The Story of the Chinese Farmer is a parable about life and nature narrated by Alan Watts, animated by Steve Agnos, and with music by Chris Zabriskie.

The whole process of nature is a process of immense complexity and it is really impossible to tell whether something that happens in it is good or bad.

Because you never know the consequences of the misfortune. Or, you never know the consequences of good fortune. – Alan Watts

The Illusion of Good and Bad, Animated Short – Alan Watts (Video)

An enlightening discussion accompanied by a beautiful musical score (Ravi Shankar) and superb animation.

This Alan Watts animation challenges us to imagine the world through our nascent consciousness again.

What is it like to be a baby again, to be completely new to this world? Just how different would the world appear compared to our adult eyes?

Imagine You’re a Baby Again – Alan Watts Animation (Video)

Buddha correctly recognized that suffering (duhkha) originates through ignorance and craving, the Noble Eightfold Path is a guide to eliminate ignorance and craving, and by extension, suffering.

The 4th Noble Truth, the Eightfold Path deals with the cultivation of wisdom, moral conduct, and mental discipline.

These Eight guide posts are not commandments, they are vows. For anyone interested in the path to liberation, these ways of life serve to accelerate the process.

The aim of the path is to live a fully balanced life; consider following each part of the Eightfold Path simultaneously, as each step on the path is not meant to be a linear progression.

1. Right View (Wisdom)

Having the wisdom to see things as they really are. Observing and accepting the impermanence of reality and the duhkha (suffering) that is caused by craving for a separate, permanent existence.

2. Right Intention (Wisdom)

Defined simply, it is the intention to act only out of love and compassion. Having a wrong view of reality, where one sees things as separate and permanently enduring causes a person to wrongly grasp for what appears to contribute to their form of identification: a separate/permanent self. The false belief that happiness comes by avoiding what appears to threaten the self.

This way of thinking gives rise to craving, hatred, and violence. Those with right intention instead see the interdependence of all things and processes, correctly identifing that cultivating love and compassion for all beings will bring happiness.

3. Right Speech (Ethical Conduct)

Generally, right speech refers to the avoidance of all talk that will hurt either oneself or others and to speak pleasantly in ways that will help overcome suffering.

It’s negative forms can be interpreted as: lying, slander, character assassination, talk that might bring about hatred, jealousy, enmity, discord, harsh or rude talk, impolite or abusive language, idle or malicious gossip, etc.

It’s positive forms are: telling the truth, speaking in a kindly and friendly way, and using language meaningfully and usefully.

By realizing the time and place for certain language, it implies that at times “noble silence” may be ideal.

4. Right Action (Ethical Conduct)

Based on the idea that no beings have independent existence, then all are dependent upon each other. With this understood, selfishness no longer has any basis.

Negatively, right action can be interpreted as killing, hurting, stealing, cheating, etc.

Positively, it means promoting peace and happiness, and respecting the well-being of all living things.

5. Right Livelihood (Ethical Conduct)

This extends the two former tenets to how one earns a living, prohibiting those careers that bring harm to others. Specifically: drug dealing, using and dealing in weapons, making poisons, killing animals, dealing in prostitution or slavery, etc.

Positively, right livelihood requires that one’s living is earned by means that are honorable, useful, and helpful.

6. Right Effort (Mental Development)

The above developments require discipline, which includes right effort and the two tenets below (right mindfulness & concentration).

Practicing Right Effort includes:

• Preventing evil and unwholesome states of mind from arising,
• Getting rid of evil and unwholesome states of mind that may already exits,
• Bringing about good and wholesome states of mind,
• Developing and perfecting good and wholesome states of mind already present.

7. Right Mindfulness (Mental Development)

Consists in being aware of and attentive to all of one’s activities.

Including:

• Activities of the body,
• Sensing and feeling,
• Perceiving,
• Thinking and consciousness.

This means understanding what these activities are, how they arise, how they disappear, how they are developed, controlled, gotten rid of, and how they are related to each other.

