Ep. 2 – Dropping Out From Karma

Ep. 2 – Dropping Out From Karma

Bibliography

• Author: Alan Watts Being in the Way
• Full_Title: Ep. 2 – Dropping Out From Karma
• Category: podcasts
• URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/4da3b950-0d37-4d1b-8ff0-e5ed13a94192
• Last Highlighted Date: 2024-01-08 18:35:27.068988+00:00

Highlights

• Episode AI notes
  1. The principle of ‘woway’ emphasizes acting and interacting in accordance with the natural flow of things. This involves cutting wood along the natural lines and interacting with others in a gentle and harmonious way. The key is to avoid forcing anything and to act in accordance with the existing pattern without imposing interference that is not in line with the situation.
  2. Overcoming blocks in learning music can be achieved by creating a safe and encouraging environment. Making mistakes, not rushing, and focusing on the relative rhythm instead of the notes can help overcome previous negative experiences and traumas.
  3. All knowledge is knowledge of oneself, and the external world is not different from oneself. The state of one’s nervous system is their awareness. However, this does not imply that one’s nervous system is the only existing reality or that there is nothing beyond it.
  4. Embracing the purposelessness of existence allows for a perspective that appreciates the beauty in aimless wandering and nature’s purposelessness. Nature’s wandering is celebrated in Chinese painting styles, reflecting admiration for itswaywardness.
  5. Recognizing the interconnectedness of actions and the flow of dao allows for a natural and effortless flow. There is no separate source of action, and trying to consciously relax is unnecessary as the flow of dao continues regardless, just like the flow of time.
  6. The present moment is inescapable, eternal, and always now. It is the same as tao, the dao, the course of things, the eternal now, or the er presence of god. There is no need to ‘get with’ the present moment as it is inherently present in every moment.
  • Time 0:00:00, Open in Readwise ^rw657043086
• Principle of ‘Woway’ - Acting in Accordance with the Pattern of Things Summary: The principle of ‘woway’ emphasizes acting and interacting in accordance with the natural flow of things, without forcing or imposing interference. This principle applies to cutting wood along the natural lines, and interacting with others in the most congenial way. The key is to avoid forcing anything and to act in accordance with the existing pattern without imposing interference that is not in line with the situation. Transcript: Speaker 1 It doesn’t mean you don’t cut wood, but it means that you cut wood along the lines where wood is most easy to cut, and you interact with other people along lines which are the most o genial. And this, then, is the great e fundamental principle, which is called a wowaynot to force anything. I think that’s the best translation. It’s often called not doing, not acting, not interfering. But not to force seems to me to hit the nail on the head, like, don’t ever force a lock. While you bend the key or break the lock, you jiggle until it revolves. So woway is always to act in accordance with the pattern of things as they exist. Don’t impose on any situation a kind of interference that is not really in accordance with the situation.
  • Time 0:11:22, Open in Readwise ^rw652467070
• Overcoming a Block in Learning Music Summary: The speaker recalled encountering a difficulty in reading music due to past negative experiences with a teacher who used physical punishment for playing wrong notes. This led the speaker to believe that the mathematician and anthropologist Gregory Bateson also had a block in reading music due to a similar childhood experience. The speaker had to be taught to overcome this block. Transcript: Speaker 1 Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha and he said, you know, a the same thing is involved in making a very complex trill. And he demonstrated. Just dropped his hand on the piano, and at the same time, his fingers went lip like that. And there was this magnificent ornamentation. O, then we went on. We practised this for some time. He said, now let’s get around o, hitting the right notes. And he found immediately i had a block on reading music, because when i was a small boy and studied pianor at the age of roughly eight, i had a pestiferous teacher who was a mistress in this Private hool i went to in england. And she used to sit beside you and hitch your fingers with a pencil every time you made a wrong note. I gregory bateson, i think, was taught piano as a child in such a way, and he has a total block on reading musice. He’s got a brilliant mind. You know, he’s a mathematician and great anthropologist, ethnologes and so on, but he has a total block to reading music. And so this man had to teach me to overcome my block.
  • Time 0:22:10, Open in Readwise ^rw653137504
