Both Watts and Kerouac were outsiders looking in. Watts was also a very scholarly book-learned about Zen Buddhism, but he never claimed he did the thing or meditated much, he just wrote beautifully and inspired others to try meditating.
When I started meditating, I asked about Watts or Kerouac from long-term practitioners and Zen teachers. Pretty much everyone says that they wrote lots of "beautiful zen nonsense", but it's not bad because they have inspired thousands of people to try.
From a daily practice perspective, zen feels more mundane. It's like going to the gym or brushing your teeth. More people like the idea of doing zen than actually doing it. Stopping and sitting with your daily shit every day does not feel cool. When the exotic, aesthetic and philosophical aspect wears out, most people quit.
One might say it means they had issues keeping the Fifth Precept (abstaining from alcohol, or sometimes interpreted to mean all intoxicants), which some Buddhist laypersons adhere to. But no one ever (or did they?) claimed these men were enlightened beings.
I want to make one thing absolutely clear. I am not a Zen Buddhist, I am not advocating Zen Buddhism, I am not trying to convert anyone to it. I have nothing to sell. I'm an entertainer. That is to say, in the same sense, that when you go to a concert and you listen to someone play Mozart, he has nothing to sell except the sound of the music. He doesn’t want to convert you to anything. He doesn’t want you to join an organization in favor of Mozart's music as opposed to, say, Beethoven's. And I approach you in the same spirit as a musician with his piano or a violinist with his violin. I just want you to enjoy a point of view that I enjoy.
So probably neither one of them had achieved much in the way of liberation from attachment to sensory pleasure (and the other four hindrances: hate, dullness, anxiety, and doubt) or the resulting cessation of suffering, which is the point of Buddhism.
So either Buddhism doesn't work or Kerouac and Watts sucked at it. That, in turn, means that they are not reliable sources for information about how to do Buddhism.
That might be okay if you read Kerouac and then go find guidance on the path from someone who really is liberated, assuming that's possible, but how do you as a novice layperson tell the difference between a liberated Zen master and a charlatan? If US seekers were good at it, Kerouac's and Watts's books wouldn't be the bestsellers in the category, they'd be eclipsed by somebody whose practice of Buddhism in their own life was actually successful and who had trustworthy, well-grounded insights to share. So you're likely to replicate the errors that led you to Kerouac in the first place by choosing someone like Richard Baker as your teacher. Then, instead of getting liberated from suffering, you just get sexually exploited.
In particular, Kerouac kind of glorifies living heedlessly, and it was precisely that heedlessness that caused his death. Also, it was Richard Baker's heedlessness that caused so much suffering to his students, leaving scars in the community around the San Francisco Zen Center that continue to cause suffering, almost 30 years after his departure. If you're looking for someone to give you permission to live heedlessly, to tell you that living heedlessly is the path to liberation from suffering, you are going to assiduously avoid anything resembling orthodox Buddhism, which says that heedlessness causes suffering.
It's kind of the opposite extreme, really: orthodox Buddhist doctrine is that you should do everything extremely carefully. And you can see this in Zen rock gardens, in the Japanese tea ceremony, in Thich Nhat Hanh's practice of singing a little verse to himself about washing his hands every time he washed his hands, in the absolute prohibition on drinking alcohol, and so on. As far as I can tell it's uniform across every branch of Buddhism.
I'm no expert, of course—obviously I'm no enlightened being or I wouldn't be posting in this cesspit of ill-will and ego. So my understanding of Buddhism should also be suspect. But there is at least somewhat less evidence that I have Buddhism entirely backwards than there is for Watts and Kerouac. Not only have I not died vomiting blood due to alcoholism, the only drug I'm addicted to is caffeine.
It's the same kind of problem we have with programming books, where incompetent fools like Herbert Schildt https://www.seebs.net/c/c_tcn4e.html outsell Kernighan & Ritchie in the "learning C" category, and where the whole methodology and architecture category is full of snake-oil salesmen who have never successfully written a large program.
Just because seekers lose their sight doesn't mean there's no value in their seeking, or what they learned along the way. The reality for many, including myself, is that religion, including Buddhism, is a (sometimes desperate) attempt to make sense of this confusing reality we all collectively woke up in the same way.
