Alan Watts Quotes & Sayings

The question "What shall we do about it?" is only asked by those who do not understand the problem. If a problem can be solved at all, to understand it and to know what to do about it are the same thing. On the other hand, doing something about a problem which you do not understand is like trying to clear away darkness by thrusting it aside with your hands. When light is brought, the darkness vanishes at once. — Alan Watts

We get such a kick out of looking forward to pleasures and rushing ahead to meet them that we can't slow down enough to enjoy them when they come. — Alan Watts

Life and Reality are not things you can have for yourself unless you accord them to all others. They do not belong to particular persons any more than the sun, moon and stars. — Alan Watts

Man is a little germ that lives on an unimportant rock ball that revolves about a small star at the outskirts of an ordinary galaxy ... I am absolutely amazed to discover myself on this rock ball rotating around a spherical fire. It's a very odd situation. And the more I look at things I cannot get rid of the feeling that existence is quite weird. — Alan Watts

We all need to go out of our minds at least once a day.
When we go out of our minds we quickly come to our senses. — Alan Watts

If you can't meditate in a boiler room, you can't meditate. — Alan Watts

What you do is what the whole universe is doing at the place you call the here and now. You are something the whole universe is doing in the same way that the wave is something that the whole ocean is doing. The real you is not a puppet which life pushes around. The real deep-down you is the whole universe. — Alan Watts

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. — Alan Watts

We must be careful that the business we build does not become mere busyness. — Alan Watts

Life and love generate effort, but effort will not generate them. Faith-in life, in other people, and in oneself-is the attitude of allowing the spontaneous to be spontaneous, in its own way and in its own time. — Alan Watts

The Chinese word Li may therefore be understood as organic order, as distinct from mechanical or legal order, both of which go by the book. Li is the asymmetrical, nonrepetitive, and unregimented order which we find in the patterns of moving water, the form of trees and clouds, of frost crystals on the window, or the scattering of pebbles on beach sand. — Alan Watts

A philosopher is a sort of intellectual yokel who gawks at things that sensible people take for granted. — Alan Watts

Self-knowledge leads to wonder, and wonder to curiosity and investigation, so that nothing interests people more than people, even if only one's own person. — Alan Watts

The power of memories and expectations is such that for most human beings, the past and the future are not as real, but rather more real than the present. — Alan Watts

If the earth is man's extended body, to be loved and respected as one's own body, those who do no greening of themselves will hardly bring about the greening of America. The idea of 'greening' involves color, flowering, freshness of spring, and, above all, respect for what is organic and vegetative as distinct from the mechanical and metallic. — Alan Watts

The whole point of Zen is to suspend the rules we have superimposed on things and to see the world as it is — Alan Watts

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 ... — Alan Watts

If you belong to an in-group of good, or saved, or elite people, you can only know that you're in because someone else is out. You cannot live on the right side of the tracks without there being a wrong side of the tracks, so you ought to be grateful to the outside for having the privilege of being on the inside. — Alan Watts

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

However much I may be impressed by the difference between a star and the dark space around it, I must not forget that I can see the two only in relation to each other, and that this relation is inseparable. — Alan Watts

You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes. — Alan Watts

Now, you see, if you understand what I'm saying, with your intelligence, and then take the next step and say "But I understood it now, but I didn't feel it." Then, next I raise the question: Why do you want to feel it? You say: "I want something more", because that's again that spiritual greed. And you could only say that because you didn't understand it. — Alan Watts

No one's mouth is big enough to utter the whole thing. — Alan Watts

We see what we believe rather than what we see. — Alan Watts

If we are not totally blind, what we are seeking is already here. This is it. — Alan Watts

Meditation is the way in which we come to feel our basic inseparability from the whole universe, and what that requires is that we shut up. — Alan Watts

The biggest ego trip going is getting rid of your ego — Alan Watts

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. — Alan Watts

When we look for things there is nothing but mind, and when we look for mind there is nothing but things. — Alan Watts

I knew of a physicist at the University of Chicago who was rather crazy like some scientists, and the idea of the insolidity, the instability of the physical world impressed him so much that he used to go around in enormous padded slippers for fear he should fall through the floor. — Alan Watts

To go out of your mind once a day is tremendously important, because by going out of your mind you come to your senses. And if you stay in your mind all of the time, you are over rational, in other words you are like a very rigid bridge which because it has no give; no craziness in it, is going to be blown down by the first hurricane. — Alan Watts

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. — Alan Watts

If we want justice for minorities and cooled wars with our natural enemies, whether human or nonhuman, we must first come to terms with the minority wand the enemy in ourselves and in our own hearts, for the rascal is there as much as anywhere in the 'external' world - especially when you realize that the world outside your skin is as much yourself as the world inside. — Alan Watts

The sense of wrong is simply failure to see where something fits into a pattern, to be confused as to the hierarchical level upon which an event belongs. — Alan Watts

It is also in despair of being able to understand or make any productive contribution to the highly organised chaos of our politico-economic system that large numbers of people simply abandon political and social committments. They just let society be taken over by a pattern of organisation which is as self-proliferative as a weed, and whose ends and values are neither human nor instinctive but mechanical. — Alan Watts

We tend to regard ourselves as puppets of the Past, driven along by something that is always behind us. — Alan Watts

Although profoundly "inconsequential," the Zen experience has consequences in the sense that it may be applied in any direction, to any conceivable human activity, and that wherever it is so applied it lends an unmistakable quality to the work. — Alan Watts

