Alan Watts searchable speech

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church water Chief Investment the Local Country Parish 00:00:52

And the lady said: Sir Roderick you haven't said a word. What do you think is going to happen to you when you died? 00:00:58

OH! Is that I am pulling your son's eyes will go to Heaven and 00:01:06

Enjoy everlasting wisp but I wish you wouldn't indulge in such a depressing conversation 00:01:10

Miss Jo isn't it 00:01:22

Death in the Western World is a real problem 00:01:24

We hush it up 00:01:30

We pretend it hasn't happened 00:01:32

our 00:01:34

Morticians who are very smart commercial operators know exactly what's expected of and they? 00:01:36

Make death death off by pretending. It doesn't 00:01:44

See what happens you go to on and you're at the end block terminal [council] 00:02:22

and 00:02:29

All your friends come around and they were full smile. They 00:02:31

Cheer up move your eyes 00:02:36

A few days from now you'll be back home. [we'll] we'll go out for a picnic again 00:02:39

The doctors have their bedside manager doctor [is] absolutely helpless [or] the terminal case 00:02:49

Because he said the doctors have divided the social definition of [hilo]. He's not allowed to help you die 00:02:58

He's out of [roll] 00:03:04

Even though I mean [he] may sneak behind the rules and do it, but he's there definitely he got a he to you 00:03:05

So you're going to keep you indefinitely on the end of you and all kinds of things 00:03:11

While there's a certain grave demeanor to all this and all the nurses is so pleasant and so totally distant 00:03:16

because they know this is death and 00:03:25

They make me frank with you. That's why they feel distant 00:03:29

[not] that they're not concerned. It's not that they're heartless people 00:03:33

But they just don't know how to be frank like love to people when they meet a drunk 00:03:38

They don't know what to do with a drunk 00:03:42

[because] he's not the ending right so 00:03:47

When you're dying you're not behaving right over there see so we don't know what to do with a dying [fish] 00:03:53

We don't get around that person and say this is now listen, man listen. I got the news you're gonna die 00:04:00

Now this is going to be great 00:04:10

Look no more responsibilities 00:04:59

Don't have to pay those bills in it 00:05:04

Don't [worry] about anything 00:05:08

[you've] got to just die [and] 00:05:11

Let's go out with a band 00:05:14

Let's have a party see will will put [some] somehow that mafia name. You said you [want] [her] to 00:05:16

But we were going to prop you up in bed, and we're going to bring all [our] friends around. We're going to have champagne 00:05:24

And you're going to give it [a] diet. You know 00:05:31

And it's going to be just marvelous if I'd been [born] 00:05:35

it's 00:06:19

They went when we had birth problems see all women used to think that birth 00:06:25

Had to be painful. It was good for them 00:06:30

[there's] [other] things you had to suffer because you didn't you'd been screwing around with people and therefore 00:06:33

if you [had] to have a child and it's gotta hurt and 00:06:37

Then the doctors got together and they scratch their heads and the man called granted agreed said no both doesn't hurt. It's natural 00:06:41

Didn't all we've got to do is to talk these women into the idea that it doesn't hurt [that] all these 00:06:50

so-called pains are just tensions and 00:06:55

That birth is great. It's not a disease not really something you ought [to] go to a [hospital] for 00:06:57

Because you associate hospitals with diseases and sitting [rather] [than] sickness 00:07:04

All right, now. Let's do some new thinking. What about death is death to you 00:07:09

Or is it a healthy natural event like being born of course it is 00:07:13

So I mean it's a little change in social attitude about this will fortify everybody else 00:07:19

Meaning I'm if I'm alone, and all my relatives 00:07:24

[Ammmm] 00:07:29

Pretending to me. It's going to be hard for me 00:07:30

I've got a challenge the whole bunch of them get my dander up and say listen damn you 00:07:32

I don't want all this thing around here. You've got to take a different [attitude] about my death. Well, that's hard 00:07:36

But if everybody helps me and we do we're all one body they all come around and say congratulations are in the dark 00:07:43

liberation liberation now 00:07:54

Because just before you die. I mean I know very well a skilful priest handling a person dying can do this one 00:07:57

But he has to talk very very very straight 00:08:06

And you have to say listen these doctors. You don't don't you pay any attention to them? 00:08:11

