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Into Every Life a Little Zen Must Fall: A Christian Philosopher Looks to Alan Watts and the East
I include this book in my list of 10 or 12 for a seminar on enlightenment. I have carried a paper back of it, taped and dogeared, for years and came to this site to see if it was still available to use in a possible book reading group. It may provide a way to see outside the paradigm for some people. For me it contains a theological view that is more based in reality than in a clinging belief.
192 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1986
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November 26, 2009A combination of Watts, Wittgenstein, and Krishnamurti, compiled together by this Christian liberal. If I understand properly, it goes something like this:
The idea of semiotics has been applied so far as to make all language questionable. Language is not observation, as K puts it, but translation. It pulls us out of the moment and makes us late for the feast (one example given: the moment before I take a bite of the pizza I think "pizza," and thus I fail to experience the pizza itself but only access my concept and expectation of "pizza").
This is a bit of the New Ageism which cannot be argued against because it claims nothing empirical; it exists entirely for the individual in that particular individual's consciousness only. The fundamental aspiration, though, is not to externalize (as Western religions have, through language and doctrine) but to internalize and find the deeper self (which does exist as soul & God & cosmos in a semi-Buddhist way). The nihilist argument creeps in when ethics is addressed, but the non-dualistic abolition of good or evil does not mean one is as good as the other so much as the point is to transcend the conventional concepts and get at the truth of experience. Wholly non-intellectually.
A bit of Neo-Orthodoxy as well, claiming that historical biblical truth is not as important as its metaphoric truth. In fact, time itself does not matter; Genesis is in the present moment, as is the Fall; Christ-like behavior is (in eradicating the confines of the ego) reinterpreting St. Paul's statement: "I live, yet no longer I; but Christ lives in me"; salvation is being awoken to reality itself and our deeper identities.
Sounds like a bunch of allegorical applications, loosely metaphorized from one worldview onto another. The author applies it to Christianity b/c of his particular circumstance. No answer is really given so no answer can be refuted. Semiotics is taken as an excuse to use the modern view of all paths leading to the same God.
It's all very naive in conclusion and in practice. I came to a lot of these ideas on my own at 19 years old, and have discarded them since. The only real value of this book is as a pointer to the context in which it exists (1986), and the institutional failures of religion that have led to this need for fulfillment elsewhere.
This context falls below the historical line of despair which separated faith from rationality, but instead of taking a nihilist route and saying no meaning can be found, it takes a semi-transcending route and saying "no meaning can be found until reaching enlightenment, at which point meaning will be beyond language." Or in other words, beyond proof; a postmodern modern faith. It's Jaspers' absurd "final experience" all over again, but on endless repeat and with suggested techniques.
The idea of semiotics has been applied so far as to make all language questionable. Language is not observation, as K puts it, but translation. It pulls us out of the moment and makes us late for the feast (one example given: the moment before I take a bite of the pizza I think "pizza," and thus I fail to experience the pizza itself but only access my concept and expectation of "pizza").
This is a bit of the New Ageism which cannot be argued against because it claims nothing empirical; it exists entirely for the individual in that particular individual's consciousness only. The fundamental aspiration, though, is not to externalize (as Western religions have, through language and doctrine) but to internalize and find the deeper self (which does exist as soul & God & cosmos in a semi-Buddhist way). The nihilist argument creeps in when ethics is addressed, but the non-dualistic abolition of good or evil does not mean one is as good as the other so much as the point is to transcend the conventional concepts and get at the truth of experience. Wholly non-intellectually.
A bit of Neo-Orthodoxy as well, claiming that historical biblical truth is not as important as its metaphoric truth. In fact, time itself does not matter; Genesis is in the present moment, as is the Fall; Christ-like behavior is (in eradicating the confines of the ego) reinterpreting St. Paul's statement: "I live, yet no longer I; but Christ lives in me"; salvation is being awoken to reality itself and our deeper identities.
Sounds like a bunch of allegorical applications, loosely metaphorized from one worldview onto another. The author applies it to Christianity b/c of his particular circumstance. No answer is really given so no answer can be refuted. Semiotics is taken as an excuse to use the modern view of all paths leading to the same God.
It's all very naive in conclusion and in practice. I came to a lot of these ideas on my own at 19 years old, and have discarded them since. The only real value of this book is as a pointer to the context in which it exists (1986), and the institutional failures of religion that have led to this need for fulfillment elsewhere.
This context falls below the historical line of despair which separated faith from rationality, but instead of taking a nihilist route and saying no meaning can be found, it takes a semi-transcending route and saying "no meaning can be found until reaching enlightenment, at which point meaning will be beyond language." Or in other words, beyond proof; a postmodern modern faith. It's Jaspers' absurd "final experience" all over again, but on endless repeat and with suggested techniques.
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