Quote

The question is not what I should do in the future to get it, but rather, what am I presently doing that prevents me from realizing it right now?

Alan Watts

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Future
Right
Presently
Prevents
Question
Realizing
Rather

More quotes by Alan Watts

Image
It is interesting that Hindus, when they speak of the creation of the universe do not call it the work of God, they call it the play of God, the Vishnu lila, lila meaning play. And they look upon the whole manifestation of all the universes as a play, as a sport, as a kind of dance — lila perhaps being somewhat related to our word lilt
Alan Watts
Image
A scholar tries to learn something everyday a student of Buddhism tries to unlearn something daily.
Alan Watts
Image
Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.
Alan Watts
Image
I have suggested that behind almost all myth lies the mono-plot of the game of hide-and-seek.
Alan Watts
Image
Other people teach us who we are. Their attitudes to us are the mirror in which we learn to see ourselves, but the mirror is distorted. We are, perhaps, rather dimly aware of the immense power of our social enviornment.
Alan Watts
Image
There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love. It cannot be copied.
Alan Watts
Image
No one is more dangerously insane than one who is sane all the time: he is like a steel bridge without flexibility, and the order of his life is rigid and brittle.
Alan Watts
Image
In Zen, poverty is voluntary, and considered not really as poverty so much as simplicity, freedom, unclutteredness.
Alan Watts
Image
The Tao belongs neither to knowing nor not knowing. Knowing is false understanding not knowing is blind ignorance. If you really understand the Tao beyond doubt, it's like the empty sky. Why drag in right and wrong?
Alan Watts
Image
When a man no longer confuses himself with the definition of himself that others have given him, he is at once universal and unique.
Alan Watts
Image
But to me nothing - the negative, the empty - is exceedingly powerful.
Alan Watts
Image
For a decision-the freest of my actions just happens like hiccups inside me or like a bird singing outside me.
Alan Watts
Image
Wars based on principle are far more destructive... the attacker will not destroy that which he is after.
Alan Watts
Image
If the universe is meaningless, so is the statement that it is so. If this world is a vicious trap, so is its accuser, and the pot is calling the kettle black.
Alan Watts
Image
You must not be afraid of playing wrong notes. Just forget it, play it wrong! But play!
Alan Watts
Image
This-the immediate, everyday, and present experience-is IT, the entire and ultimate point for the existence of a universe.
Alan Watts
Image
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.
Alan Watts
Image
As the fish doesn't know water, people are ignorant of space. Consciousness is concerned only with changing and varying details it ignores constants-especially constant backgrounds. Thus only very exceptional people are aware of what is basic to everything.
Alan Watts
Image
There is nothing at all that can be talked about adequately, and the whole art of poetry is to say what can't be said.
Alan Watts
Image
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.
Alan Watts