Alan Watts – The Acceptance of Death // Life Lesson Motivational Inspirational Video
change and everything is changed nothing
can be held on to to the degree that you
go with a stream you see you are still
your flowing with it but to the degree
you resist the stream then you notice
that the current is rushing past you and
fighting with you so swim with it go
with it and you’re there you’re at rest
and this is of course particularly true
when it comes to those moments when life
really seems to be going to take us away
and the stream of change is going to
swallow us completely the moment of
death and we think oh oh this is it this
is the end
and so a death we withdraw say no no no
not that not not not yet please but
actually the whole problem is that it
really is no other problem for human
beings than to go over that waterfall
when it comes just as you go over any
other waterfall just as you go on from
day to day just as you go to sleep at
night be absolutely willing to die now
I’m not preaching I’m not saying you
ought to be willing to die and that you
should muscle up your courage and
somehow put on a good front when the
terrible thing comes that’s not the idea
at all point is that you can only die
well if you understand the system of
waves if you understand that your
disappearance as the form in which you
think you are you your disappearance as
this particular organism is simply
seasonal
that you are just as much the dark space
beyond death as you are the light
interval called life these are just two
sides of you because you is the total
wave see you can’t have half a wave
nobody ever saw waves which just had
crests no troughs so you can’t have half
a human being who is born but doesn’t
die half a thing that would be only half
a thing but the propagation of
vibrations and life is vibration it
simply goes on and on but it’s cycles
are long cycles and short cycles
space you see is not just nothing if I
could magnify my hand to an enormous
degree so that you could see all the
molecules in it I don’t know how far
apart they would be but it seems to me
there would be something like tennis
balls in a very very large space and you
would look when I move my hand like this
say for God’s sake look at all those
tennis balls they’re all going together
crazy and the no strings tying them
together that we’re know but the space
going with them and space is a function
of or it’s an inseparable aspect of
whatever solids are in the space
that is the clue probably to what we
mean by gravity we don’t know yet so in
the same way when those marvelous
sandpipers come around here the little
ones while they’re in the air flying
they have one mind they move all
together when they are light on the mud
they’ve become individuals and they go
picking around for worms but one click
of the fingers and all those things have
been looked into the air they don’t seem
to have a leader because they don’t
follow when they turn they all turn
together and go off in another direction
amazing
they’re like the molecules in my hand so
then you see here’s the principle when
you don’t resist change I mean over
resist I don’t mean being flabby when
you don’t resist change you see that the
changing world
which disappears like smoke is no
different from the Nirvana world Nirvana
as I said means breathe out let go of
the breath so in the same way don’t
resist change it’s all the same
principle
so the Bodhisattva saves all beings not
by preaching sermons but by showing them
that they are delivered they are
liberated by the very fact of not being
able to stop changing you can’t hang on
to yourself you don’t have to try not to
hang on to yourself it can’t be done and
that is salvation memento mori
be mindful of death Girja says in one of
his books that the most important thing
for anyone to realize is that you and
all you every person you see will soon
be dead
it sounds so gloomy to us because we
have devised the culture fundamentally
resisting death I love the story of a
conversation at an English country house
at a dinner party where the hostess
started up the question of death and
asked the various guests what they
thought was going to happen to them when
they died and some thought about
reincarnation and others thought about
various kinds of different planes of
being and others thought they were going
to be annihilated but all and none of
the guests had answered to accept Sir
Roderick who was a kind of a
military-type but a very devout pillar
of the Church of England he was the
churchwarden chief of the vestry in the
local country parish and the lady said
sir Roderick you haven’t said a word
what do you think is going to happen to
you when you die oh you said I
impervious up as I shall go to heaven
and enjoy everlasting bliss but I wish
you wouldn’t indulge in such a
depressing conversation
miss true isn’t it
death in the Western world is a real
problem
we hush it up we pretend it hasn’t
happened our morticians who are very
smart commercial operators know exactly
what’s expected of them and they make
death just awful by pretending it
