Free Alan Watts On Zen Buddhism Essay Sample

In the video by Alan Watts, some concepts of Zen Buddhism was discussed and elaborated. He noted in the video that he is neither to sell nor to advocate the concepts and the beliefs of Zen Buddhism but he is to inform the viewers about the ideals it portrays. He introduced the concepts such as prickles and goo, the Appling, the concept of “I”, and the connection of life and music. In this video, it can be observed that there are western and modern interpretations that are conveyed in the beliefs of Zen Buddhism. In this video, the western orientation was characterized by Alan Watts using his examples and his methods in elaborating the concepts and beliefs of Zen Buddhism.
The most common teachings of Zen Buddhism are the size of the self or the teachings of personal identity. In the early Buddhism, it is taught that the senses that the person perceived is not a concrete definition of its identity. However, Alan Watts created a new concept which is based on the beliefs of the size of the self in the Zen Buddhism. It is one of the western orientation in which Watts used to approach the concept of personal identity. Alan Watts described the differences of the prickles and goo. Prickly persons are the ones that love precision and stress all the distinctions between things. On the other hand, the gooey persons are inclusive and love the possibilities and potentialities of the wide generalizations of things. Alan Watts also introduced the idea that everyone has a prickly part and a gooey part. Although this idea was woven from the ideals and concepts of the eastern Zen Buddhism, Alan Watts introduced it as a western way of representing the idea.
The Appling pertains to the idea that the growth of humans in the earth is the same as the idea of the growth of apples in the apple tree. It is a concept or a belief that people have evolved and grew from the dust and particles in the earth millions of years ago. This observation or idea is peculiar to the early beliefs of Zen Buddhism. Rather it is a concept that is evolved or developed from the modernization which affected by the western culture. The concept of Appling is a modern idea based from the teachings of Zen Buddhism.
The concept of “I” was also introduced by Alan Watts which is a basic and old belief in the early Zen Buddhism. According to Buddha, the senses that a person perceived is not a definition of “I” or “Me”. It is the ego that is separated from the material concept of body which could not define the self. This concept is old but the method of presentation of Alan Watts in the video is based on his own western orientation. It is also the same with the concept of the connection between life and music. The method which Alan Watts used is also modernized due to his use of the modern life cycle of an individual which includes going to school or college.
The video of Alan Watts on Zen Buddhism illustrates the influence of western culture to the old beliefs of Zen Buddhism. In this video, it shows that Zen Buddhism is not universal in terms of time and culture. Culture could influence the beliefs of a certain concept while the it could also be affected by the natural change of time.