Zen Buddhism is a branch of Buddhism that focuses on the importance of mediation and oneness with other people and the universe. Alan Watts was partly responsible for introducing Zen Buddhism to the Western World. In this series of short talks, Watts begins by discussing how he is not a Buddhist, nor does he mean to “sell,” Buddhism to his audience. This itself is an aspect of Zen Buddhism. Unlike a few other Religions, such as Islam or Christianity, Zen Buddhism does not actively seek to gain followers.
In the segment titled, Appling, Watts expresses the idea that we call apple trees apple trees because they apple. The world, Watts supposes, is like the tree. The world is a rock that creates people. Like we observe an apple tree in winter, when it is not creating apples, an alien may have observed earth millions of years ago, before it created life. An apple tree in bloom is the same as the earth populated with life.
His main point is that life grows out of the world, just like apples grow out of trees. He challenges the idea that evolution is about ooze slowly changing over time to become intelligent life. Instead, Watts focuses on the larger picture, which to him is the concept that the world (an by extension the universe) creates life.
This idea demonstrates the “oneness,” that is one of basic ideas of Zen. We are not on the earth we are of the earth and the earth is of us. Brought to its conclusion, this idea introduces the concept of the oneness of the universe. If intelligence and life can arise from the nothingness at the beginning of the world, then the world itself must be intelligent. If the intelligent world rises from the universe, then the universe must have intelligence.
Watts believes that the intelligence cannot be separated from its origin, whether the origin is the rocks (the earth) or the universe itself. This is the Zen ide of oneness. Watts states, “where there are rocks, watch out! Watch out! There will be intelligence.”
Westernization
Watts uses Western convention to introduce the idea of oneness. He doesn’t do it because he’s from the Western world; he does it so that Westerners can understand the concept better. Someone from the Eastern world, Buddhist or not, would already be familiar with the concept of oneness, because that is an intrinsic part of their culture. For Easterners, the group is more important than the single person. Zen Buddhism takes this idea to the extreme, supposing that, because everything is born from the same intelligence, there is no separation between people and their environment. Similarly, Zen Buddhists believe that there is no separation between different people, everyone is part of the same unit.
Watts had to explain the idea of oneness as humanity growing from a single source before he could move on to describe intelligence as a universal constant. He might not have had to make that initial distinction for an Eastern audience.
Universal Zen
Group versus individuality aside, Watts did an excellent job demonstrating the oneness concept of Buddhism. Not only are we born of the same, universal intelligence, that universal intelligence makes us a part of each other. In Zen Buddhism, there is no separate self, other people, the world, and the universe itself all function as one, solid unit. There is only an illusion of separation. While this exact idea is a little foreign, the idea of oneness is a repeated theme throughout history.
Many monotheistic and Western religions throughout history see all people as children of the same God. The also see the earth and the universe as a creation of this all-powerful deity. This idea of oneness is not so separate from creationism. The only thing that it removes is the creation. The intelligent universe itself is the creator and the when and why of the creation are unimportant details.
Conclusion
The “Appling” section of the video discussed is similar to the “I” section of Watts video. In the “I” section, Watts wonders why people say, “I have a hand,” when their hand is a part of themselves. He says that sort of language leads to assuming that a human is just a brain driving a body like a person driving a car.
This reiterates what Zen’s Buddhists think is an error in thought. Just as we are not separate from our bodies the we live in, we are not separate from the earth we live on. By extension, we are all a part of each other and should treat one another as extensions of ourselves.