They're trying to amuse you and deceive you you're going to die 00:08:16

This isn't terrible 00:08:19

but it's just going to be the end of you as 00:08:22

a system of memories and 00:08:25

So you've got a great chance right now before it happens, so let go of everything 00:08:28

As you know it's going to go and is this going to help you. It's going to help you let go of everything 00:08:34

so 00:08:39

If you have any possessions left give them away give 00:08:40

everything away 00:08:44

you 00:08:52

you 00:09:09

and 00:09:44

If you have anything to say that is you felt the water say before you [died] and if you were kind of hanging on to 00:09:45

It bothering you say it I? 00:09:51

Mean [I] don't mean necessarily a last confession 00:09:54

But say it said that I'd lie Stevenson shortly before he died said that 00:09:57

He'd been making a monkey of himself because he didn't agree with government's policy about something or other 00:10:01

You know he had to get that off his chest because he had a little thought in the back of his mind that things were 00:10:07

catching up with him you see 00:10:11

so the moment comes when this thing called death has to be 00:10:15

taken completely 00:10:20

Not as some ghastly accident 00:10:22

Something [to] do all the friends are going to stay away because you are awful 00:10:25

I mean sometimes people when they die are in a very unpleasant physical condition. They don't smell good. They don't look good 00:10:29

and so on but an enormous amount can be done with scientific methods to 00:10:36

Make things reasonably tidy 00:10:43

from a purely sensory [Point-of-view], but 00:10:46

[the] main thing is the attitude 00:10:50

that death is as positive as birth and 00:10:55

Should be a matter for rejoicing because death is the symbol of the liberation? 00:11:00

There is a wonderful saying that under [kumaraswamy] [used] to [quote] I pray the death 00:11:09

Will not come and find me still an annihilator? 00:11:15

In other words that man dies happy if there is no one to die 00:11:21

And what if the ego has disappeared before they're caught up with it 00:11:27

But you see the knowledge of death helps the ego to disappear 00:11:35

God tells you can't hang on 00:11:42

So what we need [is] we're going to have a good religion around. That's one of the places where it [can] start 00:12:30

Having I don't [know] well not a [buzz], but they call it the institution for creative dying 00:12:40

[but] something like that 00:12:51

and 00:13:46

You can have you [can] have 00:13:48

One Department where you can have champagne? 00:13:52

Cocktail party to die with another department where you can have glorious religious rituals and priests and things like that 00:13:55

Another department where you can have psychedelic drugs another department where you can have? 00:14:02

Special kinds of music anything you know or or all these arrangements will be provided for in a hospital for 00:14:10

delightful die 00:14:19

but that's the thing to go out with a bang instead of a whimper [I] 00:14:23

Remember the biggest joke on death. I ever saw [I] mentioned this in my book 00:14:30

we visited the 00:14:36

Capuchin Friars 00:14:38

Crypt in the Via veneto in Rome 00:14:41

Some of you may [have] seen it where there are three underground chapels where everything is made of bones 00:14:45

And the altar is made of bones the pedestals of the altar are all shin bones 00:14:53

And then there are piles of skulls and the decoration of flowers on the ceiling our ribs 00:15:00

alternating with Vertebrae and [the] Vertebrae of the flowers and the gribbs curl this way curl this way no this way the twining stems and 00:15:07

The whole thing is bones, and they have even a fused full intact skeletons dressed in Monk's robes standing on either side of his altars 00:15:15

It's the craziest thing you ever saw 00:15:25

then when you 00:15:32

Seen it and you come out. There is a little fryer with a beard taking your offering 00:15:33

At the top of the steps and had a funny wicked game in his eyes 00:15:40

and 00:15:45

One could see that. This was [it] a joke the whole thing was a joke 00:15:47

It was constructed by people who would somehow overcome the fear of death 00:15:52

and so I 00:17:01

Was fascinated by because I saw that on the day of the resurrection there's going to be a tremendous 00:17:05

