Alan Watts - Shooting an arrow into emptiness.

Alan Watts, the Roshi, the Hippie Zen Master who lived on a Houseboat anchored at the Sausalito slit, perhaps still there, The Embarcadero  or something like that. In the annals of the Western Zen . Allan Watts  is up there among the great teachers of religions and life. Very few can tie the knot of knowledge and wisdom between East and West better then Alan Watts among others. D.T. Suzuki and Sunryu Suzuki Roshi, all the rest of the great teachers that came after are merely walking in their footsteps, like the walking dead following a leader, a teaching a way that has suddenly appeared without thorough investigation as to the meaning behind the meaning and the truth that is being shared; all through the years since when I first stumbled upon one or two of his books, "The Way of Zen" and "This is It!," I was hooked I was then working as a librarian  at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay,sometime in 1970-80s. I also found Hokusai and his complete mangga, comic books. IN this one corner way in the back there was a reading corner and it was surrounded with the books by J.Krishnamurti, and Osho, and Huxley and books G.I.Guirdjief.and Ouspenske, Yoga texts and the Bhagavad Gita I found the Tao Te Ching and the Lessons from the "Shirt Wearer of the Tribe." 

The discovery I made in this little corner of the library had launched me out into the world traveling as an Art Student from one country to another for the next few semesters. The rewards may come late or never, but the feeling of knowing this to be true is already the beginning of the awakening of the spirit. My spirit took to its wings and spent the next three years in college just traveling where I felt like; it was called Directed Independent Studies, a pioneer program out of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. I was one of the few chosen to do the program from UWGB at the time. The idea was to help students make it out there and give them an extensive experience on being an Artist on the street. It was almost like a tradition when I return to the University from everyone of my trips, everyone I met at the counter windows and their cubicles, I got a 'Wlecome Back Sam!' where di you go this time? Along the corridors, "Hey Sammy! Welcome back man! Staying for long this time?" I touched many lives and they touched mine and most were out of Love and Compassion. Then shit happens too, so you win some and loose some as they say back in Wisconsin.

"The Way of Zen," was instrumental in my creating the name Cheeseburger Buddha, I was reading the book while eating a cheeseburger at Mc Donald's, while wearing the uniform of J&J Security in the sunny sunny winter's day on the East side of Green Bay. Outside the street was covered with snow, brilliant white piled up against the windows. A small voice whispered in my ear, "You are nothing but a Cheeseburger Buddha." This was in the late 70s and early eighties and I was offered a chance to go to college and I accepted and I walked away with a degree in Fine Arts after five years; I enjoyed school life so much that they said I was becoming a permanent student. I graduated with a cum laude, on a self designed program - The University Without Walls,,,my letter of proposal was entitled, "Art in Quest of the Universality. " I could have called it in Search of the One true Lord of Creation or something similar but it might have hit a religious wall, so I settled for this vague and naive vision. I hated education until I became a student at UWGB, Wisconsin. This was where I met Alan Watts through his works.