Does it matter? : essays on man's relation to materiality

146 Pages·2007·1.78 MB·English

by  Watts

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D O E S I T
M AT T E R
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D O E S I T
M AT T E R
Essays on Man’s Relation to Materiality
A l a n Wa t t s
New World Library
Novato, California
New World Library
Pamaron Way
Novato, California 
Copyright © by Alan Watts; copyright © by Joan Watts and
Anne Watts
Originally published by Pantheon Books, ; Vintage Books edition, 
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means
— electronic, mechanical, or other — without written permission from
the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a re-
view.
“Psychedelics and Religious Experience” is reprinted by permission of the
California Law Review. Copyright © by California Law Review, Inc.
Text design and typography by Tona Pearce Myers
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Watts, Alan, –.
Does it matter? : essays on man’s relation to materiality / Alan Watts.
p. cm.
Originally published: New York : Pantheon Books, .
ISBN ----(pbk. : alk. paper)
. Conduct of life. I. Title.
BJ..W 
—dc 
First New World Library printing, November 
ISBN----
Printed in the United States on acid-free, partially recycled paper
New World Library is a proud member of the Green Press Initiative.
       
To Robert B. Shapiro

CONTENTS
Foreword ix
Wealth versus Money 
Murder in the Kitchen 
Clothes—On and Off 
The Spirit of Violence and the Matter of Peace 
Psychedelics and Religious Experience 
Seven Short Essays 
The Basic Myth 
The Great Mandala 
On Selecting Vibrations 
Planting Seeds and Gathering Fruit 
Art with a Capital A 
The Buddhism of Aldous Huxley 
D.T. Suzuki: The “Mind-less” Scholar 
About the Author 

FOREWORD
This book consists of a series of recent essays on man’s rela-
tionship to the material world—to what we call nature, the
physical environment, the body, and substantial matter. In using
such words, I am at once aware that all of them are philosophi-
cal and abstract concepts. Equally so are notions that “reality”
is in fact mental or spiritual. For I am trying to talk about some-
thing which is not talk, and which words and other symbols only
represent. Alfred Korzybski called it the nonverbal or (with a
delightful double-entendre) “unspeakable” world.
Reality is, of course, neither matter nor spirit. It is a per-
cept, not a concept, and everyone knows what it is in the sense
that one knows how to breathe without the least knowledge of
physiology. As Saint Augustine of Hippo put it when asked
about the nature of time: “I know what it is, but when you ask
me I don’t.” Let’s say (since in writing a book one has to say
something) that reality or existence is a multidimensional and
interwoven system of varying spectra of vibrations, and that
man’s five senses are attuned only to very small bands of these
spectra. That sounds very profound and may mean nothing at
all, but in reading it one should attend to the sound of the words
rather than their meaning. Then you will get my point.
ix