Couple to sitting all those bones together and everybody getting up the stairs for the last judgement 00:17:10

so if if it is seen 00:17:20

the death is suggest but the question is you see we are so tormented by the bugbear of 00:17:25

it being the real end by the imagination of 00:17:33

the possibility of 00:17:40

being in the dark forever 00:17:43

Now you really must think this through because it is a pure delusion 00:17:47

if you think first of all seriously about annihilation of consciousness 00:17:59

You will realize that an isolation of consciousness couldn't possibly be an experience 00:18:04

By being in the dark forever could [be] [an] experience 00:18:10

exposing you were buried alive [and] 00:18:16

Somehow you were immortal 00:18:19

That you [had] to stay shut up in [a] tomb for always and always and always 00:18:21

That would be pretty grim 00:18:28

But the annihilation of consciousness is not an experience at all 00:18:31

there isn't anything there to be afraid of 00:18:35

So if that's what's going to happen 00:18:38

There's nothing to worry [about] I'll show you 00:18:41

you 00:19:12

I'm 00:20:08

but on the other hand if you think about it longer about a 00:20:46

state of eternal 00:20:54

Just not being at all. You know 00:20:56

You realize [that] nature abhors a vacuum? 00:21:00

and that 00:21:05

Since just as the universe happened once it could happen again 00:21:06

Since you were born once you know it did happen really 00:21:12

Well it can happen again 00:21:17

only 00:21:22

the next you 00:21:24

Won't remember the one now just as the one now doesn't remember the one before 00:21:27

Not because you forgot me 00:21:33

But as I pointed out yesterday the fundamental what have you because underlies all this doesn't need a memory 00:21:35

and 00:23:42

so just in the same way as 00:23:43

you don't need to be conscious of 00:23:47

the inner formations of your brain 00:23:50

Also, I mean here I'm talking speculatively 00:23:55

also, there are curious 00:24:02

connections 00:24:08

where we don't see any that is to say the interval between 00:24:12

events 00:24:19

Is not insignificant? 00:24:21

Just as you don't hear melody and as you hear the interval between tones 00:24:25

if the interval that counts, so 00:24:34

[in] the same way a 00:24:36

blank intervals between successive manifestations of the universe and blank intervals between you're 00:24:38

forgetting who you are altogether and dying and 00:24:47

someone suddenly becoming a baby 00:24:50

The Blank intervals are not insignificant 00:24:53

Every painter knows every architect knows that the space 00:24:58

around 00:25:04

An object or inside an object is just as important to [project] 00:25:05

and 00:25:24

That again is the fact if you don't notice the importance of intervals 00:26:06

And you don't notice the importance of space it is as if you [had] settled on the carpet here for the black design 00:26:11

Being the thing and the white background is having no no significance 00:26:18

So what about the inside of this room? 00:26:23

What about the shape of space that it encloses? 00:26:26

We would say this is nothing more than the certain quantity [of] air 00:26:30

but 00:26:36

don't you see 00:26:37

That the distance [the] the space between that wall and this window 00:26:39

Is life room? 00:26:47

That is not nothing 00:26:50

That it's just as important it comes into being at the same moment as the walls come into being 00:26:53

It connects them and so likewise the space between our planet and other planets is not insignificant 00:27:01

so 00:27:11

Once you see that 00:27:13

intervals of apparent nothingness our significant intervals that their size 00:27:16

Make all the difference to what's happening 00:27:24

and 00:27:52

and 00:28:20

when the intervals between dips 00:28:23

Are short the note is high when the intervals between the dips are long the note is low or large 00:28:26

The high being little [C]. Why do we say high and low as distinct from? 00:28:34

little and big big instruments make big noises little instruments make tiny noises 00:28:39

But at any rate, it's the interval that's important 00:28:48

so then 00:28:52

Once you see the importance of the interval 00:28:53

You have seen that the white is is important as the black or the other way [around] if you want to change your analogy do 00:28:56

You see how you can switch these analogies 00:29:01

In one case the white can be the nothing the unimportant whereas the black is the mark somebody made 00:29:04

with a Crayon or the 00:29:13

[other] way around the black can be the darkness and the white is the flash of lightning that appears of the darkness 00:29:15

change [or] [analogous] like [say] 00:29:24

Once we used to say about high Matters 00:29:26

You know high Matters lofty thoughts 00:29:30

But now we don't it's more fashionable to say deep matters and profound thoughts 00:29:34