To be dismissive of what these folks went through, and what they taught, would be a shameful discounting of real human experience. Watts was genius, but as you note, he struggled. So, obviously, did Kerouac. No human who has found (really found) religion has avoided that same struggle. Some handle it better than others, but then again, some have life circumstances which make that more possible to digest.
I think the problem is distinguishing which experiences cost what ahead of living them, and finding alternatives (which, among other things, religion is or poses as). For example, mundane day-to-day hopelessness is very costly as well, which often leads people to equally costly alcoholism…
These men (they're usually men) are romantic heroes. Kerouac, Watts, Jim Morrison, Dylan Thomas, etc. I admire them and what they created but they usually die young, often of alcohol or drugs and they tend to leave a fair amount of destruction in their wake. Kerouac was self-conscious about what he was doing:
> I shambled after as usual as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"
Not the kind of man you can imagine growing old with a dog at his feet.
Yeah, Watts and Kerouac were both genius writers, and they did a wonderful job of portraying the human condition, in different ways. And I don't think their seeking was valueless—they both likely ended up much better off because of it, even if they were still miserable on an absolute scale.
I don't understand Buddhism as an attempt to make sense of reality. There's lots of stuff in the Tipitaka about attempting to make sense of reality—mostly elaborate, poetic warnings not to waste time attempting to make sense of reality. I think Buddhism is better understood as a set of practices for putting an end to suffering.
> Whereas some contemplatives & brahmans, living off food given in faith, remain addicted to talking about lowly topics such as these—talking about kings, robbers, … tales of the dead; tales of diversity [philosophical discussions of the past and future], the creation of the world and of the sea, and talk of whether things exist or not—he abstains from talking about lowly topics such as these. This, too, is part of his virtue.
> Whereas some contemplatives & brahmans, living off food given in faith, remain addicted to debates such as these—‘You understand this doctrine and discipline? I’m the one who understands this doctrine and discipline. How could you understand this doctrine and discipline? You’re practicing wrongly. I’m practicing rightly. I’m being consistent. You’re not. What should be said first you said last. What should be said last you said first. What you took so long to think out has been refuted. Your doctrine has been overthrown. You’re defeated. Go and try to salvage your doctrine; extricate yourself if you can!’—he abstains from debates such as these. This, too, is part of his virtue. …
> Whereas some contemplatives & brahmans, living off food given in faith, maintain themselves by wrong livelihood, by such “animal” arts as (forecasting):
> there will be a lunar eclipse;
> there will be a solar eclipse; …
> he abstains from wrong livelihood, from “animal” arts such as these.
> “Māluṅkyaputta, did I ever say to you, ‘Come, Māluṅkyaputta, live the holy life under me, and I will disclose to you that ‘The cosmos is eternal,’ or ‘The cosmos is not eternal,’ or ‘The cosmos is finite,’ or ‘The cosmos is infinite,’ or ‘The soul & the body are the same,’ or ‘The soul is one thing and the body another,’ or ‘After death a Tathāgata exists,’ or ‘After death a Tathāgata does not exist,’ or ‘After death a Tathāgata both exists & does not exist,’ or ‘After death a Tathāgata neither exists nor does not exist’?”
> “No, lord.” …
> “Then that being the case, foolish man, who are you to be claiming grievances/making demands of anyone?…
> It’s just as if a man were wounded with an arrow thickly smeared with poison. His friends & companions, kinsmen & relatives would provide him with a surgeon, and the man would say, ‘I won’t have this arrow removed until I know whether the man who wounded me was a noble warrior, a brahman, a merchant, or a worker.’ He would say, ‘I won’t have this arrow removed until I know the given name & clan name of the man who wounded me… until I know whether he was tall, medium, or short… until I know whether he was dark, ruddy-brown, or golden-colored… until I know his home village, town, or city… until I know whether the bow with which I was wounded was a long bow or a crossbow… until I know whether the bowstring with which I was wounded was fiber, bamboo threads, sinew, hemp, or bark… until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was wild or cultivated… until I know whether the feathers of the shaft with which I was wounded were those of a vulture, a stork, a hawk, a peacock, or another bird… until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was bound with the sinew of an ox, a water buffalo, a langur, or a monkey.’ He would say, ‘I won’t have this arrow removed until I know whether the shaft with which I was wounded was that of a common arrow, a curved arrow, a barbed, a calf-toothed, or an oleander arrow.’ The man would die and those things would still remain unknown to him.…
> “So, Māluṅkyaputta, remember what is undisclosed by me as undisclosed, and what is disclosed by me as disclosed. And what is undisclosed by me? ‘The cosmos is eternal,’ is undisclosed by me. ‘The cosmos is not eternal,’ is undisclosed by me. ‘The cosmos is finite’ … ‘The cosmos is infinite’ … ‘The soul & the body are the same’ … ‘The soul is one thing and the body another’ … ‘After death a Tathāgata exists’ … ‘After death a Tathāgata does not exist’ … ‘After death a Tathāgata both exists & does not exist’ … ‘After death a Tathāgata neither exists nor does not exist,’ is undisclosed by me.
