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The whole point of Zen is to suspend the rules we have superimposed on things and to see the world as it is

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
Whole
Things
World
Superimposed
Suspend
Rules
Point

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Western religions are more concerned with behavior, doctrine, and belief than with any transformation of the way in which we are aware of ourselves and our world.
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Just as true humor is laughter at oneself, true humanity is knowledge of oneself.
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...for since there is no real 'way' to sartori, the way you are following makes very little difference.
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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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I owe my solitude to other people.
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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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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 real you is not a puppet that life pushes around, the real deep down you is the whole universe.
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All I'm saying is that minerals are just a rudimentary form of consciousness whereas the other people are saying that consciousness is a complicated form of minerals.
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But we try to pretend, you see, that the external world exists altogether independently of us.
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You can't make love without art.
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To be silent is not to lose your tongue. On the contrary, it is only through silence that one can discover something new to talk about. One who talked incessantly, without stopping to look and listen, would repeat himself ad nauseam.
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What keeps us from happiness is our inability to fully inhabit the present
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If you love a person, you say to that person, Look, I love you, whatever that may be. I've seen quite a bit of it and I know there's lots that I haven't seen, but still it's you and I want you to be what you want to be. And I won't be happy if I've got you in a cage. You'd be a bird without song.
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A person who thinks too much only ever thinks about his thoughts
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By going out of your mind, you come to your senses
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Without birth and death, and without the perpetual transmutation of all the forms of life, the world would be static, rhythm-less, undancing, mummified.
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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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...for thousands of years human history has been a magnificently futile conflict, a wonderfully staged panorama of triumphs and tragedies based on the resolute taboo against admitting that black goes with white.
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Everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality.
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