Alan Watts did a great service to Western audiences in explaining and elucidating Buddhist and Daoist thought in plain, lucid English and in a rational and pragmatic way.

HE WAS AND WILL REMAIN A TREMENDOUSLY GLORIOUS MAN

thank you so much for uploading !! it’s so nice to see his face when he was young

I have always wanted someone to turn a tv camera onto itself and see the fractal it makes, that was absolutely brilliant.

21:50 min is what you came here for, : D

Never delete

Man I've been listening to Alan Watts since I was a teen. Crazy how I ended up becoming Buddhist and now I have another level of understanding his teachings. I'm not sure if that's destiny. But Alan is the GOAT

Absolutely flawless presentation! The fact he can extemporaneously glide through speaking from the mind and heart blows me away. And so clearly explained with energy.

We need to make sure this gets more exposure; so much fake content out there generated by AI

Real life Obi Wan

22:11 Thank you Mr. Watts

He is giving away the show !!!! Shhhhh let's pretend he never said anything and keep going!!!

I’m labeled a 42 yr old male from the U.S. Many more labels attached and some earned. I am cross-stitching “WHAT THE F***” while watching him talk. I am taking notes while in class. 😂😂

I love to be able to watch him talk so thank you!!

AW is a Legend of Note ✅✅✅

❤❤❤❤❤Genius Genius.

Nāgārjuna’s system is built on a distinction between “conventional reality” and “ultimate reality,” but he also insists that everything is empty of inherent existence. If both realities are empty, then the language that creates the distinction is empty too, which means the claim that there are “two” collapses under its own meaning. You cannot assert two categories while also asserting that no real distinctions exist. The system defeats itself because it uses dualistic language to deny duality.

If a being can choose to return, they are still running on cetanā, and if cetanā remains, the work is not finished. A truly selfless being cannot generate new intention, cannot choose to return, and cannot fuel further rebirth. Mahāyāna’s “returning Bodhisattva” is therefore functioning on leftover volitional momentum, which in the Buddha’s teaching is just mundane rebirth. Liberation, in the early Buddhist sense, is the complete ending of cetanā, after which no return is possible.

Very good. Hegel vs Kant but in easy terms

Don't worry about worry; you are that - the experience + feedback (of experience & resistance);  go with the flow, withought putting up resistance ! Don't make an issue of anything, i.e. creating new concepts or thoughts as these are all barriers (resistance). Jesus, Krishnamurti & all the Zen masters say the same thing......

This man is brilliant. I never in my life expected this much in a video of less than half an hour in length. Alan Watts, to my amazement, explains in one video everything I've come to personally understand about Buddhism (a term I don't even like) which to me is a philosophy. The Buddha was one of the greatest philosophers- and for this he's not credited... not, I think- understood.

Like this video. I'll keep it short enough, everything is my personal opinion and understanding... but I believe Alan Watts, whereas a lot of others, many Buddhists included, may see this video as just another Westerner trying to explain Eastern Philosophy and failing to do so. No. This is wrong. He gets at the heart of Buddhist philosophy, far beyond many long practicing Buddhists, at least as I understand reading the Heart Sutra, the Tripitaka, and the other Mahayana Sutras...

He doesn't mention Bodhisattvas in a video on Mahayana Buddhism until 25 minutes in. Up until then, and to my disappointment, he had explained in an absolutely brilliant way the Buddhist concept of anātman, or non-self... anitya, or impermanence... and he made reference to dukkha, commonly translated as suffering, or unease... these three things are the three marks of existence in Buddhism, called the trilakshana.

Around my neck I wear a cheap Vajra pendant- and my impulse to buy this had less to do with Buddhism, I admit- and more to do with my own personal 'spirituality' and understanding of existence and phenomena at the time. I was fascinated with the sphere at the center, which is said to represent... Mr. Watts said it at the very end- it's commonly translated as "nothingness, voidness, emptiness" or as I've heard from certain speakers & readers, 'zero', that of śūnyatā... which, to my own personal understanding, is a representation of all three marks of existence in Buddhism, that is the trilakshana is represented in śūnyatā.

To say I'm satisfied having discovered this video does what words often do- cause an injustice. But I'm so satisfied and very much wish I found this video a long, long time ago. Brilliant. To quote the Heart Sutra, invoking the concept of śūnyatā and the trilakshana as I understand anything...

*I encourage everyone to go read the whole Heart Sutra. It's less than a five minute read.

[As recited by the Triratna Buddhist Community]

Here then,
Form is no other than emptiness,
Emptiness no other than form.
Form is only emptiness,
Emptiness only form.

We could be friends. Raving electron