| HN Mirror

Strongly disagree. The playful nature that Alan Watts conveys ideas with completely blew my mind. He combined so many influences. Entertaining or not by his own admission, it’s a hundred, a thousand times more accessible. At its core it is also so much more transmissible back to the day to day life as an organism on this planet. I still have yet to encounter anything like it. The stuff you list right here reeks of long study in a library to me. There are gurus who sit for hours every day meditating, eat their single bowl of rice, clean the temple, sleep on hard stone. And there are gurus who drink, smoke, and laugh, wandering the countryside. A thousand ways indeed. I know which path I prefer. I think of Alan as the latter, whatever he may have said. Play is at the core of the deep lessons, for me. So him straying towards that side rings much more true.

I would start with this short series of animated Alan Watts lectures by Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VvrfnE7Q-0w, listen to some of his lectures (the ones where he’s drinking are often the best), read The Book, and then just have fun with all the other books/content he put out there. Alongside it, dive into the deep texts, Zen, the Vedanta, etc.