An
Easter Sunday special!
Some
top Alan Watts quotes or quotes come to via Alan Watts.
"The
meaning of life is just to be alive."
"Life
goes on because it doesn't have to!"
"You
don't have to go on."
"Waking
up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to
be. Let go!"
"We
thought of life by analogy with a journey, which had a serious
purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or
whatever it is. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a
musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the
music was being played."
“The
future is a concept, it doesn’t exist. There is no such thing as
tomorrow. There never will be, because time is always now. That’s
one of the things we discover when we stop talking to ourselves and
stop thinking. We find there is only present, only an eternal now.”
"This
is the real secret of life - to be completely engaged with what you
are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work,
realize it is play."
"Don't
think of work as work and play as play - it's all living."
Zen
is "… how to be comfortable under all circumstances."
Zen
is "... a philosophy of not
making where one is going so much more important than where one is
now."
"The
perfection of Zen is to be perfectly and simply human."
(A non-Zen person is - in one way or another - at odds with their
own humanity)
"The
point that is missed is that the two ways of looking at things need
each other to balance out. And that one needs the baby’s view as a
basis for the adult view, because if you don’t have it you take the
adult view too seriously. And that would be analogous to a person
who, in playing poker, loses his nerve because he doesn’t realize
it’s only a game. So he becomes a very bad player."
"We,
in life, are only playing a game. But because we didn’t keep the
baby view, we can’t see it. So what we would call a ‘Buddha-view’
is one that knows both, and therefore is not taken in by the adult
games - although perfectly capable of playing them, but in so far as
they are not regarded as finally and absolutely serious. He’s not
captivated by them."
"Life
is a game!"
"Don't
take life too seriously!"
"Angels
fly because they take themselves lightly."
"Your
soul is the whole universe - your body is inside your soul."
"You
didn't come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the
ocean (or leaves from a tree). You are not a stranger here."
"Nothing
is more important than anything else. What is time for except to be
wasted?"
