Quote

We have a strange anxiety in us that if we don't interfere then it won't happen. Now that's the root of an enormous amount of trouble.

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
Enormous
Anxiety
Roots
Amount
Strange
Trouble
Happen
Interfere
Happens
Root

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The power of memories and expectations is such that for most human beings, the past and the future are not as real, but rather more real than the present.
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However much I may be impressed by the difference between a star and the dark space around it, I must not forget that I can see the two only in relation to each other, and that this relation is inseparable.
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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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Paradoxical as it may seem, the purposeful life has no content, no point. It hurries on and on, and misses everything. Not hurrying, the purposeless life misses nothing, for it is only when there is no goal and no rush that the human senses are fully open to receive the world.
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The past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality.
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As muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, it could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are making one of the best possible contributions to a world in turmoil.
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Although profoundly inconsequential, the Zen experience has consequences in the sense that it may be applied in any direction, to any conceivable human activity, and that wherever it is so applied it lends an unmistakable quality to the work.
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The idea of the Universe being ruled by that marvelous old gentleman, is no longer plausible. It isn't that anybody has disproved it, but it just somehow doesn't go with the vast infinitude of the Universe.
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Lack of awareness of the basic unity of organism and environment is a serious and dangerous hallucination.
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By replacing fear of the unknown with curiosity we open ourselves up to an infinite stream of possibility. We can let fear rule our lives or we can become childlike with curiosity, pushing our boundaries, leaping out of our comfort zones, and accepting what life puts before us.
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Conscious attention is a designed function of the brain which scans the environment for any trouble making changes. If you identify yourself with your trouble shooter, then naturally you define yourself as being in a perpetual state of anxiety.
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Playing a violin is, after all, only scraping a cat's entrails with horsehair.
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The difficulty for most of us in the modern world is that the old-fashioned idea of God has become incredible or implausible.
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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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So what is discord at one level of your being is harmony at another level.
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Religion is not a department of life it is something that enters into the whole of it.
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Religion is always falling apart.
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By going out of your mind, you come to your senses
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