The mysticism of Alan Watts (2018)
I think we in the modern era have some tremendous advantages in understanding Eastern spirituality in light of developments in neuroscience, Western philosophy, and a longitudinal overview of several traditions like Advaita, Neo-Advaita, Taoism, Dzogchen, Mahamudra, Mahayana, and the original Zen.<p>I think they point toward the ability to shift one&#x27;s way of <i>being</i> in the world using one&#x27;s whole capacity as a human being. Generally, an interconnectedness or oneness counts as a fundamental insight; however, I think these traditions have doctrines like karma so that such an insight does not become a regressive excuse for lackluster moral behavior. For instance, the human frontal lobes give us distance in the world, the ability not to react, to take a different perspective. This enables the Bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism using the highest faculties available to man--necessary distance to be <i>guardians of the world</i>, not merely to, say, become stoically un-reactive, or to distance one&#x27;s self from moral responsibility.<p>The &quot;supreme insight&quot; preached by Alan Watts seems ironically potentially harmful if not well-understood and grounded, a flight crashed halfway so that it would&#x27;ve been better not to get on the plane--to let the original error of separation in through the back door, ethereal &quot;insight&quot; not <i>bound together</i> with the rest of relative existence. Spiritual traditions have these proverbial cracked jugs with real insight of a sort, like Chogyam Trungpa.