Someone was telling me yesterday 00:29:41

In the group here that they will going to an Indian Village in New Mexico where they had the christianity? 00:29:44

But when the speaker referred to jesus of God and so on he pointed down all the time 00:29:50

[hahahaha] 00:29:56

Because you see he felt that things grew up like this from below 00:29:59

Whereas it cost the ancient cults out of which the Jewish and Christian religions 00:30:07

Grew 00:30:12

had the idea that 00:30:14

The life of the sun [in] the rain came down from the heavens and fertilized the feminine Earth 00:30:17

which then responded 00:30:25

and 00:30:41

But these things keep [changing] because you can keep switching your point of view 00:31:27

You can see the black [of] the design against the white background 00:31:31

the life of the design against the black background 00:31:34

And you can flip back and forth back and forth back and forth the more you do that. The more you realize that 00:31:36

the pairs go together 00:31:43

Anxiety is the state of trying not to flip 00:32:47

All life is flipping 00:32:50

it's called it Flip-flop ability is the 00:32:52

Condition of life this way in that way when you are trying to resist Flip-flop ability you're anxious 00:32:58

you see 00:33:08

when you push against it it throbs in a way that you interpret is fear and 00:33:09

All rigid personalities people 00:33:16

Who can't swing? 00:33:19

Who have no movement in their shapes as it were? 00:33:23

In psychologically they are resisting Flip-flop ability 00:33:27

God when you understand subtract twisting and that this is the way things are 00:33:35

then you laugh 00:33:41

Because that is the big flip-flop 00:33:43

You can listen to a squalling brat and find it musical 00:33:51

That this child I'll never forget waking up one morning and listening to a child whining 00:34:00

Which I wasn't saying anything were no words in it. It was just a plaint 00:34:05

It wasn't exactly crying. It was a kind of 00:34:31

oh 00:34:40

There was something marvelous about it this child 00:34:42

One Dysley articulate protest 00:34:46

Again some sort of music 00:34:50

and so 00:35:17

Listening into those things without interpreting them 00:35:23

Listening to one's own interior frustration and pain in the same way without 00:35:29

Interpreting it as being on one side or the other on the good side, or the bad side on 00:35:37

the black side or the white side 00:35:44

Is what makes it possible you see to transmit these things, but you you can't do this 00:35:47

You can't really honestly 00:35:53

Transmute 00:35:57

pain into a 00:35:59

form of play a 00:36:01

form of 00:36:24

Weird [far-out] sensations. That are basically just that 00:36:27

so long as you fail to see 00:36:32

the inner unity of the opposites 00:36:37

So long as you fall for the idea 00:36:41

that you 00:36:46

are 00:36:47

nothing more 00:36:48

Than this particular life than this particular ego 00:36:50

Which came from nowhere and is going nowhere? 00:36:56

while you remain under that illusion you see 00:37:04

You first of all you don't see your identity with everything else that exists 00:37:09

Many of us who are older? 00:38:03

Inherit teachings of discipline which [were] all forced on and we've learned to grow up dull 00:38:05

And rigid so I could say [thing] to the vis audience that I would not possibly say in an audience 00:38:12

It's up to you to loosen up and to become a little man 00:38:21

Says there's no point saying that to a younger audience because they're going to do that anyway 00:38:25

but a great problem for the 00:38:33

Generation of parents example is psychic rigidity because we have been indoctrinated in a long time 00:38:37

nothing 00:38:45

And this morning. I was discussing you know Chinese ideas about trusting human nature 00:39:51

About spontaneity the disciplines of spontaneity and so on and so forth now 00:39:56

This becomes the peculiar importance of people who have passed the threshold of the middle of life 00:40:02

Cause in the first half of life 00:40:07

If you lived your life properly you supposed to set up yourself in the world 00:40:09

Established your business your profession or whatever it was and [you] go on to [the] second half of life 00:40:14

You've got to get ready to die 00:40:18

now 00:40:20

Are you ready to die right now? 00:40:21

Would you like building? I mean we were going to be annihilated by an atomic bomb in Say five [minutes]? 00:40:29

Building was going to be an eye an eye elated by an atomic bomb in five minutes. [what] would you think you ought to do? 00:40:37

