Meditation
One of the many things that drew me to Alan Watts was that he was uncompromising in his irreligiosity. Although best known as a populariser of Zen, there was no element of established Zen practice that he considered sacred.
The most important of all Zen practices by is meditation, or zazen. Since Zen does not regard conceptual thinking as the way towards a view of reality, it relies on direct experience, in the form of meditation, to enable to Zen practitioner – theoretically - to see Reality.
For most, it is impossible to be a practitioner of Zen without spending a great deal of time meditating, which is why it often seems impracticable to the busy Western mind.
Watts liked the idea of meditation, and practiced it, though not, by most accounts, with great dedication or discipline. “ I have always considered myself rather lazy and haphazard in this regard” he wrote in his autobiography. He was disdainful of what he called ‘The uptight school (of Zen)… who seem to believe that Zen is essentially sitting on your ass for interminable hours.’
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