Category: Alan Watts What is Tao

The Beauty of Nature: A Philosophical Insight

Watts argues that the Chinese view of nature tends to be different than scientists view of nature.  

The fundamental Chinese idea of the order of nature is not compatible with formulation in the order of words, because it is organic, and is not linear pattern. In other words, when we think of beauty we know very clearly what beauty is, but it is absolutely impossible to write down a set of laws and rules that can show us how to create beautiful objects. And mathematicians, for example, often feel that certain equations, certain expressions are peculiarly beautiful. Because they are meticulous people, they try to think out exactly why they are beautiful, and ask if we could make up a rule or formula to describe when beauty will or will not appear. Although they have proposed the criteria of elegance as a new kind of proof to be considered, their general conclusion is that if we could make up a rule and apply it in mathematics, and if we could always by the use of this rule get a beautiful result, eventually those results would cease to impress us as being beautiful. They would become sterile and dry.

I must admit that I had a hard time understanding what Watts was saying here and had to turn to Google’s AI to explain the difference between an organic pattern and a linear pattern: 

An “organic pattern” is a design that mimics natural forms with flowing, curved lines and irregular shapes, often resembling elements found in nature like plants or rivers, while a “linear pattern” is a design composed of straight lines that follow a consistent, predictable path, creating a structured and orderly appearance; essentially, organic patterns are free-flowing and natural, whereas linear patterns are straight and organized. 

In a way, this reminds me that Plato favored abstract reasoning and introspection over empirical observation while Aristotle, on the other hand, stressed empirical observation and systematic study to understand the world, developing the scientific method, focusing on evidence and inductive reasoning to derive knowledge. I happen to favor Plato’s line of reasoning but would still have to concede that Aristotle’s form of reasoning is sometimes needed and, for better or worse,  has largely created our  modern world.

Like Watts I enjoy nature without needing to understand it or to analyze what I’m seeing. 

Many a time I have had intense delight listening to some hidden waterfall in the mountain canyon, a sound made all the more wonderful since I have set aside the urge to ferret the thing out, and clear up the mystery. I no longer need to find out just where the stream comes from and where it goes. Every stream, every road, if followed persistently and meticulously to its end, leads nowhere at all.

And this is why the compulsively investigative mind is always ending up in what it believes to be the hard and bitter reality of the actual facts. Playing a violin is, after all, only scraping a cat’s entrails with horsehair. The stars in heaven are, after all, only radioactive rocks and gas. But this is nothing more than the delusion that truth is to be found only by picking everything to pieces like a spoiled child picking at its food.

I can’t help but think that Watts is actually overstating his argument here. I took up birding because I thought that the birds were beautiful — and I still do.  However, it’s amazing how much I’ve learned about birds since I started birding seventeen years ago, much of what you would only find in a textbook otherwise. That knowledge has made me love birding even more, certainly not less,  than I originally did.  I’ve also met scientists while birding who are doing what they are doing because they love what they’re studying. So, I don’t think the two approaches are necessarily antithetical.  

I’ve long admired some forms of Far Eastern art, particularly Sumi-e, though I hadn’t given much thought to why they were painted the way they were. Watts explains why he thinks they are painted the way they are.

And this is also why the Platos of the Far East so seldom tell all, and why they avoid filling in every detail. This is why they leave in their paintings great areas of emptiness and vagueness, and yet the paintings are not unfinished. These are not just unfilled backgrounds, they are integral parts of the whole composition, suggestive and pregnant voids and rifts that leave something to our imagination. And we do not make the mistake of trying to fill them in with detail in the mind’s eye. We let them remain suggestive.

Watercolors have a lot of the characteristics he mentions and has always been my favorite art medium — yes, even more than photos.  When I have time, I often try to make my photographs look more like watercolors than photographs because I prefer the feeling that creates. I try to recreate what I remember seeing while birding, and I very seldom see things in the same detail that top-end cameras do.  Nor do I particularly want to. If I really want to see what a bird looks like up close, I can go to several different refuges that have stuffed birds like those found on the refuge.  That’s certainly not as beautiful as seeing them in their natural habitat.