Would you like to listen to your favorite [music]? 00:41:09

Would you like to make love to a beautiful woman? 00:41:15

Would you just go on with everyday life nothing happened like somebody winding up is walked on his way to execution 00:41:22

Rh [flies] artists listen to a zen mistress their office ladies 00:41:49

Where do you think you're gonna go when you die? 00:41:56

He said I don't think I'm going to go anywhere. You said in that case. I'll go with you 00:42:00

She said [oh] that's so nice that the first time a man has ever wanted [to] go anywhere 00:42:07

But you see in it is traditional all all cultures have understood 00:43:18

This is some way or other [that] when you enter the second half of life 00:43:22

The business of that part of [life] is to get ready to die 00:43:27

That sounds to us terrible 00:43:32

to prepare for death 00:43:34

It suggests preachers coming around and saying are you ready to meet your maker? 00:43:37

You know whoo, and so as a result of that in our culture death is a thing that is completely swept under the carpet 00:43:42

[you] go to hospital, and they don't tell you [you] gonna die they pretend. It's going to be all right? 00:43:52

Don't worry 00:44:00

Let's say we take an entirely different attitude 00:44:03

Say now [nope] as a quite a different [way]. We say to the young is build up your strength and your skills 00:44:09

So that you can take on responsibility, but death is where you're going to be absolved of all responsibility 00:44:17

Quite a [difference] [thing], but a very liberating one 00:44:25

if you can learn to enjoy 00:44:30

you 00:45:04

Everybody has to die. You can't possibly call it a disease you 00:45:33

[may] die as a result of a disease or of an accident or anything, but death itself is not a disease 00:45:37

It is simply the other end of life opposite birth 00:45:42

And instead of regarding it as something 00:46:17

To be put off and since it really disregarded 00:46:21

this is something for which one should train one so as a 00:46:25

very valuable experience 00:46:28

because death is the automatic taking away of 00:47:31

All your attempts to cling on to life all that frightened clutch is simply going to be broken 00:47:35

Well, it's pretty rough to have it broken. Why don't you let go first? 00:47:43

So in that case then when somebody is about to die 00:47:47

instead of 00:47:51

The friends and relations coming around and consoling him and saying 00:47:53

You know you're going to be alright 00:47:57

[they] come around instead and say wow we 00:48:00

This is the great moment [for] you. You know 00:48:04

Here is the colossal opportunity for you to realize who you really are 00:48:07

Because all that you thought you were is going to disappear 00:48:12

What is going to be left? 00:48:17

Do you really? 00:49:42

Let yourself go 00:49:45

do you cooperate with what nature is doing in you nature is giving you by Death the 00:49:47

Opportunity to let go of all this nonsense [now] 00:49:53

[when] you pass the middle point of life, you can see it coming [you] 00:49:56

[begin] to read the obituaries in this [friend] [a] [friend] here and 00:50:01

[haha], and 00:50:06

And you know it's on the way 00:50:09

Now instead of avoiding this 00:51:16

What about it? 00:51:21

Because the nature is in this act assisting you to let go of yourself making it easy. What is very difficult for the young? 00:51:23

It's hard for the [young] to face death 00:51:32

Because they feel there is a timeliness about this I'm too young to die 00:51:36

Cut off so soon, [and] there's so much promise so much potentiality. It's very tough, but as 00:51:44

We get older Nature helps us 00:51:51

We realize that well 00:51:55

We've had it 00:51:57

Past the middle of life every day is gravy 00:51:59

But you're being helped you see to this act of release 00:52:04

[though] as one of the zen Poet said while living be a dead man 00:52:08

Thoroughly Dead and then whatever you do just as you will will be right, so there's a kind of higher zombie-ism 00:52:11

Those who are dead while alive those who have given themselves up to death and will therefore look forward to that? 00:52:22

as the great enlightened the great awakened 00:52:32

And this requires no hocus-Pocus 00:53:07

No beliefs didn't mortality that you can't really be convinced about 00:53:11

It's simply that it's even better for you if you have no beliefs in an afterlife 00:53:16

if you're willing to let the future go completely and 00:53:22

Abandon any future 00:53:27

Any anything that you could want to grasp to yourself or to preserve for yourself? 00:53:29

