Alan W ("Wilson") Watts,
the erstwhile Episcopal priest who discontiguously became
the west's foremost exponent of
Zen,
left
the church
to which he had dedicated his life, not out of make-wrong nor because
of a change of
heart
in his calling, but rather because as a result of his ongoing personal
searching and private inquiry, he could no longer reconcile the
teachings of
the churchwith his experience of Life ... or as I prefer to say, he
could no longer reconcile the teachings of
the church
with his
direct
experience
of Life.
Essentially that's what endears him to me.
In my opinion, when he parted ways with
the church,
he was the little child in Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The
Emperor's New Clothes" calling out "But he hasn't got anything
on!".
The church,
he was saying in effect, hasn't got anything on. In hipper parlance, he
might have said
the church
hasn't got anything down. Either way, make no error: I
lovethe church
- in particular, I
love
the possibility of
the church.
I would go as far as saying if only
the church
was more effective in bringing forth the distinctions it
purports to bring forth, it would have rendered the
work of transformation
redundant a long, long time ago. What
Alan
did was distance himself not so much from
the churchper se, but rather from its unexamined doctrines which blur with
"The Truth". Instead he began to articulate, in the form of an
authentic
inquiry,
direct experience
as a possibility for and as an access to Life for everyone.
In what was to become his seminal work titled The Book On the Taboo
Against Knowing
Who You Are
(written
for his son Mark to prepare him for life),
Alan
fleshes out and eloquently reveals it's not only
the church
which blurs unexamined doctrines with "The Truth" but
rather it's a condition which has all of us ie all of humanity at
large including
the church,
in the absence of anything truly
transformative,
remain rooted in it and deeply invested in it, while strongly
resisting
being
who we really are,
and while ongoingly perpetuating the taboo. So, to be clear, there's no
selective finger-pointing here: it's not only
the church:
it's all of us.
Then later, when
Alanmasterfully
avers "Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own
teeth", it's like his riff on a
Zenkoan
I
imagine
could go something like "What's the sound of biting your own
teeth?". Of course no one can bite their own teeth - any more than
anyone can
grasp their right hand with
their right hand.
But that's typical of
Zenkoans:
they're never logical and they're even less seldom rational.
Zen's
power is in neither of those domains. You could, I suppose,
clench your own teeth ... which would bring you
present
to the experience of yourself like your physicality. But touting
clenching your teeth in response to the
koan
borders on an attempt to explain the
koan.
And an explanation of a
Zenkoan
is as useless to you as a bicycle is to a fish (as Patricia Irene
"Irina" Dunn may have said). In any case, any attempt to explain the
koan
doesn't bring you
present
to the experience of yourself like
who you really
are.
That's a lot more elusive, and that's the bailiwick of the
koan.
It's the point
Alan
is making ... and ... it's a particularly telling point,
especially given he made it long before
Werner's
breakthroughs
in
language.
Werner
acknowledges
Alan
for pointing him toward the distinction between
Self
and
mind.
In this most profound exposition which was the sub-text of a
seminarAlan
delivered with
Werner
attending aboard
Alan's
houseboat, the SS Vallejo moored in the Sausalito
houseboat harbor in Sausalito, California,
Alan
made an essential contribution to
Werner.
One of the things
Werner
distinguished from it, riding down this trail
Alan
blazed, is a new access to defining yourself - which is to say a new
access to defining
who you really are.
By itself, if that was all it was, that would make it amazing. But
what's more than amazing about it is this new access actually isn't
even elusive like trying to bite your own teeth. That's what makes it
awesome.
Here's what I mean by that:
There's defining yourself as what you are. Then there's
defining yourself as
who you are.
I suspect when
Alan
avers "Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own
teeth", he's talking about trying to define yourself as
what you are.
Listen:
we live in an illusion that we can define what a human being is, how
we're made up, how we
work
etc. But the truth, beyond a certain point, is we simply don't
know. Even if you could define yourself as what you are, it's
already in the past, yes?. Just notice not being able to define
what you are ie not knowing what a human being really is, how you're
made up, and how it all
works,
doesn't stop you from taking action. Arguably it's not necessary
to define yourself as what you are (the truth is we have very little
control over what we are), before you can live a productive and
creative
life.
It's also possible to define yourself as
who you arelike a
stand
by
speaking
it ie by saying so. The truth is we have almost total
control over what we say ie we have almost total control over
our
speaking.
Defining yourself as
who you are
by
speaking
what you
stand
for, which is to say defining yourself as
who you are
by
speaking
the possibilities you are, is a lot easier than trying to bite your
own teeth, yes?
Who I am
(that is to say, the way I define myself) is the possibility of
communication,
transformation,
and freedom. That's what opened up for me in the space of
Werner's
distinction between
Self
and
mind.
It's a
conversation
I would
love
to have had with
Alan
in Sausalito.