You live in the moment, like everyone else. It's something everyone already does except people with anxiety disorders/OCD. I guess Watts has appeal to the mentally ill.

Planning is not the opposite of spontaneity. In fact, it complements it. Spontaneity is far richer when rebelling against a structure or a plan. Ask someone who does nothing but party how they feel about life after a few years. vs someone who spends some of their time partying and some working toward something meaningful. The latter is a far more fun life.
Again,, unless you're a slavemaster, most of life is rolling boulders uphill, and it'll be that way until we have robots. If you're a slavemaster, it's other people doing the rolling. You can't escape the rolling though.
You're just a young privileged hedonist. The odds are decent you'll know poverty and deprivation one day. When you have a kid you care about and you don't know where there next meal is coming from and you have to figure out some way to keep them fed, tell me more about living in the moment.

Toothsayer, you are too "clever" for your own good.

"Practice non-doing,
and everything will fall into place.

Non-knowing is true knowing.
Presuming to know is a disease.
First realize that you are sick;
then you can move toward health"
- Lao Tzu

So vegetables in a coma have everything fall into place?

Or maybe quadriplegics. They are the definition of non-doing. Did Christopher Reeve truly become superman, then, according to your philosophy, when he got thrown from his horse?

That is a very superficial definition of non-doing.

A river is in a state of non-doing, yet it flows.
A baby in the womb is in a state of non-doing, yet it grows.
A compost is in a state of non-doing, yet dead things fall into it and strawberries grow out of it.
The universe is in a state of non-doing, yet stars and galaxies are formed.

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;
and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these"
- Jesus

So we should be like the compost?

It seems to me the best way to achieve your state of "Non-doing" - as defined by rivers, unborn babies and compost - is to get a lobotomy. Will that bring us closer to The One? We will still do, but have no concept of why we are doing, no fear, no forethought. We will be like the river, then, no?

To speak of reincarnation and karma as if one doesn't have to speak of consequences is abstracted nothingness. A proper perception is that yes, one is born and dies, but the in between is fraught with responsibility, love and life.

This eastern swirl is less than a Pittsburgh banana split which at least has flavor.

Its a trap , a monstrous trap, to believe that recurrent lives is for no good reason and can be dismissed through the abnegation of past, present and future. This type of thought denies life and borders on the cynical, just perfect for the guru leaded western mucks of obfuscation. If anything, proper comprehension of reincarnation and karma , through nature, places a great burden, a proper welcome burden, on the seeing soul.

It should be noted that reincarnation and karma has not been and will not be a forever entity for at the future there will be the overcoming of death to men. It is during the last 1500 years that the supersensible gates have been closed to perception by the 'normal" man; for each of us goes through at least one life in which the earth becomes very important, in other words to cherish the earth without negating it ala the ancient Indian dismissal.

When we are asleep we are unconsciously in a state of non-doing/flow.
The point, as I see it, is to consciously be in a state of non-doing/flow.

It's a subtle middle way. It's easy to be awake and tense or asleep and relaxed, but it's difficult to find the balance between the two where you are crystal clear in consciousness yet without worry. That's where meditation comes in.

As it is now, we (humans) are stretched between the two, and that's where our inner conflicts and anxieties stems from.

I don't understand. This is my usual state - clear in consciousness and free from worry. All mentally healthy humans spend much of their time not worrying. What you're describing might be a useful relaxation tool for someone with an anxiety disorder, or overstressed and with lots of pressures on them such they've become a little dysfunctional, but I don't see how it applies to the mentally healthy or those with lives mostly in order, and time to relax.

I certainly don't see how you're describing some great truth or tapping into the universe or a "knowing'. I can see how you'd get deluded into thinking that - there's a transition from dysfunctional worry to calmness in which you become aware of how your own mind was dysfunctional...and then you abstract that process out as a pure source of power and insight - but the abstraction you create isn't really real, and the idea that it's something pure that can be accessed further is just a common cognitive flaw that humans have in going from the abstract to the concrete and vice versa. It's built on top of internal psychology, not the wheel that drives the universe and gives us access to all things.
I think this is only true for a subset of people with low stress tolerance/mental illness/over stressed from too many demands. I don't doubt that meditation is a useful psychological trick for such people. It's the extrapolation to a religion and the absurd claims beyond that that I'm questioning.

Well, I'm one of those over-stressed/dysfunctional people, so I feel that I need meditation. Perhaps there is an even better tool out there, but so far it is the best I have found.

If you don't need it, good for you; I hope to one day enjoy the same calm and clarity that you do.

What would you say the limit of usefulness for meditation is?
At what point does it go from being "useful" to "delusional"?

