“Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era, received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
Like this cup, Nan-in said, you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
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Alan Watts on Death.
“I think nowadays though, the more general idea, the more plausible idea to many people; is that when we die we just cease to be. That’s all there is to it. But we’re inclined I think, to have in our minds, a picture of this. Which indeed is depressing. Of being shut up in the dark for always, and always, and always. To be kind of buried alive in a blackness. Where we are blind, deaf and dumb but somehow still conscious..”
Alan Watts
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