Both interesting, each in their way - I was interested mainly in Alan Watts, who has done much to elucidate zen buddhism, taoism, hinduism etc. And there was a group of Yamabushi Buddhists, Ajari [real name Neville Warwick, 1932–1993, a physician also known as "Dr Ajari"] was the fellow's name who ran it, and they actually showed up and took control of the site, and got my father's body and all of this, and there was some question as to how they had arrived there so quickly, and before anybody else, and they whisked his body off before the County opens its offices. In this mind-opening and revelatory work, Watts has crafted a primer on what it means to be human—and a manual of initiation into the central mystery of existence.

It was not long afterward that Watts felt forced to decide between the Anglican Christianity he had been exposed to and the Buddhism he had read about in various libraries, including Croshaw's. That year he began a broadcast series titled “The Great Books of Asia” followed in 1956 by “Way Beyond the West” — which proved to be quite popular with Bay Area audiences. Though criticized by some as simplifying or misrepresenting the works he sought to popularize, Watts is heralded by others as being a crucial figure in helping bridge the philosophical gap between East and West, and during his life he had significant supporters in the Zen community. In our culture, of course, they’ll say you’re crazy and you’re blasphemous, and they’ll either put you in jail or in a nut house (which is pretty much the same thing). To these types of memories may be added those of day-dreaming or of other altered states of consciousness.It happened to me when I was 20 - a feeling of the utter Vastness of the universe, swiftly followed by a vision of my own littleness and vulnerability! But - don't try to go about finding it just like Watts, or be different for the sake of being different and trying to be proud of that. If a dog is biting my shin, I'm immediately aware of my individuality and my need to protect it lest I cease to exist.

I am sure that you won’t be disappointed by any of the books written by Watts and you will be surprised by how this man was thinking and all the knowledge his work holds. He also explored human consciousness and psychedelics in works such as "The New Alchemy" (1958) and The Joyous Cosmology (1962). If you think that you are only inside your skin, you define yourself as one very complicated little curlique, way out on the edge of that explosion. The agents in the bible, particularly the Hebrew Bible, are often families, clans and nations, not particular human bodies. My father died to all of us very unexpectedly, but not to himself, and there were questions raised around his passing as to .He was not ordained as a Zen monk, but he felt a need to find a vocational outlet for his philosophical inclinations.