8. Right Concentration (Mental Development)

Refers to a focusing of consciousness that enables one to see deeply into something. Both ignorance and enlightenment, which produce suffering and happiness respectively, have their root in one’s mental activities.

Because one’s mental states determine everything one does, it makes sense to concentrate on purifying one’s mental activities as a means to achieving happiness.

1st Stage:

• Concentrate on getting rid of lust, ill-will, laziness, worry, anxiety, and doubt.
• These unwholesome mental activities are replaced by feelings of joy and happiness.

2nd Stage:

• Concentrate on seeing through and getting beyond all mental activities.
• Retaining an awareness of joy and happiness. 

3rd Stage:

• One goes beyond the mental activity responsible for the feeling of joy.
• Achieves an equanimity pervaded by happiness.

4th Stage:

• Complete equanimity and total awareness.

Alan Watts on The Real Eightfold Path

> Source (recommended for further philosophical study)

The Buddhist Guide to a Happy Life: The Noble Eightfold Path

We’ve featured one part of this series before, but now it’s time for the rest of the animated shorts.

The Zen series is animated by Matt Stone & Trey Parker and combined with transcendent audio taken from Alan Watts lectures.

The wisdom in Alan’s words shines through brightly as the audio is enhanced by the accompanying animation.

Alan Watts – Zen Series

I just want you to enjoy a point of view, which I enjoy. – Alan Watts

Alan Watts – The Myth of Myself (“Appling”)

You cannot get an intelligent organism such as a human being, out of an unintelligent universe. – Alan Watts

Alan Watts – Prickles and Goo

This natural universe is neither prickles nor goo exclusively, it’s gooey prickles and prickly goo! – Alan Watts

Alan Watts – Madness

Both poetry and music lead us to the understanding of what this world is all about, which is, is a dance, a rhythm. – Alan Watts

Alan Watts – I or Ego

I’ve always been tremendously interested in what people mean by the word “I”, because it comes out in curious lapses of speech. – Alan Watts

Animated Zen Series with Alan Watts, South Park Animation (Video)

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. Do not believe anything because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything because it is written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and the benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. – The Buddha

The Four Noble Truths:

1. All things and experiences are marked by suffering/ disharmony/ frustration (dukkha). 
   • Suffering exists. We suffer when we experience pain. We suffer when we do not get what we want. We suffer when we get what we want, but it does not last indefinitely. We suffer when we have some idea of what we want and the reality is a bit different. This is the First Noble Truth.
2. The arising of suffering/ disharmony/ frustration comes from desire/ craving/ clinging. 
   • The cause of suffering is desire—our inflexible desire for things to be other than what they are. According to the Buddha, the problem is not that we are not getting what we want, it is that we want too much.
3. To achieve the cessation or end of suffering/ disharmony/ frustration, let go of desire/ craving/ clinging.
   • It is possible to put an end to suffering by learning to live more simply and be content with what we do have. This is sometimes referred to as putting an end to desire, but it doesn’t mean that we desire nothing at all; it means that we recognize desire as desire, and we act on some desires, such as the desire to make others happy, but we do not expect that we will realize happiness by satisfying our desires.
4. The way to achieve that cessation of suffering/ disharmony/ frustration, is walking the Eight-fold Path.
   • Right understanding, aspiration, speech, conduct, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration.

Alan Watts – The Four Noble Truths

Alan Watts gives his interpretation of the four noble truths in this video lecture.

> Buddha | Lucid Cafe

> Buddhism | Parralax

The Four Noble Truths – Buddha’s First Teaching

Alan Watts suggests that humans created a superior being to worship out of fear and uncertainty.

The behavior of worship is reinforced by government and religious organizations to create a population that will obey. If we realize that we are all one energy, we can start to see through the illusion.

Audio of the speech is from Alan Watts lecture Zen Bones and Tales.

The Yin and Yang of the Universe

According to Buddhist philosophy, all this universe is one ‘dadada.’ That means ‘ten thousand functions, ten thousand things, one suchness,’ and we’re all one suchness. And that means that suchness comes and goes like anything else because this whole world is an on-and-off system.