Meditation is a very healthy thing if stress is an issue (it is for lots of people), so I'm not sure it has limits for usefulness. IMO it doesn't tap you into eternal knowing though. The acquiring of external knowledge, competition, striving, pushing yourself, questioning yourself - as active non-meditative acts - are what improve you as a person and make you wiser and enrich your experience. Meditation is a tool for dealing with over stress and getting you in a more receptive and aware state. For me, Buddhists sitting in caves for years is an example of that process taken beyond its usefulness and becoming dysfunctional. Or people who think they've found the source of all power and knowledge by meditating, and use this delusion of special access to the source of power to shield themselves from living, and feel special. I've met a lot of Western Buddhists who fit into that category.

Knowing your experience is eternal...
Why can't you escape the rolling?

The Gods have condemned you. Yet you must imagine yourself happy. How else will you go on?

Roll the boulder all the way up. Chase your dreams. Watch it fall back down again. Do it all again.

Or don't.

Enjoy the music instead.

We don't listen to music to hear the finale. The spring doesn't come fancier or faster than the last. Target what you will. Regardless: The dance IS the reason. Not the finale.

Not knowing stupefying stereotypes like toothsayer posts is an enlightenment.

Meditation is fun. Also, my parts are greater than your parts.

Not knowing greater parts and lessor parts are just parts of the whole, until now.

I'm curious as to what you think Jesus was really saying in the bolded part. And what premise must we accept in order to follow this guidance?

I'm not a christian, but I believe he was basically saying, "go with the flow; trust that everything falls into place if you just dare to let it, just like
everything in nature and the entire universe has fallen into place for billions of years".

And it falls into place in such a beautiful and harmonious way that human will-power and intelligence alone can never compete with this Flow/Tao/Dharma/Logos/Law/Word/Whole.

Of course, human life is part of the Whole, but when the part tries to be the Whole it becomes tumorous and eventually, through its arrogance, commits a kind of indirect suicide.

Ok, but again, what premise is he making that we must accept in order to follow this guidance? And do you accept that premise?

Perhaps you might want to read the verses just prior to it so you can get the context.

Do you see the premise now? In order to "go with the flow" as you said, you have to believe there is a giant benevolent being out there taking care of your daily needs. Do you believe this?

Isn't it time to update the language of the Bible? Knoweth ye?

Been done dozens of times. There's even an Easy English bible. Here are, for example, sacrifice instructions from God:

If Christians still followed the bible rather than ignore God, they'd need some serious air freshener between morning mass and weddings.

I mean the standard could be updated. How can the American Standard Version (ASV) still contain "doth so clothe"?

It makes a joke of it even before we get to the content.

I like doth. I feel like God, if he spoke, would speak in round Godly tones, with the use of "Thou" and "One". Kind of like The Architect from The Matrix. A bit above it all.

Of course many christians won't agree with me, but to me the words "God", "Heavenly Father", and "The Kingdom" are synonymous with the "Whole of Existance", "The All", "The Universal One"... or simply "Nature".

The "giant benevolent being" is Existence/Nature/The Whole itself! Existence is not "out there", but timelessly Here-Now, within you.

Luke 17:21: Jesus said, "Indeed, the Kingdom of God is within you.”

From the Gospel of Thomas:

Jesus said, "If those who lead you say, 'See, the Kingdom is
in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they
say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you.
Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you.
When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and
you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the Living
Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty
and it is you who are that poverty."

Jesus said, "Whoever believes that the All itself is
deficient is (himself) completely deficient."

Jesus said, "It is I who am the All. From Me did the All come forth, and
unto Me did the All extend. Split a piece of wood, and I am
there. Lift up the stone, and you will find Me there."

His disciples said to Him, "When will the Kingdom come?"
Jesus said, "It will not come by waiting for it. It will
not be a matter of saying 'Here it is' or 'There it is.' Rather,
the Kingdom is spread out upon the earth, and men
do not see it."

Call it what you want. So do you believe in an entity that is actively looking out for you and will take care of your daily needs?

And do you believe in the gospel of Thomas as truth?

I don't believe in an "entity" that is actively looking out for me.
It's simply Nature "looking out" for Nature... and I am part of that Nature!
The sun shines and nurtures the tree, out of the clouds falls rain and water it, and out of the tree grows fruits which nurtures me, and I poop (and die and decompose) and nurture the tree again.
This I trust.
In reality, beyond thoughts and words and ego, there is no "I" and no "Tree" -- there is only the The One/the Whole of Existance/God, which is beyond birth and death; It is Eternal Being, timelessly Here-Now, "within you and without you".

I don't believe in the gospel of thomas as truth. I simply quoted the parts that corresponds with my own experience of life/existance/god.