Showing posts with label Alan Watts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alan Watts. Show all posts
Tuesday
Monday
Sunday
Friday
...Behind the scene...
...under the surface of reality...
...you are all actors...
...marvelously skilled at playing parts and in getting lost in the mazes of your own minds...
...and the entanglements of your own affairs...
...as if this were the most urgent thing going on...
...But behind the scenes...
...in the green room...
- in the very back of your mind and the very depth of your soul -
...you always have a sneaking suspicion...
...that you might not be the you that you think you are...
- Alan Watts -
Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life
Sunday
Saturday
...We suffer from a hallucination...
...from a false and distorted sensation of our own existence as living organisms...
...Most of us have the sensation that ' I myself ' is a separate center of feeling and action...
...living inside and bounded by the physical body...
...a center which ' confronts ' an ' external ' world of people and things...
...making contact through the senses with a universe both alien and strange...
...Everyday figures of speech reflect this illusion...
...' I came into this world '...
...' You must face reality '...
...' The conquest of nature '...
- Alan Watts -
Friday
...Now when God plays hide and pretends that he is You and I...
...he does it so we'll that it takes him a long time to remember where and how he hid himself...
...But that's the whole fun of it...
...just what he wanted to do...
...He doesn't want to find himself too quickly , for that would spoil the game...
...That is why it is so difficult for you and me to find out that we are God in disguise...
...pretending on long enough...
...all of us will wake up , stop pretending , and remember that we are all one single Self...
...the God who is all that there is and who lives for ever and ever...
Thursday
Saturday
Friday
...I am not trying to help you or improve you...
...I accept you as you are...
...I am not out , therefore , to save the world...
...Of course , when a stream or a bubbling spring flows out from the mountains...
...it is doing its thing...
...And if a thirsty traveler helps himself , well that’s fine...
...When a bird sings , it doesn’t sing for the advancement of music...
...but if somebody stops to listen and is delighted , that’s fine...
...And so , I talk in the same spirit...
Saturday
...Speaking as of today...
...I do not consider it intellectually respectable to be a partisan in matters of religion...
...I see religion as I see such other basic fascinations as art and science...
...in which there is room for many different approaches , styles , techniques , and opinions...
...Thus I am not formally a committed member of any creed or sect...
...and hold no particular religious view or doctrine as absolute...
...I deplore missionary zeal...
...and consider excessive dedication to and advocacy of any particular religion...
...as either the best or the only true way , an almost irreligious arrogance...
...Yet my work and my life are fully concerned with religion...
...and the mystery of being is my supreme fascination , though , as a shameless mystic...
...I am more interested in religion as feeling and experience...
...than as conception and theory...
Wednesday
Sunday
...As the fish swims in the water but is unmindful of the water...
...the bird flies in the wind but knows not the wind...
...so the true life of Zen has no need to raise waves when no wind is blowing...
...to drag in religion or spirituality as something over and above life itself...
...This is why the Sage Fa-yung received no more offerings of flowers...
...from the birds after he had his interview with the fourth patriarch...
...for his holiness no longer stood out like a sore thumb...
...Of such a man the Zenrin says...
...Entering the forest he moves not the grass...
...Entering the water he makes not a ripple...
Thursday
...So , the whole idea , you see , is that everything's falling apart...
...so don't try and stop it...
...When you're falling off a precipice...
...it doesn't do you any good to hang onto a rock that's falling with you , see ? ...
...But everything is doing that...
...And so , again , this is another case of our completely wasting our energy...
...in trying to prevent the world from falling apart...
...don't do it...
...and then you'll be able to do something interesting with the free energy...
Friday
...To the Taoist mentality...
...the aimless , empty life does not suggest anything depressing...
...On the contrary...
...it suggests the freedom of clouds and mountain streams , wandering nowhere...
...of flowers in impenetrable canyons , beautiful for no one to see...
...and of the ocean surf forever washing sand , to no end...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)