As the Chinese say, it’s the yang and the yin, and therefore it consists of ‘now you see it, now you don’t, here you are, here you aren’t, here you are,’ because that the nature of energy, to be like waves, and waves have crests and troughs, only we, being under a kind of sleepiness or illusion, imagine that the trough is going to overcome the wave or the crest, the yin, or the dark principle, is going to overcome the yang, or the light principle, and that ‘off’ is going to finally triumph over ‘on.’

Death is the Other Face

Isn’t it odd that anything exists? It’s most peculiar, it requires effort, it requires energy, and it would have been so much easier for there to have been nothing at all. Therefore, we think ‘well, since being, since the ‘is’ side of things is so much effort’ you always give up after a while and you sink back into death.

But death is just the other face of energy, and it’s the rest, the not being anything around, that produces something around, just in the same way that you can’t have ‘solid’ without ‘space,’ or ‘space’ without ‘solid.’

Reborn Star Dust

You are really a playing of this one energy, and there is nothing else but that, that is you, but that for you to be always you would be an insufferable bore, and therefore it is arranged that you stop being you after a while and then come back as someone else altogether, and so when you find that out, you become full energy and delight. As Blake said, ‘Energy is eternal delight.’

Fear of the Illusion

You realize you’re That–we won’t put a name on it– you’re That, and you can’t be anything else. So you are relieved of fundamental terror. That doesn’t mean that you’re always going to be a great hero, that you won’t jump when you hear a bang, that you won’t worry occasionally, that you won’t lose your temper. It means, though, that fundamentally deep, deep, deep down within you, you will be able to be human, not a stone Buddha.

But to have no hang-ups, that is to say, to be able to drift like a cloud and flow like water, seeing that all life is a magnificent illusion, a plane of energy, and that there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of. Fundamentally. You will be afraid on the surface. You will be afraid of putting your hand in the fire. You will be afraid of getting sick, etc. But you will not be afraid of fear. Fear will pass over your mind like a black cloud will be reflected in the mirror.

There is Only One Energy in the Universe and You’re It – Alan Watts

Alan Watts talks about the art of meditation and why it is important to practice it, especially in the civilized world. Too much mental chatter can trap you in a world of illusion.

I’m not saying that thinking is bad. Like everything else, it’s useful in moderation. A good servant, but a bad master.

All so called civilized peoples have increasingly become crazy and self-destructive, because through excessive thinking, they have lost touch with reality. That’s to say we confuse signs, words, numbers, symbols and ideas with the real world.

Most of us would rather have money than tangible wealth and a great occasion is somehow spoiled for us unless it is photographed. And, to read about it the next day in the newspaper is oddly more fun for us than the original event. This is a disaster

Alan Watts – Thinking is a Good Servant, But a Bad Master (Video)

Alan Watts was an English philosopher and writer who played a large part in popularising Zen Buddhism in the West. He gained a wide following after moving to the United States where he published numerous books on Zen and Eastern philosophy.

He is well known for his inquisitive nature and ability to cut through the bullshit of conventional thought to get to the meat of an issue.

In this comic strip penned by Zen Pencils, Watts delves deep into the eternal question:

What do you desire?

The answer may be more simple than you possibly imagined. 

> What if money was no object? | Zen Pencils

Alan Watts – What Do You Desire? (Comic Strip)

Our universe of interdependent systems is made up of many parts that build a whole. We see this principle over and over again. I walk around with a sense of being whole and I have the knowledge that numerous cells make up who I am physically.

It is beautiful that we can be diverse in so many ways and still be here together as one; living in harmony is acceptance of what separates us and acknowledgment of how we are knit together.

A Universe of Interdependent Systems – Alan Watts “You Define I” Transcript

The Earth is not a big rock, infested with living organisms, any more than your skeleton is bones infested with cells.

The Earth is geological, yes, but this geological entity grows people. And our existence on the Earth is a symptom of the solar system and its balances as much as the solar system in turn is a symptom of our galaxy and our galaxy in its turn is a symptom of the whole company of galaxies; goodness only know what that’s in.

