

CD 12. The world as emptiness, Part 2
1. Intro
2. The Buddhist attitude of change
3. Willing to die
4. A happy death
5. Raising the alarm
6. The world as Void
7. Voiding the Void
8. Consider death now
9. Thunderous silence

Some of the titles give a concrete idea of the content, others give no idea of the content, and others are just pure poetry and wordplay.

How to say what cannot be said!

Mauricio in TX

Deeply thought-provoking and lucidly explains some big questions

Reviewed in the United States on February 18, 2018

Verified Purchase

I spent about as much time reading this book as pondering Alan Watt's explanations for several profound qualities of reality and conscious experience. The first 3 chapters alone have several hours worth of deep conversation on perception and mental models, and they alone are the most complete and resonant story of society and reality I've heard yet.

Alan Watts has such a unique and clear way of explaining things that there are dozens of paragraphs worth highlighting, sharing, and re-visiting later. He also has a refreshingly "outside" view on Eastern philosophy and often stops to recount a few funny stories about the "games" that Zen schools or Hindu gurus play on their students in order to teach lessons. Alan keeps a few of the more valuable story-driven explanations, but he clearly sees little value in speaking excessively in riddles at the expense of his readers' understanding of Buddhist and Hindu philosophy. Anyone who doesn't already have experience with Eastern philosophy or hasn't already come to a conclusion on their life purpose would benefit from reading this book.

Not Moses

WHAT was Watts Smoking when he Gave these Lectures?

Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2019

Verified Purchase

I bought the print edition on the strength of the reviews here. It's evident to me that either people didn't actually read this mess or did but are so steeped in New Age drivel that they drank the Kool Aid here. I have multiple copies of =The Wisdom of Insecurity=, =The Book=, =Psychotherapy East & West=, and =Tao: The Watercourse Way=. I loved every one of them. But =this= isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

IDK when Watts gave these lectures, or what state of mind his mind was in at the time, but this stuff is nothing but third-rate, human potential movement claptrap unworthy of even the (rather suspect) likes of Alex Everett, Jose Silva, Werner Erhard, John Hanley and Stewart Emery. The Alan Watts who wrote the books mentioned above is simply Not In Evidence here At All.

If you can "look inside this book" either here or via Goodreads or some other point of entry, I suggest you do so before buying the CDs =or= the book. Because this is a travesty besmirching the reputation of a man who truly deserved one for what he accomplished in the '50s.