Quote

The meaning and purpose of dancing is the dance. Like music also, it is fulfilled in each moment of its course. You do not play a sonata in order to reach the final chord, and if the meaning of things were simply in ends, composers would write nothing but finales.

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
Play
Spiritual
Reach
Composers
Writing
Write
Dance
Chord
Things
Moments
Meaning
Chords
Would
Order
Simply
Composer
Like
Ends
Courses
Fulfilled
Also
Course
Final
Sonata
Music
Purpose
Finals
Sonatas
Nothing
Moment
Dancing
Finale

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When a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique.
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As the fish doesn't know water, people are ignorant of space. Consciousness is concerned only with changing and varying details it ignores constants-especially constant backgrounds. Thus only very exceptional people are aware of what is basic to everything.
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You can't figure out the Universe, especially if you're using figures to figure it.
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Jesus was not the man he was as a result of making Jesus Christ his personal savior.
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Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.
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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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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.
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Enlightenment remains unrealized so long as it is considered as a specific state to be attained, and for which there are standards of success.
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By going out of your mind, you come to your senses
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We have allowed brain thinking to develop and dominate our lives. As a consequence, we are at war within ourselves. The brain desiring things which the body does not want, and the body desiring things which the brain does not allow the brain giving directions which the body will not follow, and the body giving impulses which the brain cannot
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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.
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Zen... does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.
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Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be
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Everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality.
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In Zen, poverty is voluntary, and considered not really as poverty so much as simplicity, freedom, unclutteredness.
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The destination of life is this eternal moment.
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We do not come into this world we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.
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