Author: Mike Colagrossi / Source: Big Think
- Quotes on the immediacy of experience and life.
- Learn a Zen Koan or two and scramble rationalist thought.
- Ponder on the meaning of life with Alan Watts.
To this day, Alan Watts’s words impactful and wise words circulate through the culture. We find them in the many books he left behind, countless lectures and pop-culture references galore. Renowned scholar and teacher, Joseph Campbell once said of him:
“The pomposities of prodigious learning could be undone by him with a turn of phrase. One stood before him, disarmed — and laughed at what had just been oneself.
”While it is no easy feat to distill the many whimsical phrases and knowledge Watts left behind, these quotes attempt to paint a broad picture of the Eastern scholar and philosopher-entertainer.
Here are some of the best Alan Watts quotes.
Alan Watts and Zen philosophy
What is Zen? Better to ask what isn’t Zen. Watts was one of a kind when it came to articulating what cannot be said. The ineffable comes down to an Earthly speakable form when Watts wanted to probe into the peculiarities of paradox.
Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.
“Zen… does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.”
“I prefer not to translate the word Tao at all because to us Tao is a sort of nonsense syllable, indicating the mystery that we can never understand — the unity that underlies the opposites.”
“A proper exposition of Zen should tease us out of thought, and leave the mind like an open window instead of a panel of stained glass.”
Nirvana is right where you are, provided that you don’t object to it.
Alan Watts on God
Having obtained both a master’s degree in theology and becoming an Episcopal priest, Watts had a thoroughly rounded Christian education on the concept of God. With his boundless knowledge of Eastern traditions, mysticism and ancient history — Watts had a refreshingly comparative and unique take on the word and concept.
Buddhism has in it no idea of there being a moral law laid down by some kind of cosmic lawgiver.
“So in this idea, then, everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality. Not God in a politically kingly sense, but God in the sense of being the self, the deep-down basic whatever there is. And you’re all that, only you’re pretending you’re not. And it’s perfectly O.K. to pretend you’re not, to be perfectly convinced, because this is the whole notion of drama.”
“How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.”
Few of us have ever met an angel, and probably would not recognize it if we saw one, and our images of an impersonal or suprapersonal God are hopelessly subhuman — Jell-O, featureless light, homogenized space, or a whopping jolt of electricity.
Alan Watts on the meaning of life
Watts wasn’t afraid to tackle one of the great philosophical questions that…
The post Alan Watts quotes that will change your perspective on life appeared first on FeedBox.