doesn’t happen see what happens you go
to hospital and you’re at the end you
are terminal cancer
and all your friends come around and
they wear false smiles they say cheer up
you’ll be all right
a few days from now we will be back home
and Wilden will go out for a picnic
again the doctors have their bedside
manner is he a doctor is absolutely
helpless with the terminal case because
he’s a bird doctors have divided the
social definition of healer he’s not
allowed to help you die he’s out of roll
even though I mean he may sneak behind
the rules and do it but but he’s
definitely he got a healing you so
you’re going to keep you indefinitely on
the end of tubes and all kinds of things
while there’s a certain grave demeanor
to all this and all the nurses are so
pleasant and so totally distant because
they know this is there and they might
be frank with you that’s why they feel
distant it’s not that they’re not
concerned it’s not that they’re
heartless people but that they just
don’t know how to be frank like lots of
people when they meet a drunk they don’t
know what to do with a drunk
because he’s not doing it’s not behaving
right not behaving right so when you’re
dying you’re not behaving right you’re
supposed to live
C so we don’t know what to do with a
dying person we don’t get around that
person say listen now listen man this
and I got the news for you you’re gonna
die and this is going to be great
look no more responsibilities than how
to pay those bills in it never worry
about anything you’ve got to just die
and let’s go out with a band let’s have
a party see we’ll we’ll put some some of
that morphine in you search you want
hurt too much but we were going to prop
you up in bed and we’re going to bring
all our friends around and we’re going
to have champagne and the I got it
you’re gonna die at the end of it see
and it’s gonna be just marvelous just
like being born see there when we had
birth problems see all women used to
think that birth had to be painful it
was good for them there’s one of the
things you had to suffer because you’ve
been you’ve been screwing around with
people in there for you if you that have
a child and it’s gonna hurt and then the
doctors got together and they scratch
their heads and the man call granted
agreed said no birth doesn’t hurt it’s
natural you know all we’ve got to do is
to talk these women into the idea that
it doesn’t hurt that all these so-called
pains are just tensions and that birth
is great it’s not a disease it’s not
really something you ought to go to
hospital for
because you associate hospitals with
diseases and sickness Plus isn’t
sickness all right now let’s do some new
thinking what about death is death
sickness or is it a healthy natural
event like being born because it is so I
mean it little change in social attitude
about this will fortify everybody else
meaning I’m if I’m alone and all my
relatives are pretending to me is going
to be hard for me I’ve got to challenge
the whole bunch of them and get my
dander up and say listen damn you I
don’t want all this thing around here
you’ve got to take a different attitude
about my dear well that’s hard but if
everybody helps me and we do we’re all
one body they all come around and say
congratulations you’re going to die
liberation liberation now you see
because just before you die I mean I
know very well a skillful priest
handling a person dying can do this for
them but he has to talk very very very
straight and he has to say listen these
doctors you don’t don’t you pay any
attention to them
they’re trying to amuse you and deceive
you you’re going to die this isn’t
terrible but it’s just going to be the
end of you as a system of memories and
so you’ve got a great chance right now
before it happens to let go of
everything because you know it’s going
to go and it is going to help you it’s
going to help you let go of everything
so if you have any possessions left give
them away give everything away and if
you have anything to say that is you
felt that you ought to say before you
die and if you’re kind of hanging on to
and it’s bothering you say it
I mean I don’t mean necessarily a last
confession but say it said that I’d lie
Stevenson shortly before he died said
that he’d been making a monkey of
himself because I didn’t agree with
government’s policy about something you
know he had to get that off his chest
because he had a little thought in the
back of his mind that things were
catching up with him you see so the
moment comes when this thing called
death has to be taken completely not as
some ghastly accident something to do
all the friends are going to stay away
because you’re awful
I mean sometimes people when they die
are in a very unpleasant physical
condition they don’t smell good they
don’t look good and so on but an
enormous amount can be done with
scientific methods to make things
reasonably tidy from a purely sensory
point of view but the main thing is the
attitude that death is as positive as
birth and should be a matter for
rejoicing because death is the symbol of
the liberation
you
