My problem with Watts is what he said about Jack Kerouac. That he would be that pretentious, that downright nasty and petty, for me, invalidates everything he had to say.
hey! Alan Watts was an incorrigible drunk and womanizer but he's pretty cool and just the right level of blasphemous for my tastes
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what did he say about Kerouac?
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Kerouac had been studying and practicing and had begun trying to write sutras in vernacular English rather than scholarly work for the upper classes. When asked about him, Watts said that K "had zen flesh but no zen bones". Kerouac struggled and practiced. Watts was a performer.
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Kerouac was also a performer. Watts was also a practicioner. Watts' remark seems like a reference to Bodhidarma's dharma transmission and I wouldn't read that as an insultpic.twitter.com/hQZjKJZM9A
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It certainly was. And yes, Watts was referencing that passage. Kerouac was a writer...but one that was uncomfortable with fame. "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." Watts
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a much more respectable position than that of an itinerant preacher, which he was assiduously trying to avoid. I don't see why any of this causes you to judge Watts poorly.
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Basically, and I have thought long and hard about *why* it sets me off the way it does (bc Buddhism lol), and I'm thinking it's because some upper-class lecturer was putting down a working class person who was genuinely trying to practice the dharma bc of his suffering.
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again, I just don't see it as an insult. Was Bodhidarma insulting Zong Chi? I interpret it as a comment about the nature of practice. Watts would probably say of himself that he only had Zen Skin.
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