walking on the wheel: “… Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal …” ~ Alan Watts
Indeed Alan’s words are a profound clue to the mystery of “becoming” … and it also reveals the inherent paradox in this quest where one can simply “miss the point” because one can’t become what one already is … in the seeking one can miss the eternal life that is “just as it is” …
As Alan’s opening quote above continues with “… For the present moment is infinitely small; before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it per- sists forever. This movement and change has been called Tao by the Chinese. . . . A sage has said that if we try to accord with it, we shall get away from it. But he was not altogether right. For the curious thing is that you cannot get out of accord with it even if you want to; though your thoughts may run into the past or the future they cannot escape the present moment. …” …
As usual, Alan, in his inimitable style, unpacks the age old wisdom and makes it very accessible with simplicity and wit-tempered clarity … and this gem comes from the recent 2024 edition of his book Become What You Are: “… a collection articles from the mid-fifties, interspersed with short essays from the late thirties, written before he came to America from England …” …
Mark Watts (the editor and his son) aptly sums up in his Preface with:
“… Understood in this way, to ‘‘become what you are’’ is at once an impossible directive and an unavoidable fact. …”
So, today we’ll partake Alan’s insights through the short chapter Walking On The Wheel (that “… appeared originally in The Middle Way, a journal published by the Buddhist Lodge of London …”) where he unpacks at once walking yet remaining still … or as Mark puts it:
“… Chuang-tzu’s ‘‘perfect man’’ as he ‘‘walks the wheel’’ undisturbed by desire, attachment, fear, or regret. On the back side of this clipping we find an interesting quote attributed to Tan Ching, which reads: If we allow our thoughts, the past, the present and the future ones, to link up in a series, we put ourself under restraint. On the other hand, if we let our mind attach to nothing at all times and towards all things we gain emancipation …”
The book is an excellent collection of Alan’s thoughts on the puzzling topic of “becoming” via his lens of Zen, Taoism, “a serious treatment of Buddhism,” “metaphysical experience,” “mystical basis of the Christian tradition” … and more
This post is part of our ongoing Shambhala Publications series that offers substantive previews of selections from Shambhala Publications new and classic titles …
All italicized text here is adapted from Become What You Are by Alan Watts, © 1995, 2003 by Mark Watts. This edition published in 2024 by Shambhala Publications. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO.
You can purchase the book at Shambhala Publications or Amazon.
Walking On The Wheel
Almost every fundamental principle of life can be expressed in two opposite ways.
There are those who say that to attain the highest wisdom we must be still and calm, immovable in the midst of turmoil. And there are those who say that we must move on as life moves, never stopping for a moment either in fear of what is to come or to turn a regretful glance at what has gone.
The former are as those who listen to music, letting the flow of notes pass through their minds without trying either to arrest them or to speed them on. Like Chuang-tzu’s perfect man, they employ their minds as a mirror: it grasps nothing; it refuses nothing; it receives, but does not keep. The latter are as those who dance to music, keeping pace with its movement and letting their limbs flow with it as unceasingly and as unhesitatingly as clouds respond to the breath of wind.
The one seems to reflect events as they pass, and the other to move forward with them.
Both points of view, however, are true, for to attain that highest wisdom we must at once walk on and remain still.
Consider life as a revolving wheel set upright with man walking on its tire. As he walks, the wheel is revolving toward him beneath his feet, and if he is not to be carried backward by it and flung to the ground he must walk at the same speed as the wheel turns. If he exceeds that speed, he will topple forward and slip off the wheel onto his face. For at every moment we stand, as it were, on the top of a wheel; immediately we try to cling to that moment, to that particular point of the wheel, it is no longer at the top and we are off our balance.
Thus by not trying to seize the moment, we keep it, for the second we fail to walk on we cease to remain still.
Yet within this there is a still deeper truth.
From the standpoint of eternity we never can and never do leave the top of the wheel, for if a circle is set in infinite space it has neither top nor bottom. Wherever you stand is the top, and it revolves only because you are pushing it round with your own feet.
~ Alan Watts
Stay tuned for part 2, the conclusion, of this 2-part series on Alan’s Become What You Are in this Shambhala Publications series …
All italicized text here is adapted from Become What You Are by Alan Watts, © 1995, 2003 by Mark Watts. This edition published in 2024 by Shambhala Publications. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO.You can purchase the book at Shambhala Publications or Amazon.
And, may you practice … deep listening … in your everyday life … and …
May you remain safe and healthy.
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