Akira The Don, Alan Watts - The Sound of the Rain Needs No Explanation lyrics

We've discussed the web from
Three points of view as an analogy of the
Selective operation of our senses and mind
Whereby certain things in the
World are picked out
As significant according to
Certain game rules
The game that we are playing mostly is
The survival game
That is to say the game ought to go on
Only the way we play the survival game
Has a kind of element in it
Which makes it difficult
Because we tend to say
"The first rule of this game
Is that it's serious"
And that messes the whole thing up
So, you have to watch out in
Other words when you play
For contradictory game rules
Self contradictory game rules
Because if you get mixed up into them
The game seizes to be worth the candle
You start straining at doing something when
It just isn't worth it
Then the second thing that we observed
Was the web as an
Analogy of mutual interdependence
We could call it the idea
That all existence is relative
That all existence is transactional
The transaction being typically
Exemplified by say
The operation of buying and
Selling in which there can be
No buying without somebody selling
And there can be no selling
Without somebody else buying
That kind of interdependence of the inside
Going together with the outside

What is in you going together
With what is outside you
Is absolutely fundamental to existence
It is existence existence is relativity
Existence is relativity
What is in you going together
With what is outside you
Is absolutely fundamental to existence
It is existence existence is relativity
Existence is relativity
Existence is relativity

Then we explored the web as a trap
The spider's web
"Won't you come into my parlor?" said
The spider to the fly
And we saw what happens when you look at
All of life from the point of view
That it is original selfishness
And original hunger
And we found that if you take that
Point of view to it's ultimate extreme
It dissolves and it isn't so bad after all
Shakespeare says, "It is a tale told by
An idiot, full of sound and theory
Signifying nothing"


What is in you going together
With what is outside you
Is absolutely fundamental to existence
It is existence existence is relativity
Existence is relativity
What is in you going together
With what is outside you
Is absolutely fundamental to existence
It is existence existence is relativity
Existence is relativity
Existence is relativity

I remember that I had a Zen master friend who
Wrote a letter to a friend of mine
Which was passed onto me
This friend of mine was aspiring
To be a writer
And he was trying to write a novel
That would but across Buddhism to people
Sugar the pill
And my Zen master friend didn't
Approve of this at all
He said, "Don't write any story to people
Write it to the great sky"
Because all the real masters of literature
Especially novelists and storytellers
Are great masters of nonsense
Think of Lewis Carroll
You can use Lewis Carroll
And he did use Alice in
Wonderland as a Zen textbook:
‘‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe" that’s Zen
I had a discussion with a
Great master in Japan
We were talking about the
Various people who are
Working to translate the Zen
Books into English
He said, "That's a waste of time"
"If you really understand zen, " he said
"You could use any book, you could use the
Bible, you could use Alice in Wonderland
You could use the dictionary"
Because he said
"The sound of the rain needs no translation"
The sound of the rain needs no translation
The sound of the rain needs no translation
The sound of the rain needs no translation
The sound of the rain needs no translation
The sound of the rain needs no translation
The sound of the rain needs no translation
The sound of the rain needs no translation

So what does the rain say? Evening rain
It is the banana leaf that speaks of it first
You see that's the point
And all the talk in the world
Doesn't get it unless you listen to
The talk in a new way

The sound of the rain needs no translation
The sound of the rain needs no translation
The sound of the rain needs no translation
The sound of the rain needs no translation