Alan Watts Quotes about Past

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We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between a causative past and an absorbingly important

We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between a causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality.

Alan Watts

Memories, Past, Reality

We must abandon completely the notion of blaming the past for any kind of situation we're in and reverse our thinking and see that the past always flows back from the present. That now is the creative point of life. So you see it's like the idea of forgiving somebody, you change the meaning of the past by doing that...Also, watch the flow of music. The melody as its expressed is changed by notes that come later. Just as the meaning of a sentence...you wait till later to find out what the sentence means...The present is always changing the past.

Alan Watts

Mean, Past, Thinking

There is only this now. It does not come from anywhere; it is not going anywhere. It is not permanent, but it is not impermanent. Though moving, it is always still. When we try to catch it, it seems to run away, and yet it is always here and there is no escape from it. And when we turn around to find the self which knows this moment, we find that it has vanished like the past.

Alan Watts

Running, Moving, Past

"The Way of Zen".

Life is like music for its own sake. We are living in an eternal now, and when we listen to music we are not listening to the past, we are not listening to the future, we are listening to an expanded present.

Alan Watts

Past, Listening, Life Is Like

Alan Watts (1983). “The Way of Liberation: Essays and Lectures on the Transformation of the Self”, Weatherhill, Incorporated

If you insist on being determined by the past that's your game, but the fact of the matter is it all starts right now.

Alan Watts

Past, Games, Matter

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

We tend to regard ourselves as puppets of the Past, driven along by something that is always behind us.

Alan Watts

Past, Puppets, Driven

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

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.

Alan Watts

Real, Past, World

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

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

Alan Watts

Past, Reality, Concrete

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

We think that the world is limited and explained by its past. We tend to think that what happened in the past determines what is going to happen next, and we do not see that it is exactly the other way around! What is always the source of the world is the present; the past doesn't explain a thing. The past trails behind the present like the wake of a ship and eventually disappears.

Alan Watts

Past, Thinking, World

Alan Watts (2010). “What Is Zen?”, p.48, New World Library

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.

Alan Watts

Time, Past, Thinking

The art of living... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.

Alan Watts

Art, Unique, Past

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

Zen is a liberation from time. For if we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant, and that the past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality.

Alan Watts

Eye, Past, Reality

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

Everybody is I, you all know you are you. And wheresoever's beings exist throughout all galaxies it doesn't any difference. You are all of them, and when they come into being that's you coming into being, you know that very well. Only you don't have to remember the past in the same way you don't have to think about how you work your thyroid gland. You don't have to know how to shine the sun, you just do it, like you breathe. Doesn't it really astonish you that you are this fantastically complex thing, and that you're doing all of this and you never had any education on how to do it.

Alan Watts

Past, Thinking, Differences