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Alan Watts Quotes - Page 7

All Quotes Acceptance Anxiety Art Attitude Awakening Belief Birth Buddhism Change Chaos Consciousness Culture Curiosity Dance Dancing Darkness Death Desire Effort Ego Energy Enlightenment Environment Expectations Failing Faith Feelings Fighting Freedom Frustration Future Giving God Heart Human Nature Identity Ignorance Imagination Inspirational Inspiring Journey Joy Language Laughter Learning Leaving Letting Go Life Listening Love Lying Meditation Memories Mindfulness Moon Morning Motivational Nature Overcoming Pain Past Philosophy Pleasure Purpose Rain Reality Religion Risk Running Silence Simplicity Skins Sleep Soul Spirituality Suffering Taoism Technology Time Understanding Unity Universe Vision War Water Wisdom Worry Writing

When we look for things there is nothing but mind, and when we look for mind there is nothing but things.

When we look for things there is nothing but mind, and when we look for mind there is nothing but things.

Mind, Religion, Looks

Alan Watts (1989). “The way of Zen”, Vintage

The question "What shall we do about it?" is only asked by those who do not understand the problem. If a problem can be solved at all, to understand it and to know what to do about it are the same thing. On the other hand, doing something about a problem which you do not understand is like trying to clear away darkness by thrusting it aside with your hands. When light is brought, the darkness vanishes at once.

Light, Hands, Darkness

Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

And people get all fouled up because they want the world to have meaning as if it were words... As if you had a meaning, as if you were a mere word, as if you were something that could be looked up in a dictionary. You are meaning.

People, World, Want

Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal, for the present moment is infinitely small; before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it exists forever.

Inspiring, Forever, Gone

What was it like to wake up after having never gone to sleep? That was when you were born.

Sleep, Wake Up, Gone

The world is a marvelous system of wiggles.

World, Marvelous

What you do is what the whole universe is doing at the place you call "here and now," and you are something the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing... The real you is not a puppet which life pushes around. The real deep-down you is the whole universe.

Real, Ocean, Puppets

"Tao of Philosophy".

If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.

Real, Past, World

Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

When you feel that you are a lonely, put-upon, isolated little stranger confronting all this, you are under the influence of an illusory feeling, because the truth is quite the reverse. You are the whole works, all that there is, and always was, and always has been, and always will be.

Lonely, Feelings, Littles

Alan Watts (2010). “Still the Mind: An Introduction to Meditation”, p.90, New World Library

The more we struggle for life as pleasure, the more we are actually killing what we love.

Inspiring, Struggle, Killing

Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

So what is discord at one level of your being is harmony at another level.

Levels, Harmony, Discord

You can't figure out the Universe, especially if you're using figures to figure it.

School, Figures, Ifs

In looking out upon the world, we forget that the world is looking at itself.

World, Forget

The source of all light is in the eye.

Eye, Light, Source

We all need to go out of our minds at least once a day. When we go out of our minds we quickly come to our senses.

Mind, Needs, Senses

It's so important to consider this question: What do I desire?

Important, Desire

What we have to discover is that there is no safety, that seeking is painful, and that when we imagine that we have found it, we don’t like it.

Safety, Painful, Imagine

Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

It is interesting that Hindus, when they speak of the creation of the universe do not call it the work of God, they call it the play of God, the Vishnu lila, lila meaning play. And they look upon the whole manifestation of all the universes as a play, as a sport, as a kind of dance — lila perhaps being somewhat related to our word lilt

Dance, God, Sports

Alan Watts (1997). “Zen and the Beat Way”

Inability to accept the mystic experience is more than an intellectual handicap. Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination. For in a civilization equipped with immense technological power, the sense of alienation between man and nature leads to the use of technology in a hostile spirit—-to the “conquest” of nature instead of intelligent co-operation with nature.

Intelligent, Technology, Men

Alan W. Watts, Daniel Pinchbeck (2013). “The Joyous Cosmology: Adventures in the Chemistry of Consciousness”, p.112, New World Library

Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

Inspiring, Peace, Stars

The fools standpoint is that all social institutions are games. He sees the whole world as game playing. That's why, when people take their games seriously and take on stern and pious expressions, the fool gets the giggles because he knows that it is all a game.

Expression, Games, People

You have seen that the universe is at root a magical illusion and a fabulous game, and that there is no separate "you" to get something out of it, as if life were a bank to be robbed. The only real "you" is the one that comes and goes, manifests and withdraws itself eternally in and as every conscious being. For "you" is the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view, points that come and go so that the vision is forever new.

Spiritual, Wisdom, Real

A chest of gold coins or a fat wallet of bills is of no use whatsoever to a wrecked sailor alone on a raft.

Gold, Use, Coins

Alan W. Watts (2010). “Does It Matter?: Essays on Man s Relation to Materiality”, p.4, New World Library

The greater part of human activity is designed to make permanent those experiences and joys which are only lovable because they are changing.

Inspiring, Wisdom, Joy

Alan Watts (1951). “The Wisdom of Insecurity”, Vintage

The past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality.

Past, Reality, Concrete

Alan Watts (1989). “The way of Zen”, Vintage

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