You recognize that you're being forced to let it go there is no promise of any future Beyond the grave 00:53:35

I'm not saying that there isn't I'm saying that the pSychological state of not expecting anything of 00:53:42

facing death as if it were really the end and 00:53:49

You don't resist it you end you have the ability [to] end 00:53:54

This is Central and Krishna [Modi's] thought 00:53:58

[you'll] find that if you do that 00:54:02

Something flips inside you as a result of which you have no further questions 00:54:06

you 00:54:11

Will you will say to yourself well now for the first time I realize what [life] is and it's all about 00:54:12

Because I'm not looking 00:54:17

[to] the future to answer my question I 00:54:19

Know there is no future. I 00:54:22

End up come like that 00:54:25

More future is cut off 00:54:28

oh 00:54:56

So if you do that, you see then and let yourself 00:55:04

Now then if you can let go of yourself 00:55:13

Especially in the second half of life in that way you see fit to be rigid 00:55:17

What young people don't like about old people is that they're rigid? 00:55:23

They're stuffy. They 00:55:27

Like of the natural the trouble with a kitten is that eventually it becomes a cat? 00:55:30

and 00:55:41

Our one understands this to some [extent] it's very hard for 00:55:43

Let's say a woman who was once very pretty 00:55:48

It is now afflicted with room 00:55:54

What have you pains all the time? 00:55:57

to put up with a great deal of 00:56:02

noise and dance and stuff going on [and] [it] [has] racked through your head all the time and 00:56:05

Therefore you put on an expression that makes you look stuffy 00:56:10

the you 00:56:58

but if you're not racked with pain all the time 00:57:04

You're enjoying a reasonably healthy old age 00:57:07

Don't be on the defensive so to this part of life one must say 00:57:10

It is important to be a little mad 00:57:15

when a bridge builder steel 00:57:18

Doesn't swing in the wind and [the] crash it has no give 00:57:22

you 00:58:02

so likewise people who don't have any give are in danger of 00:58:19

being insane 00:58:26

In order to be sane the the stew has to have a little salt in it 00:58:27

The good human being has to have our little rascal appear 00:58:36

so the same person 00:58:40

especially the Mature [but] 00:58:43

Have a little crazy 00:58:45

And just as it says in the book of genesis [that] God ordered that every seventh day to be a holiday 00:58:50

One Seventh of your life should be natural 00:58:57

Otherwise you'll agree 00:59:01

culturally 00:59:08

And therefore, it's important for all of us who [are] set in our ways 00:59:14

Who are habituated to? 00:59:19

Certain Patterns of life and we cling to these 00:59:21

two get off 00:59:25

not all the time, but 00:59:30

about a seventh of the time 00:59:36

and learn to swing 00:59:41

and that means that the art of 00:59:55

meditation, shall we say for the older people 01:00:00

Is not necessarily what the art of meditation is [for] the younger people? 01:00:05

If the older people who need to be present at a happening where you don't know what's going to happen 01:00:09

[or] anything might happen 01:00:18

Where you simply? 01:00:22

Allow what it is in you? 01:00:25

to do whatever it likes 01:00:30

Chinese says yes, sir. Oh 01:00:35

[gentleman] 01:00:39

That I let my mouth say whatever it wanted to say I 01:00:40

Let my ears hear whatever they wanted to hear I 01:00:44

Let my eyes see whatever they wanted to see I let my feet go wherever they wanted to go 01:00:47

Then I didn't know whether the wind was riding on me, or whether I was riding on the wind 01:00:53

after [all] you are all 01:00:59

Practice people mature people who can be trusted upon to behave themselves, not like the month of Siberia welcome selves desirable 01:01:02

If you you're all 01:01:10

Mature and 01:01:14

Therefore you can trust yourself go open that. [it'd] be a little mad 01:01:16

Now I know that such a proposal 01:01:25

goes ill 01:01:29

With many older people's images of themselves have responsible citizen. [it's] your people so on and so forth 01:01:32

But you've always gotta have that little secret part of your life. You don't have to do it and out in front of Garden everybody 01:01:42

That's asking too much 01:01:49

But you must have that secret corner in your life where you can be the skeleton in [your] own closet 01:01:53

And be crazy 01:02:03

Otherwise you won't be saying 01:02:06