In My Own Way: An Autobiography

by Alan W. Watts

To be or to get in your own way means all at once to fulfill yourself and to obstruct yourself, for language is full of double entendre—as when to cleave means both to split and to adhere, when sacer means both sacred and accursed, and altus both high and deep.

I have said that many times before, and one of the problems of a well-read author is to be accused of repetition by critics who do not seem to understand that repetition is the essence of music as, for example, in the andante movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony or Ravel’s Bolero. Each of the twenty books I have had published arrives at the same destination from a different point of departure, as the spokes of a wheel converge at the hub from separate points on the rim.

Taking the premises of Christian dogmatics, Hindu mythology, Buddhist psychology, Zen practice, psychoanalysis, behaviorism, or logical positivism, I have tried to show that all are aiming, however disputatiously, at one center. This has been my way of making sense of life in terms of philosophy, psychology, and religion.

Do you suppose that God takes himself seriously? I know a Zen master, Joshu Sasaki, who has let it be known that the best form of meditation is to stand up with your hands on your hips and roar with laughter for ten minutes every morning. I have heard of a sophisticated shaman-type fellow who used to cure ringworm on cows just by pointing at the scars and laughing. Truly religious people always make jokes about their religion; their faith is so strong that they can afford it. Much of the secret of life consists in knowing how to laugh, and also how to breathe.