• Overcoming Blocks in Learning Music Summary: The speaker recalls a piano teacher who had to help him overcome a block in reading music due to a traumatic experience with a previous teacher. The new teacher encouraged making mistakes, not rushing, and focusing on the relative rhythm instead of the notes. Transcript: Speaker 1 Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ha and he said, you know, a the same thing is involved in making a very complex trill. And he demonstrated. Just dropped his hand on the piano, and at the same time, his fingers went lip like that. And there was this magnificent ornamentation. O, then we went on. We practised this for some time. He said, now let’s get around o, hitting the right notes. And he found immediately i had a block on reading music, because when i was a small boy and studied pianor at the age of roughly eight, i had a pestiferous teacher who was a mistress in this Private hool i went to in england. And she used to sit beside you and hitch your fingers with a pencil every time you made a wrong note. I gregory bateson, i think, was taught piano as a child in such a way, and he has a total block on reading musice. He’s got a brilliant mind. You know, he’s a mathematician and great anthropologist, ethnologes and so on, but he has a total block to reading music. And so this man had to teach me to overcome my block. And he said, now, ah, first of all, feel perfectly free to make mistakes, her oyou. Everybody’s going to make some mistakes, and it doesn’t matter if you make a mistake. And if you do make a mistake, don’t, don’t go back and do it over again. Just go on, play as slowly as you like. Don’t hurry. Just so long as you keep the relative rhythm, the relative values of the thing, go slow and take it easy. Another thing is not to pay so much attention to the notes,
  • Time 0:22:10, Open in Readwise ^rw653137634
• What you are aware of is a state of your nervous system, and there is no other knowledge whatever. That doesn’t mean that your nervous system is the only existing reality and that there is nothing beyond your nervous system, but it does mean that all knowledge is knowledge of you, And that therefore, in some mysterious way, you are not different from the external world that you know.
  • Time 0:33:17, Open in Readwise ^rw653162386
• Embracing the Purposelessness of Existence Summary: The perspective of a dowist is to view life as purposeless, seeing the universe as useless and without an inherent purpose. Embracing this outlook, a darwis sage finds joy in aimless wandering, observing nature without any specific destination. The admiration for nature’s purposelessness is reflected in the unique styles of Chinese painting, placing emphasis on nature’s wandering and serving no end other than being what it is. Transcript: Speaker 1 The whole notion of something of lifeor any moment in life, or any event in life, being useful, that is to say, serving the end of some future event in life, is, to a dowist, absurd. Because nothing is useful at all. The universe is viewed as purposeless and useless through and through. Because i it’s a game, more than that. A game doesn’t really convey the sense of this. When a darwis sage is wandering through the forest, he isn’t going anywhere. He’s just wandering. When he watches the clouds, he loves them because they have no special destination. He watches birds moving round. He watches the waves lapping on the shore. And just because all this is not busy in the way that human beings are busy, because it serves no end other than being what it is. Now it is for that reason that he admires it. And it is for that reason that you get the peculiar styles of chinese painting, in the tang sung and later dynasties. Ere nature in its wayward wandering. Nature is the main subject.
  • Time 0:37:59, Open in Readwise ^rw653169940
• Understanding the interconnectedness of actions and the flow of dao Summary: Recognizing that there is no separate source of action and that everything is interconnected allows for a natural flow, similar to the flow of time. There is no need to consciously try to relax when one realizes that the flow of dao continues regardless, just like the flow of time. Transcript: Speaker 1 You have to find out that there is nothing that you do as an source and cause of action separate from everything else. When you know that that there is no separate acting, then there is no need to try to relax. The thing you have to see is that the flow of the dao, as i said yesterday, with the illustration of the people swimming in a strong stream, that the flow of the dao goes on anyway, just like The flow of time, for example.
  • Time 0:59:39, Open in Readwise ^rw653234482
• The Inescapable and Eternal Nature of the Present Moment Summary: The present moment is inescapable, as thinking about the past or future still occurs in the present. Time is a measure of flow but the real time is always now, indicating the eternal nature of the present moment. It is described as the same thing as tao, the dao, the course of things, the eternal now, or the er presence of god. Therefore, there’s no need to ‘get with’ the present moment, as it is inescapable and eternal. Transcript: Speaker 1 You can get out of the present moment. You can think about the past, and you can think about the future. But since you do that thinking now, the present is inescapable. All right, now, the present moment, but it has a sense of flow. Time is going along. Life is going along. Time, actually, the clock, time is simply a measure of flow, a way of going tick, tick, tick, tick, and counting the ticks and say, well, we’ve lived through so many ticks a but nevertheless, This is the real time, as distinct from this ticking thing. Isa is a flowing and yet it’s still. Isn’t that fascinating? It moves, but always there. Speaker 3 It’s always now. Speaker 1 You never get out of now. All right now, if you can feel that, see that you can’t get out of now, and you never will. See, now, realize that what we call now is the same thing as tao, the dao, the course of things, the eternal now, the er presence of god, you want to call it. See, that’s now. And you can’t get out of it, so there’s no need to get with it, because you can’t get out. See, that’s beautiful. Youu just relax and you’re there.
  • Time 1:00:22, Open in Readwise ^rw653234915