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To be free from convention is not to spurn it but not to be deceived by it.

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
Deceived
Conventions
Inspiring
Free
Spurn
Convention

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Faith is, above all, openness an act of trust in the unknown.
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So the bodhisattva saves all beings, not by preaching sermons to them, but by showing them that they are delivered, they are liberated, by the act of not being able to stop changing.
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A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.
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Make a spurious division of one process into two, forget that you have done it, and then puzzle for centuries as to how the two get together.
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It is hard indeed to notice anything for which the languages available to us have no description.
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Your body does not eliminate poisons by knowing their names. To try to control fear or depression or boredom by calling them names is to resort to superstition of trust in curses and invocations. It is so easy to see why this does not work. Obviously, we try to know, name, and define fear in order to make it “objective,” that is, separate from “I.
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...the habitual dualist's solution to the problem of dualism: to solve the dilemma by chopping off one of the horns.
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To put is still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.
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The best way to convince someone is by making him realize that what you speak came from his own mind.
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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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Many people think that the Bible is the authentic word of God and they worship the Bible, making it an idol.
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No worthwhile life can be lived without risks, despite current American superstitions to the contrary.
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How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.
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Only words and conventions can isolate us from the entirely undefinable something which is everything.
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But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is. 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.
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Here is the vicious circle: if you feel separate from your organic life, you feel driven to survive survival -going on living- thus becomes a duty and also a drag because you are not fully with it because it does not quite come up to expectations, you continue to hope that it will, to crave for more time, to feel driven all the more to go on.
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But we must not suffer over the suffering.
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There was a young man who said though, it seems that I know that I know, but what I would like to see is the I that knows me when I know that I know that I know.
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But to me nothing - the negative, the empty - is exceedingly powerful.
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