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...the materialism of modern civilization is paradoxically founded on a hatred of materiality, a goal-oriented desire to obliterate all natural limits through technology, imposing an abstract grid over nature.

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
Nature
Hatred
Paradoxically
Limits
Grids
Civilization
Stewardship
Technology
Oriented
Modern
Imposing
Goal
Materialism
Obliterate
Natural
Founded
Materiality
Desire
Abstract
Grid

More quotes by Alan Watts

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The greater the scientist, the more he is impressed with his ignorance of reality, and the more he realizes that his laws and labels, descriptions and definitions, are the products of his own thought. They help him to use the world for purposes of his own devising rather than understand and explain it.
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Someone once described “Christian Secularism” as the assumption that there is nothing at all to life except a pilgrimage between the maternity ward and the crematorium, and that it is within that span that Christian concern must be exercised because that is all there is.
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Imagine a multidimensiona l spider's web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image.
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No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.
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Insecurity is the result of trying to be secure.
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But the disappearance of the effort to let go is precisely the disappearance of the separate thinker, of the ego trying to watch the mind without interfering.
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Just as money is not real, consumable wealth, books are not life. To idolize scriptures is like eating paper currency.
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But I'll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you'll come to understand that you're connected with everything.
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A paradox is only a truth standing on its head to attract attention.
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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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The harder we try to catch hold of the moment, to seize a pleasant sensation..., the more elusive it becomes... It is like trying to clutch water in one's hands - the harder one grips, the faster it slips through one's fingers.
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Black implies white self implies other
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That society is strong and viable which recognizes its own provisionality.
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We are sick with fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas. Meditation is therefore the art of suspending verbal and symbolic thinking for a time, somewhat as a courteous audience will stop talking when a concert is about to begin.
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They are enlightened who join in this play knowing it as play, for people suffer only because they take as serious what the gods made for fun.
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The menu is not the meal.
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The biggest ego trip is getting rid of your ego, and of course the joke of it all is that your ego does not exist.
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By going out of your mind, you come to your senses
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Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.
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The trouble with many religions, accused of wishful thinking, is that they are not wishful enough. They show a deplorable lack of imagination.
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