You can't figure out the Universe, especially if you're using figures to figure it. Alan Watts More Quotes by Alan Watts More Quotes From Alan Watts But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is. If you awaken from this illusion, and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death - or shall I say, death implies life - you can conceive yourself. Alan Watts black self white It is also in despair of being able to understand or make any productive contribution to the highly organised chaos of our politico-economic system that large numbers of people simply abandon political and social committments. They just let society be taken over by a pattern of organisation which is as self-proliferative as a weed, and whose ends and values are neither human nor instinctive but mechanical. Alan Watts weed taken numbers Naturally, for a person who finds his identity in something other than his full organism is less than half a man. He is cut off from complete participation in nature. Instead of being a body, he 'has' a body. Instead of living and loving he 'has' instincts for survival and copulation. Alan Watts cutting survival men 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. Alan Watts ideas art thinking Life and Reality are not things you can have for yourself unless you accord them to all others. They do not belong to particular persons any more than the sun, moon and stars. Alan Watts stars moon reality To remain caught up in ideas and words about Zen is, as the old masters say, to stink of Zen. Alan Watts stink masters ideas Every intelligent individual wants to know what makes him tick, and yet is at once fascinated and frustrated by the fact that oneself is the most difficult of all things to know. Alan Watts frustrated intelligent want Every individual is a unique manifestation of the Whole, as every branch is a particular outreaching of the tree. Alan Watts unique tree inspiring 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. Alan Watts quality work may It is obvious that the only interesting people are interested people, and to be completely interested is to have forgotten about "I". Alan Watts self people interesting 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 definitions unique men 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. Alan Watts goal self ideas To perceive that form reveals the void, and to see that the void reveals form, is the secret for the overcoming of death. To the extent that one is unaware of space, one is unaware of one's own eternity — it's the same thing! Alan Watts space secret death Life and love generate effort but effort will not generate them. Alan Watts life-and-love effort and-love The past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality. Alan Watts concrete reality past In Zen, poverty is voluntary, and considered not really as poverty so much as simplicity, freedom, unclutteredness. Alan Watts poverty simplicity When you look out of your eyes at nature happening out there...You're looking at you. Alan Watts happenings eye looks If a flower had a God it would not be a transcendental flower but a field. Alan Watts transcendental flower fields Courage is the goal of cowards. Alan Watts coward goal Wars based on principle are far more destructive... the attacker will not destroy that which he is after. Alan Watts principles war peace
