Quote

The myths underlying our culture and underlying our common sense have not taught us to feel identical with the universe, but only parts of it, only in it, only confronting it - aliens.

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
Universe
Underlying
Culture
Myths
Sense
Identical
Feel
Aliens
Feels
Myth
Parts
Taught
Common
Confronting

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When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point.
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Like love, the light or guidance of truth that influences us exists only in living form, not in principles or rules or expectations or advice, however widely circulated
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To feel that life is meaningless unless “I” can be permanent is like having fallen desperately in love with an inch.
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To play so as to be relaxed and refreshed for work is not to play, and no work is well and finely done unless it, too, is a form of play.
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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.
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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.
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If we are not totally blind, what we are seeking is already here. This is it.
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I too realize that the less I preach the more likely I am to be heard.
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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.
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We usually don't look. We overlook.
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Think about a piece of music - some great symphony - we don't expect it to get better as it develops, or that its whole purpose is to reach the final crescendo. The joy is found in listening to the music in each moment.
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That's a waste of time. If you really understand Zen... you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because... the sound of the rain needs no translation.
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We get such a kick out of looking forward to pleasures and rushing ahead to meet them that we can’t slow down enough to enjoy them when they come.
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Of course, you can’t force your mind to be silent. That would be like trying to smooth ripples in water with a flatiron. Water becomes clear and calm only when left alone.
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To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.
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Society is our extended mind and body.
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No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen.
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You can make any human activity into meditation simply by being completely with it and doing it just to do it.
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Total situations are, therefore, patterns in time as much as patterns in space.
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