...
People listen and listen and very many of us love it to pieces, but, however one feels about it, 99.9% of us mistake it. The point flies right by as you learn to intone things like "all is one" and "everyone is me"... stuff like that. While what Watts is saying here is perfectly true, the import of it eludes fans and critics alike. Some of the bliss ninny bashers out there are actually way more aggravating on this than the bliss ninnies themselves... and that is a damn lot!
The bit that worked for me, that cut through, is from the Baojing sanmei ge, a Ch'an poem whose author is not certain, but dates back more than twelve hundred years... a deceptively simple line.
You are not it; it actually is you.It explains why erring spiritual seekers get locked up for proclaiming themselves Jesus. It explains why blockheads do not grok the meaning of the word "egalitarian". It explains why bliss ninnies need to be chained to the floor until they can pull themselves together.
What it? All that Watts is talking about here. You are not that. That is you.
Again, you can try to cheat and memorize this, but you will never wake up until your actual felt sense of identity is that. You can't put that on. You can not fake it such that you could fool a master. You would be every kind of evil to pretend that for profit and popularity... any kind of profit, any kind of popularity.