> “And why are they undisclosed by me? Because they are not connected with the goal, are not fundamental to the holy life. They do not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, calming, direct knowledge, self-awakening, unbinding. That’s why they are undisclosed by me.
There's literal bookshelves full of this stuff in the Tipitaka, and somewhat less in the Mahayana sutras, and as far as I can tell it's all unanimous that the point of Buddhism is that it's a set of practices designed to produce happiness, not a set of doctrines or concepts designed to produce conceptual understanding. There are a bunch of doctrines and concepts, it's true, but their purpose is to guide your practice, not to make sense of the world. In science we make sense of the world through conceptual understanding, which is an end in itself; but, as I understand it, in Buddhism we make sense of the world by focusing our attention on our phenomenological experience of it and removing the hindrances, the concepts and doctrines serve only to guide our practice in doing that, and even the sensemaking process is merely a means to the ultimate goal of extinguishing suffering.
But I'm not anybody whose opinion merits much weight on this matter. I'm just another fool.
Hello fellow fool ;-) Every time I start to write a response, I refresh the page and see you've added more. Suffice it to say I'm no expert...just someone who started reading about Buddhism a few years ago and have found value is some of its teaching. However, I'm not willing (or able) to get into quoting passages to prove my point. I've found certain things that sit well with me in Buddhism, but I've very much only scratched the surface. I'm aware of the fact that the surface of Buddhism and the beliefs contained within is as vast as the surface of Christianity, and that there are extreme or controversial beliefs in both. I personally have found much to agree with and disagree with in both...but that doesn't stop me from trying to understand further. I wish you the best.
I think I might disagree on principal that ending suffering (mine or others) is a worthy goal in and of itself. Does that mean I shouldn't investigate it?
Inspiring someone to seek out a certain path is different from being unflawed yourself. If you bash an idea or philosophy because the person who holds it is weak and susceptible to morale or spiritual failures, then you need to bash all ideas and philosophies because that's the human condition.
When I was a dedicated yogi, I inspired several people to practice yoga, some of whom went to become teachers. I myself have fallen off the wagon and haven't had a regular practice in over two years. So it goes.
My intention wasn't to bash Buddhism, more to say that Kerouac and Watts shouldn't be considered experts on it, any more than James Burke should be considered an expert on physics; and to point out the difficult problem of bootstrapping your knowledge of a skill one doesn't have.
If you want to build houses, you're usually better off following the advice of someone who has successfully built houses than someone who has read about building houses, watched builders, or written eloquently about building. That is, there may be some value in the advice of the last three people, but there is usually more value in the advice of the first.
If you want to machine pistons, you're usually better off following the advice of someone who has successfully machined pistons than someone who has read about machining pistons, watched machinists, or written eloquently about machining.
If you want to paint beautiful paintings, you're usually better off following the advice of someone who has successfully painted beautiful paintings than someone who has read about painting, watched painters, or written eloquently about painting.
In the same way, I think that if you want to reduce the suffering in your life, you'll probably be better off following the advice of someone who has successfully reduced the suffering in their life than someone who has read about reducing suffering, watched others reduce their suffering, or written eloquently about reducing suffering.
But what do you do if you cannot tell if a house has fallen down, a piston leaks, a painting is ugly, or a guru is dwelling in their own private self-created hell?
> So either Buddhism doesn't work or Kerouac and Watts sucked at it. That, in turn, means that they are not reliable sources for information about how to do Buddhism.
This is a false dichotomy. An oncologist can write an excellent book about cancer and then die of cancer.
