Alan Watts Quotes

Do you see yourself as a victim of the world, or do you see yourself as the world?

We are the eyes of the cosmos. So that in a way, when you look deeply into somebody's eyes, you're looking deep into yourself, and the other person is looking deeply into the same self.

If we cling to belief in God, we cannot likewise have faith, since faith is not clinging but letting go.

You, yourself, are the eternal energy which appears as this Universe. You didn't come into this world; you came out of it. Like a wave from the ocean.

Self-improvement is a dangerous form of vanity.

Lack of love for the vegetative, subtle, cthonic, pagan, and sexy aspect of the world means death.

Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.

Your soul isn't in your body; your body is in your soul!

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.

What keeps us from happiness is our inability to fully inhabit the present

In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all.

But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is.

Every explicit duality is an implicit unity.

Nirvana is where you are, provided you don't object to it.

And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on.

Zen is a way of liberation, concerned not with discovering what is good or bad or advantageous, but what is.

Without birth and death, and without the perpetual transmutation of all the forms of life, the world would be static, rhythm-less, undancing, mummified.

You can't live at all unless you can live fully now.

Basically, there is simply nothing to worry about, because you yourself are the eternal energy of the universe.

When we attempt to exercise power or control over someone else, we cannot avoid giving that person the very same power or control over us.

There is a deep, peaceful calm in the dawning of a new day.

The Universe is the game of the self, which plays hide and seek forever and ever.

And the more you become aware of the unknown self - if you become aware of it - the more you realize that it is inseparably connected with everything else that is.

this present moment never comes to be and it never ceases to be, it is simply our minds that construct the continuity of thoughts we call time. In the present moment is nirvana.

Just as true humor is laughter at oneself, true humanity is knowledge of oneself.

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.

The biggest ego trip is getting rid of your ego, and of course the joke of it all is that your ego does not exist.

So many people of wealth understand much more about making and saving money than about using and enjoying it. They fail to live because they are always preparing to live.

Faith is a state of openness or trust.

The moralist is the person who tells people that they ought to be unselfish, when they still feel like egos, and his efforts are always and invariably futile.

The style of God venerated in church, mosque, and synagogue seems completely different from the style of the natural universe.

If you insist on being determined by the past that's your game, but the fact of the matter is it all starts right now.

The real Zen of the old Chinese masters was wu-shih, or "no fuss."

The religious idea of God cannot do full duty for the metaphysical infinity.

Where do I begin and end in space? I have relations to the sun and air which are just as vital parts of my existence as my heart.

Our view of reality is like a chart of the sea - the truer it is, the less likely we will become lost.

The Art of Being: A state of wholeness in which the mind functions freely and easily, without the sensation of a second mind or ego standing over it with a club.

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.

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.

We know that from time to time there arise among human beings people who seem to exude love as naturally as the sun gives out heat.

This-the immediate, everyday, and present experience-is IT, the entire and ultimate point for the existence of a universe.

You can't make love without art.

The truth is revealed by removing things that stand in its light, an art not unlike sculpture, in which the artist creates, not by building, but by hacking away.

If you are ready to wake up, you are going to wake up. If you're not you are going to stay pretending that you are just a poor little me.

A living body is not a fixed thing, but a flowing event, like a flame or a whirlpool.

The Greek word for sinning means to ‘miss the point;’ The point is eternal life which is here and now.

The sound of the rain needs no translation.

What was it like to wake up after having never gone to sleep? That was when you were born.

Nothing satisfies an individual incapable of enjoyment.

If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.