Alan Watts quotes:
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.
I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
You are an aperture through which the universe is looking at and exploring itself.
We could say that meditation doesn’t have a reason or doesn’t have a purpose. In this respect it’s unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don’t do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.
Technology is destructive only in the hands of people who do not realize that they are one and the same process as the universe.
Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.
I had a discussion with a great master in Japan… and we were talking about the various people who are working to translate the Zen books into English, and he said, “That’s a waste of time. If you really understand Zen… you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because… the sound of the rain needs no translation.”
The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention.
Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.
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.
I also was imparted with the more “modern” wisdom of Vince Neil this week, and he’s no Alan Watts, but let me just say Motley Crue’s “Home Sweet Home” makes a great soundtrack when you’re pulling back into town after a couple months away. 🙂 “You know that I’m a dreamer…”