Besides, what would make Kerouac and Watts charlatans would be:
- If they claimed Zen to be a solution for alcoholism. They didn't. On the contrary, they honestly described their lifestyles.
- If they acted like role models to be imitated. They didn't.
- If they claimed to be authorities on the topic and/or have received formal training. They didn't.
If all of an oncologist's patients die of cancer, look for a different oncologist.
Shakyamuni claimed Buddhism to be a solution for alcoholism, though not always in a single lifetime. The central teaching of Buddhism is that life is suffering; that suffering arises from addiction (and some other things, as I mentioned above); that the ending of addiction (etc.) leads to the end of suffering; and that the path to ending addiction is [insert the rest of Buddhism here].
All modern schools of Buddhism agree on this formulation and that it is fairly central, although it is somewhat less central to Zen and other Mahayana schools than to Theravada schools, and although it seems to have been present and an important teaching since the beginning of Buddhism, it doesn't seem to have acquired its current degree of centrality in Theravada until only about 1500 years ago.
So perhaps Kerouac and Watts claimed that Buddhism was not a solution for addiction, or perhaps they were silent on the topic; I don't know. But either of those two alternatives would imply that they rejected the essence of Buddhism, which in Kerouac's case would make him a charlatan.
Who would you consider to be "liberated"? I can't recall even some of the well-regarded teachers of recent times (Thich Nhat Hanh, Ajahn Chah, and others) making that claim about themselves, though others certainly made the claim for them.
If we believe the Tipitaka, Shakyamuni talked about how liberated he was, what it was like to be liberated, and how to get liberated like him, pretty much nonstop, for decades. If enlightenment makes you humble then the Buddha was a charlatan and Buddhism is bosh. (This generalizes to most religions!)
Contrapositively, if Buddhism is even moderately well-founded, then at least some truly liberated people would totally scream that out, at least under some circumstances.
I'm Eastern Orthodox Christian, so I do find some sort of speaking out to be productive. The apostles did evangelize, they worked miracles and focused on others above themselves according to the Book of Acts and epistles. But even St. Paul, in his epistles, speaks openly and humbly of his own struggles with the flesh. While he's given strength for that battle, he is meaningfully but still not completely liberated from dealing with the problems sin/temptation present. I understand that everyone who calls for me to listen to a talk could only be liberated to a partial extent. I think once a mortal is fully liberated, they will no longer need to evangelize. Kind of like how we only have sex in this world, it's something for the interim. Until the Resurrection, most if not all of our lives are a work in progress.
I also pay attention to the examples of the desert fathers, many of whom held exceptional wisdom which caused them to deliberately eschew all company, out of fear of becoming prideful by asserting spiritual/intellectual superiority and taking control of the lives of the people in the cities from which they fled.
Where you said "Fuck, I don't know! Ask someone liberated, not me.", I might say "Fiddlesticks, I don't know! Ask someone further along the path with a teaching mission, not me."
By the way I don't if you were aware or not, but this man, Father Seraphim Rose was actually a former student of Alan Watts. I find his writing helpful, personally.
I can understand how you might think that if you don't believe Jesus was the Son of God. Believing in the Miracle of Kenosis, I find that demonstrates humility beyond any words I could ever hope to type.
Well, I mean, he went around saying he was the Son of God, asking people to wash his feet, kicking moneychangers out of the temple, telling people nobody would reach the Father except through him, and so on, or so it is said. Same sort of thing as Shakyamuni saying he was enlightened, had seen the beginnings and endings of countless universes that other people (and even devas and Brahman) had misunderstood, knew the path to enlightenment and the end of suffering that others should follow, urging his followers to call him by honorifics, and so on, or so it is said. Neither one of them behaved like Paul or the desert fathers.
Except that probably most Christians think Shakyamuni was, at best, mistaken about all that stuff, and Jesus wasn't.
>If US seekers were good at it, Kerouac's and Watts's books wouldn't be the bestsellers in the category
That presumes that people who learned about Buddhism from Jack Kerouac read his books because they were already interested in Buddhism, when what really happened was that Kerouac and Watts chose to emphasize those parts of Buddhism that they knew people would like to hear about (not being attached to social status) and not emphasize those parts that people wouldn't (not listening to music and sleeping on the floor). You won't attract entertainment-seeking consumers by telling them upfront how difficult "without attachments" really is.
