bloodteethandflame

This:

https://youtu.be/48WGE-uGXdI?feature=shared

I found out recently that the spoken word clip in the above piece by Low FM is Alan Watts speaking about tariki and the difference between Christianity (Western thought) and Buddhism/Hinduism (Eastern thought). 

According to Watts, Christianity asks us to seek God by attempting to become perfect (more like God/less human) while Buddhism asks us to seek enlightment through non-attachment (again, to forgo human needs and desires)

– but that the skull stretching part is that tariki is the act of embracing one’s imperfection/humanity rather than to try to rise above it, because to entirely rise above it is nearly impossible, because rising above it makes one less human/less compassionate for ourselves and others.

In short, the goal is to ‘get there’ even though getting there is impossible.

So, to get there, you have to embrace the concept that you never will get there!

According to that concept, to be human is to be a work in progress, always – and therein lies that contradiction:

You get there by embracing the fact that you will not get there by trying to get there – you get there by embracing the journey rather than the destination.

Pretty skull-stretching if I do say so myself!