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We identify in our exerience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

Alan Watts

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Alan Watts
Age: 58 †
Born: 1915
Born: January 6
Died: 1973
Died: November 16
Anglican Priest
Author
Dramaturge
Musician
Philosopher
Theologian
Videographer
Writer
Kent
England
Differentiation
Identify
Happens

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For a decision-the freest of my actions just happens like hiccups inside me or like a bird singing outside me.
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The sense of wrong is simply failure to see where something fits into a pattern, to be confused as to the hierarchical level upon which an event belongs.
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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.
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To remain caught up in ideas and words about Zen is, as the old masters say, to stink of Zen.
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We tend to regard ourselves as puppets of the Past, driven along by something that is always behind us.
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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.
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How did you know you're alive, unless you'd once been dead?
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We must see that consciousness is neither an isolated soul nor the mere function of a single nervous system, but of that totality of interrelated stars and galaxies which makes a nervous system possible.
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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
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In a certain sense, Zen is feeling life instead of feeling something about life.
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When we look for things there is nothing but mind, and when we look for mind there is nothing but things.
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Meditation is the way in which we come to feel our basic inseparability from the whole universe, and what that requires is that we shut up.
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Only words and conventions can isolate us from the entirely undefinable something which is everything.
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It is the seeker, who understands there is more than what meets the eye, who is not afraid and makes the choice to go into the unknown. The process of awaking has begun, the discovery is underway.
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Sexual love is a troubled and problematic relationship in cultures where there is a strong sense of man's separation from nature, especially when the realm of nature is felt to be inferior or contaminated with evil.
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The more we try to live in the world of words, the more we feel isolated and alone, the more all the joy and liveliness of things is exchanged for mere certainty and security. On the other hand, the more we are forced to admit that we actually live in the real world, the more we feel ignorant, uncertain, and insecure about everything.
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What we have forgotten is that thoughts and words are conventions, and that it is fatal to take conventions too seriously. A convention is a social convenience, as, for example, money ... but it is absurd to take money too seriously, to confuse it with real wealth ... In somewhat the same way, thoughts, ideas and words are coins for real thing
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Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.
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Life is not a problem to be solved, but an experience to be had.
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A myth is an image in terms of which we try to make sense of the world.
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