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The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego.

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
Knowing
Strongly
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Isolated
Really
Mask
Ego
Separate
Taboos
Independent
Enforced
Behinds
Taboo
Behind
Apparently

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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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Running away from fear is fear fighting pain is pain trying to be brave is being scared
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The life of Zen begins, therefore, in a disillusion with the pursuit of goals which do not really exist the good without the bad, the gratification of a self which is no more than an idea, and the morrow which never comes.
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That society is strong and viable which recognizes its own provisionality.
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These people, as far as I can see, do not congregate in the notorious centers of the movement, like the North Beach in San Francisco or Greenwich Village, or Venice, California.
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Irrevocable commitment to any religion is not only intellectual suicide it is positive unfaith because it closes the mind to any new vision of the world. Faith is, above all, openness - an act of trust in the unknown.
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If you are ready to wake up, you are going to wake up. If you're not you are going to stay pretending that you are just a poor little me.
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We must be careful that the business we build does not become mere busyness.
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And the more you become aware of the unknown self - if you become aware of it - the more you realize that it is inseparably connected with everything else that is.
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Wars based on principle are far more destructive... the attacker will not destroy that which he is after.
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When we attempt to exercise power or control over someone else, we cannot avoid giving that person the very same power or control over us.
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The hostile attitude of conquering nature ignores the basic interdependence of all things and events--that the world beyond the skin is actually an extension of our own bodies--and will end in destroying the very environment from which we emerge and upon which our whole life depends.
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The future is a concept, it doesn't exist. There is no such thing as tomorrow. There never will be, because time is always now. That's one of the things we discover when we stop talking to ourselves and stop thinking. We find there is only present, only an eternal now.
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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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The world is a marvelous system of wiggles.
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