The Collected Letters of Alan Watts by Joan Watts & Anne Watts

Author:Joan Watts & Anne Watts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New World Library

To be able to trample in the Great Void,

The iron bull must sweat.

But, since you were talking of the Bird, perhaps I should also quote another:

In the sky-realm there is neither back nor front,

The path of the bird annihilates East and West.

“Non est servus neque liber; non est masculus neque femina; omnes enim vos unum estis in Christo” [“There is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ.” Galatians 3:28].

Your reference to Coventry Patmore interested me very much. I know of him only through odds and ends from The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, though I have never had the book itself in my hands. I remember, in particular, a wonderful passage which begins, “Love raises the spirit above the sphere of reverence and worship to one of laughter and dalliance . . .” But where did you get your information about the writings which he destroyed?

It is usually most disappointing to meet authors after you have read their books, but I shall be lecturing again in Los Angeles next week and take the liberty of enclosing an announcement.

With many thanks and all good wishes,

Sincerely yours, Alan Watts

THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ASIAN STUDIES | SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA | JULY 22, 1954

Dear Jacquie:

Your letter came while I was on vacation, and since returning I have been getting a summer school under way. There is always something, and most of the time I feel as if I were Shiva with ten arms all doing different things at the same time . . . All of which is the real reason why you have not heard from me in such a long time. This is not the silence of condemnation! It is just that it takes forever to get around to the sort of letters you don’t dictate to a secretary.

What an amazing coincidence that you sent me the “Mud-Pill Court!” For years I have had a large rubbing of the identical chart. About two years ago I began to translate it, but a lot of other things interfered. So I am absolutely delighted to have this key to its mysteries, because I discuss this kind of thing in a course which I give on “the Tao in Far-Eastern Culture.”

The study of Chinese has become a sort of delightful necessity for me, because the students here want to study Lao-tzu in the original, and the regular Chinese language teachers know nothing about it. So, as usual, I find myself rushing in where angels fear to tread. Worse than that, we now have a seminar working on the translation of the Rinzai-roku, a very important Zen text which is supposed to be too difficult to translate. I have the assistance of two almost spherical Chinese MDs, the brothers Paul and George Fung, who are learned Buddhists and present me with excellent cigars. Both have taken their MA here, and are now working towards the PhD. After hours we go to Chinatown and eat fabulous meals, at which they try to get me under the table with offerings of vodka by the tumbler.

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