But you see, when as a scientist you describe the behavior of an living organism you try to say what a person does. Its the only way in which you can describe what a person is, describe what they do.

Then you find out in making this description you cannot confine yourself to what happens inside the skin. In other words you can’t talk about a person walking, unless you start describing the floor. Because when I walk i don’t just dangle my legs in empty space. I move in relationship to a room. So In order to describe what I’m doing when I’m walking I have to describe the room, I have to describe the territory.

So in describing my talking at the moment I can’t describe this just as a thing in itself because I’m talking to you. So what I’m doing at the moment is not completely described unless your being here is described also.

So if that is necessary if in other words in order to describe my behavior I have to describe your behavior and the behavior of the environment; it means that we really got one system of behavior. That what I am involves what you are. I don’t know who I am unless I know who you are and you don’t know who you are unless you know who I am.

There was a wise rabbi who once said “If I am I because you are you and you are you because I am I then I am not I and you are not you.” In other words we are not separate.

We define each other, we’re all backs and fronts to each other. We and our environment, and all of us and each other are interdependent systems. We know who we are in terms of other people.

We all love together and we are; I think, quite urgently, in need of coming to feel that we are the eternal universe each one of us.

Alan Watts – A Universe of Interdependent Systems (Video)

Alan Watts shares his thoughts on life’s inherent transiency. Explaining how our own thoughts and feelings may hinder or aid us in our pursuit of discovering who we are; Watts poignantly expands our minds to allow more of ourselves to be remembered.

Alan Watts – Creating Who You Are Transcript

Why don’t you really know what you want?

Two reasons that you don’t really know what you want:

#1 You have it.

#2 You don’t know yourself, because you never can.

The Godhead is never an object of it’s own knowledge. Just as a knife doesn’t cut itself, fire doesn’t burn itself, light doesn’t illumine itself. It’s always an endless mystery to itself. I don’t know…

And this I don’t know uttered in the infinite interior of the spirit. This I don’t know, is the same thing as, I love. I let go. I don’t try to force or control. It’s the same thing as humility. If you think that you understand Brahman, you do not understand. And you have yet to be instructed further. If you know that you do not understand, then you truly understand. For the Brahman is unknown to those who know it, and known to those who know it not.

And the principle is that anytime you as it were, voluntarily let up control, in other words cease to cling to yourself. You have an access of power. Cause you’re wasting energy all the time in self-defense. Trying to manage things, trying to enforce things to conform to your will. Why don’t you stop doing that?

That wasted energy is available. Therefore, you are in that sense having that energy available, you are one with the divine principle, you have the energy. When you are trying, however to act  as if you are God, that is to say you don’t trust anybody, and you are the Dictator, and you try to keep everybody in line. You lose the divine energy, cause what you are doing is simply defending yourself. So then, the principle is the more you give it away, the more it comes back.

Now, you say “I don’t have the courage to give it away – I’m afraid.” And you can only overcome that by realizing you better give it away because there’s no way of holding on to it. The meaning of the fact, you see, that everything is dissolving constantly, that we’re all falling apart. We’re all in the process of constant death, and that the worldly hope that men set their heart upon – turns ashes or it prospers anon like snow upon the desert’s dusty face lighting a little hour or two – is gone and all that Omar Khayyam jazz.

The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, the great globe itself. Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind.

All falling apart. Everything is. That’s the great assistance to you. That fact that everything is in decay is your help. That is allowing you, that you don’t have to let go, because there is nothing to hold on to. It’s achieved for you, in other words, by the process of nature.

So, once you see that you just don’t have a prayer, and that’s it’s all washed up and that you’ll vanish and leave no rack behind. And you really get with that. Suddenly, you find that you have the power, this enormous access of energy. But it’s not power that came to you because you grabbed it, it came in entirely the opposite way. Power that comes to you in the opposite way, is power with which you can be trust.

 The Universe is the game of self. Which plays hide and seek forever and ever. – Alan Watts

Illustration by Stephen Collins

Alan Watts – Creating Who You Are (Video)