It'd much more worth someone's while to read the book. It's not very long and is a great read. The author of this article pretty much just states the point that Alan Watts is about to make and the shows the quote of him making the point. This seems... pointless. Read the book. Come to your own understanding and conclusions. “Don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them.”
Brain Pickings is essentially a site dedicated to book reviews (or at least discussion of book that she finds interesting). I don't think the author is pretending that reading her review is a substitute for the original, nor is she co-opting his work. It's as pointless (or useful) as book reviews are.
Watts is what got me into meditation and zen. Lovely man. Chillest dude that ever was. His books are all very good. They get quite rambly, but that's just kind of his nature. Lots of deep thoughts in them.
This kind of reminds me of the distinction concept in the Laws of Form, where by calling yourself an observer, you effect an observed object. I can see what he's saying, but I don't see how that actually changes my perception of myself, as he claims will happen: "Yet you soon discover that you are able to go ahead with ordinary activities—to work and make decisions as ever, though somehow this is less of a drag. Your body is no longer a corpse which the ego has to animate and lug around." I don't feel any different after reading the article, but maybe I have to wait a little longer for it to sink in. And anyway, just because the ego is PART of the universe, why does that mean that there isn't an ego? The ego might be an illusion, but an illusion is something, isn't it? What's the point? I mean, telling myself that the ego is an illusion and that I'm part of the universe as much as the universe is a part of me doesn't change that I still am. Or perhaps I've missed the point of the article.
Alan Watts' dismissal of the ego is based on his argument that it is the greatest cause of suffering and anxiety. That by projecting "I" on to your ego, a version of yourself created by society (essentially the mirror self), rather than your 'true self' you create a lot of confliction. His reasoning is because that this mirror self is not really who you are. You get a lot of unrealistic expectations about who you are, what you want, and what you should fell pushed onto you from the outside and onto your ego. Therefore, he states that if you truly see it as an illusion (not just reading the statement) then a lot of this suffering and anxiety will diminish. It's essentially his interpretation of enlightenment.
In this existence, it seems that I've become aware of some things recently. Trying to express them with words seems like a poor effort. Then I stumble on the words of people past who express what I am just now noticing. I want to believe that their expressions are some sort of "right direction," an agreeable way of accepting this reality. Not in a dogmatic sense, but like a "feel the space occupied and connections around it" way. I don't know if its really by design or general human unawareness, but it's also interesting that these thoughts just dont break into the mainstream of human consciousness.
I think Maria Popova has been reading a lot of Alan Watts of late as she recently posted this piece too.