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Alan Watts Quotes - Page 9

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

If we live, we live; if we die, we die; if we suffer, we suffer; if we are terrified, we are terrified. There is no problem about it.

If we live, we live; if we die, we die; if we suffer, we suffer; if we are terrified, we are terrified. There is no problem about it.

Acceptance, Suffering, Problem

We feel that our actions are voluntary when they follow a decision and involuntary when they happen without decision. But if a decision itself were voluntary every decision would have to be preceded by a decision to decide - An infinite regression which fortunately does not occur. Oddly enough, if we had to decide to decide, we would not be free to decide

Decision, Doe, Our Actions

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

The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention.

Focus, Ego, Attention

Alan Watts (2017). “Out of Your Mind: Tricksters, Interdependence, and the Cosmic Game of Hide and Seek”, p.21, Sounds True

There is no coming toward it or going away from it; it is, and you are it.

Going Away

Alan Watts (2003). “Become what You are”, p.11, Shambhala Publications

If you awaken from this illusion, and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death - or shall I say, death implies life - you can conceive yourself. Not conceive, but feel yourself, not as a stranger in the world, not as someone here on sufferance, on probation, not as something that has arrived here by fluke, but you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental. What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself.

Self, White, Black

"The Nature of Consciousness". Book by Alan Watts, 1960.

The trouble with many religions, accused of wishful thinking, is that they are not wishful enough. They show a deplorable lack of imagination.

Thinking, Imagination, Trouble

Alan Watts (1967). “Beyond Theology: The Art of Godmanship”

But we must not suffer over the suffering.

Adversity, Suffering

When your eyes are functioning well you don't see your eyes. If your eyes are imperfect you see spots in front of them. That means there are some lesions in the retina or wherever, and because your eyes aren't working properly, you feel them. In the same way, you don't hear your ears. If you have a ringing in your ears it means there's something wrong with your ears. Therefore, if you do feel yourself, there must be something wrong with you. Whatever you have, the sensation of I is like spots in front of your eyes - it means something's wrong with your functioning.

Mean, Eye, Imperfection

Alan Watts (1977). “The essence of Alan Watts”, Celestial Arts Publishing Company

But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is.

Rate

In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all.

Ideas, Matter, Certain

The further and further we look out with our telescopes and the further and further we look in with our microscopes, the larger and larger and smaller and smaller the universe becomes in order to escape the investigation because we are the universe looking at itself.

Order, Looks, Telescopes

What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself.

Inspiring, Fabric, Structure

"What Is Reality?". Book by Alan Watts, 1973.

No worthwhile life can be lived without risks, despite current American superstitions to the contrary.

Risk, Superstitions, Currents

Alan Watts (2017). “Alan Watts - In the Academy: Essays and Lectures”, p.275, SUNY Press

To define is to limit, to set boundaries, to compare and to contrast, and for this reason, the universe, the all, seems to defy definition....Just as no one in his senses would look for the morning news in a dictionary, no one should use speaking and thinking to find out what cannot be spoken or thought.

Morning, Thinking, Limits

How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such a fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself as anything less than a god? And, when you consider that this incalculably subtle organism is inseparable from the still more marvelous patterns of its environment - from the minutest electrical designs to the whole company of the galaxies - how is it conceivable that this incarnation of all eternity can be bored with being?

Motivational, Eye, Jewels

We are not clear as to the role in life of these chemicals; nor are we clear as to the role of the physician. You know, of course, that in ancient times there was no clear distinction between priest and physician.

Science, Tolerance, Religion

The life of Zen begins, therefore, in a disillusion with the pursuit of goals which do not really exist the good without the bad, the gratification of a self which is no more than an idea, and the morrow which never comes.

Self, Ideas, Goal

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

The harder we try to catch hold of the moment, to seize a pleasant sensation..., the more elusive it becomes... It is like trying to clutch water in one's hands - the harder one grips, the faster it slips through one's fingers.

Hands, Water, Trying

When you really understand that you are what you see and know, you do not run around the countryside thinking, "I am all this!" There is simply all this.

Running, Thinking, Countryside

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

The point is seeing that THIS - the immediate, everyday and present experience - is IT, the entire and ultimate point for the existence of a universe. I believe that if this state of consciousness could become more universal, the pretentious nonsense which passes for the serious business of the world would dissolve in laughter.

Happiness, Laughter, Believe

For if you know what you want, and will be content with it, you can be trusted. But if you do not know, your desires are limitless and no one can tell how to deal with you. Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment.

Desire, Want, Limitless

Alan Watts (2011). “The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”, p.78, Souvenir Press

No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

Inspirational, Fear, Heart

Alan Watts (2011). “The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”, p.79, Souvenir Press

We are seeing, then, that our experience is altogether momentary. From one point of view, each moment is so elusive and so brief that we cannot even think about it before it has gone. From another point of view, this moment is always here, since we know no other moment than the present moment. It is always dying, always becoming past more rapidly than imagination can conceive. Yet at the same time it is always being born, always new, emerging just as rapidly from that complete unknown we call the future. Thinking about it almost makes you breathless.

Time, Past, Thinking

If you want to stay in a state of illusion, stay in it. But you can always wake up.

Wake Up, Want, Illusion

Alan Watts (2011). “Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life: Collected Talks: 1960-1969”, p.79, New World Library

How did you know you're alive, unless you'd once been dead?

Alive, Knows, Did You Know

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