Luckily you don’t have to totally agree with Watts says to agree when he says:

It was well said: “The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.” The song of birds, the voices of insects are all means of conveying truth to the mind. In flowers and grasses we see messages of the Tao. The scholar, pure and clear of mind, serene and open of heart, should find in everything what nourishes him. But if you want to know where the flowers come from, even the god of spring doesn’t know.

Perhaps by embracing our naturalness and spontaneity and by recognizing the natural beauty that always surrounds us, we can reconnect with the Tao and find harmony within ourselves and the world around us.

Navigating the Observing Self: Lessons from Watts

The opening lines of  the Tao Te Ching, a foundational text of Taoism, serve as a warning to those who take what is written too literally and to those who believe life can truly be conveyed through words. 

The Tao [Way] that can be told of is not the eternal Tao;
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth;
The Named is the mother of all things.

Watts obviously agrees with this idea and doesn’t limit this warning to just the Tao Te Ching; he extends it to life in general, contending that words are no substitute for experience itself. 

… I have often said that the real basis of Buddhism is not a set of ideas but an experience. This of course is equally true of Taoism as well, which like Buddhism recognizes that experience is altogether something different from words. If you have tasted a certain taste, even the taste of water, you know what it is. But to someone who has not tasted it, it can never be explained in words because it goes far beyond words.

If this is true, it’s clear that the best way to learn is through personal experience. Still, it would be incredibly hard, if not impossible, to just learn from personal experience.  So, what can we learn from others?  

And what can others learn from us?  We have all had valuable unique experiences, but how can we show or teach others what we have learned through those experiences if words can’t accurately reflect what we have experienced?  

Watts seems to argue that the first step is to recognize how little we know about how we think. 

In fact we really have no idea how we manage to do any of this, no idea how we manage to be conscious, how we actually think, and how we actually make decisions. We do these things, but the processes and the order of the physical body that underlies them are completely mysterious to us. Even though we can do these things, we cannot fully describe them.

Watt’s feels that in order to begin to understand are basic nature we need to follow the Tao, “feeling our way into our own nature” not thinking our way there.

All the time we are actually relying on this strange and unintelligible form of natural order. It is at the basis of everything we do, and even when we try to figure something out and describe it in words, and then make a decision on the basis of that process, we are still unconsciously relying upon an order that we cannot figure out. That order constitutes our basic nature, but we are too close to it to see it — and so following the Tao is the art of feeling our way into our own nature.

According to Watts, the problem is that we have been brought up to understand ourselves and others through the use of words.

Since we are brought up to make sense of ourselves, and to be able to account for ourselves, we are always expected to be able to rationalize our actions in words. When we try to accomplish this we develop a kind of second self inside us, which in Zen is called the observing self. This observing self can be a very good thing for us to develop, and it can also cause problems, and run a commentary on who we are and what we are doing all the time. It asks, “What will other people say? Am I being proper? Does what I am doing make any sense?”

I must admit that there have been plenty of times when I wished that other people had a conscience, that they had a sense of right and wrong and would abide by it.  On the other hand, as a teacher I’ve seen far too many students who were limited by their self-doubts and prejudices.  I can’t imagine a world without an observing sense, but it also seems impossible to deny that it could cause more problems than it solves.  

Watts argues that when the observing self demands an individual must see the world just in the order of thoughts and words he loses naturalness and spontaneity.

Humans get in their own way because they are always observing and questioning themselves. They are always trying to fit the order of the world into the order of sense, the order of thought and words. And therefore the children lose their naturalness and spontaneity. For this reason we admire the people, whether they be sages or artists, who have the ability to return in their mature life to a kind of childlikeness and freshness. They are not bothered any more by what people are thinking or saying. This is the charm that surrounds the Taoist sages of ancient China.

Worrying excessively about what others think or say about us gives control of our lives to others.  Only when we can react naturally to the events in our life can we be truly free and authentic.