Don’t Force Anything – Alan Watts

there is a principle called way means none or not no negation way has a combination of meanings it can mean action making but the best translation I have found for it is forcing and so Louis is the principle of not forcing in anything that you do now we know when we watch any performance of an artist be it a dancer or a an actor or a musician we know immediately when the performance is forced and we say it doesn't ring true it's too artificial it doesn't seem to be natural many people who study the Taoist doctrines think that way means do nothing in the sense of laissez-faire be lazy always be passive it doesn't mean that there is a Time for Action when you study Judo [Music] you use Muscle only at the right moment when your opponent is hopelessly overextended and off balance and you add a little muscle to it and you throw him across the room but only then you never use Muscle at the wrong moment for a Shakespeare knew perfectly well there is a tide in the Affairs of men which taken at its flood leads onto Fortune and so wu-way is based on knowledge of the tide the drift of things get with it wu-way is the art of sailing rather than the art of rowing [Music] so one of the most famous sayings of Lao in the laozer book is superior virtue has no intention to be virtuous and thus is virtually inferior virtue cannot let go of virtuosity and thus is not good so one could also say the real woo way [Music] is not intentionally and so is wool way but inferior will we so tries to be woo way that it isn't in other words this is say is not a matter of cultivated passivity or even of cultivated spontaneity because there are people who think that they are released [Music] that they have realized that they are the Tao as all of us in fact are or that you are to put it into vedanta terms every one of us is the Brahman the Eternal self of the universe beyond all description or classification or thought and say okay baby I'm that now I'm gonna have a ball well what kind of a ball do they have well what they do is they look up the rules on which society runs and do the opposite well that's still running by the rules of society and it's the mirror image in Reverse that's not spontaneity you have to be able to realize that you don't know what you really want to do until you are very quiet and it tells you see we are in heaven now because the Earth is a spaceship and Heaven is space what is called in Chinese kung Japanese goo the void that's what is important most of us don't know this space it comes down to space always space which nobody can Define nobody can imagine appears to be nothing is the foundation of the universe but you have to become again as a child to see that are Europe go back to your childhood what were the fascinating things what's out there what's beyond the stars how long does it go on and Mama Said it goes on always and always and always the child wonders it's excited that this is something that never ends then the child asked about time how long ago is long ago well the Bible says that in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth but what did God do before he did that well as one person said he sat up thinking punishments in hell for people who asked silly questions [Music] ill that is only a joke and the the child thinks of God going back and back and back forever never beginning so in the same way you think about death go to sleep and never wake up never why it would be as if you never had existed not only you but everything else which is of course the way things were before you were born you know about how about waking up after having never gone to sleep that's quite a thought and something fishy about it all so we get a funny feeling when we think those questions really through very funny feeling and children you see love to get into that funny feeling children know all kinds of weird things they like to spin around as fast as possible so they watch the suddenly they're all the ground goes tilting into this thing with their eyes and make faces and test out their bodies in all sorts of funny ways because they know from the beginning that the world is weird a strange thing because everybody knows what it's all about only they won't admit it being brought up is being taught not to admit it as you know very well what's going on but in order to find out once more is an adult you have to become again as a child so what does that involve means ladies and gentlemen would you please check your ideas and opinions at the door all your philosophical and religious views all your logic [Music] because I say check it at the door advises it because you can pick it up again when you go out if you feel unsafe without it [Music] I'm not trying to argue you out of your opinions and views I'm merely suggesting that for the sake of an experiment with temporarily suspended and view what is as if you didn't even know how to talk red is not red blue is not blue heart is not hard soft is not soft male is not male female is not female there is just this Jazz it will not be possible to compel yourselves into this way of looking at things because what Buddhists call habit energy is going on on on on and as I talk to you you will find yourselves thinking in a compulsive and habitual way this is read this is green this is something this is nothing this is solid this is space all right but treat those thoughts that are going on in your head in exactly the same way as if they were maybe below see that's all they are like shapes in the spray as the sea breaks on the rocks now please don't get agitated that this is an anti-intellectual point of view this is undermining the value of logic and reasons on that we will bring all that back later when we need it but just for the time being let's simplify close your eyes listen what do you really and truly honestly here