The destination of life is this eternal moment. — Alan Watts

There is no mission, nor interest to convert, and yet I believe that if this state of consciousness could become more universal, the pretentious nonsense which passes for the serious business of the world would dissolve in laughter. We should see at once that the high ideals for which we are killing and regimenting each other are empty and abstract substiutes for the unheeded miracles that surround us - not only in the obvious wonders of nature but also in the overwhelming uncanny fact of mere existence. — Alan Watts

Parts exist only for purposes of figuring and describing, and as we figure the world out we become confused if we do not remember this all the time. — Alan Watts

More and more we try to effect an adaptation to life by means of external gadgets, and attempt to solve our problems by conscious thinking rather than unconscious 'know-how'. This is much less to our advantage than we like to suppose. — Alan Watts

The point, which can hardly be repeated too often, is that differentiation is not separation. The head and the feet are different, but not separate, and though man is not connected to the universe by exactly the same physical relation as branch to tree or feet to head, he is nonetheless connected - and by physical relations of fascinating complexity. — Alan Watts

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

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

No worthwhile life can be lived without risks, despite current American superstitions to the contrary ... — Alan Watts

The individual may be understood as one particular focal point at which the whole universe expresses itself - as an incarnation of the self, or of the Godhead, or whatever one may choose to call it. — Alan Watts

Conscious attention is a designed function of the brain
which scans the environment for any trouble making changes.
If you identify yourself with your trouble shooter, then naturally you define yourself as being in a perpetual state of anxiety. — Alan Watts

Once you've learned to think you can't stop. And an enormous number of people devote their lives to keeping their minds busy and feel extremely uncomfortable with silence. — Alan Watts

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. — Alan Watts

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. — Alan Watts

Substances like LSD, which give away a secret about the nature of the social game - the human game and what underlies it - are potentially dangerous, of course, like any good thing is. Electricity is dangerous, fire is dangerous, cars are dangerous, planes are dangerous, but not so dangerous as driving on the freeway. The only way to handle danger is to face it. If you start getting frightened of it, then you make it worse. Because you project onto it all kinds of bogeys and threats which don't exist in it at all. — Alan Watts

Mysticism and empiricism go together in opposition to scholasticism ... they base themselves on the non-linear world of experience rather than the linear world of letters. — Alan Watts

For when you see that the universe cannot be distinguished from how you act upon it, there is neither fate nor free will, self nor other. There is simply one all-inclusive Happening, in which your personal sensation of being alive occurs in just the same way as the river flowing and the stars shining far out in space. There is no question of submitting or accepting or going with it, for what happens in and as you is no different from what happens as it. — Alan Watts

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. — Alan Watts

Sex is no longer a serious taboo. Teenagers sometimes know more about it than adults. — Alan Watts

Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be — Alan Watts

A person who thinks too much only ever thinks about his thoughts — Alan Watts

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

So we down-to-earth, gutsy, tough, realistic, and practical types have just been squandering billions of dollars and unimaginable amounts of energy, nerve-work, and materials in whizzing off to the moon to discover, as astronomers knew before, that it was just a dreary slag heap. This is the true, original and scientifically etymological meaning of being lunatics. Crying for the moon. — Alan Watts

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

If you love a person, you say to that person, "Look, I love you, whatever that may be. I've seen quite a bit of it and I know there's lots that I haven't seen, but still it's you and I want you to be what you want to be. And I won't be happy if I've got you in a cage. You'd be a bird without song." — Alan Watts

How could you say the best form of government is a republic if you think the universe is a monarchy? — Alan Watts

If you study the writings of the mystics, you will always find things in them that appear to be paradoxes, as in Zen, particularly. — Alan Watts

Philosophy is man's expression of curiosity about everything and his attempt to make sense of the world primarily through his intellect. — Alan Watts

To be alive spiritually man must have union with God and must be conscious of it. Apart from this union his religious life will be an empty drudgery, a mere imitation of true spirituality. — Alan Watts

The hallucination of separateness prevents one from seeing that to cherish the ego is to cherish misery. We do not realize that our so-called love and concern for the individual is simply the other face of our own fear of death or rejection. In his exaggerated valuation of separate identity, the personal ego is sawing off the branch on which he is sitting, and then getting more and more anxious about the coming crash! — Alan Watts

The police have enough work to keep them busy regulating automobile traffic, preventing robberies and crimes of violence and helping lost children and little old ladies find their way home. As long as the police confine themselves to such activities they are respected friends of the public. But as soon as they begin inquiring into people's private morals, they become nothing more than armed clergymen. — Alan Watts

It seems to be the special peculiarity of human beings that they reflect: they think about thinking and know that they know. This, like other feedback systems, may lead to vicious circles and confusions if improperly managed, but self-awareness makes human experience resonant. It imparts that simultaneous "echo" to all that we think and feel as the box of a violin reverberates with the sound of the strings. It gives depth and volume to what would otherwise be shallow and flat. — Alan Watts

Self-improvement is a dangerous form of vanity. — Alan Watts

There was never a time when the world began, because it goes round and round like a circle, and there is no place on a circle where it begins. Look at my watch, which tells the time; it goes round, and so the world repeats itself again and again. — Alan Watts

The world is a marvelous system of wiggles. — Alan Watts

Preliminary accounting, banking and surveying (known as arithmetic, algebra and geometry). — Alan Watts

Do you define yourself as a victim of the world? Or, as the world? — Alan Watts

You don't need to try to be God, you are! But if you try to be God it means you don't know you are. — Alan Watts

The wake doesn't drive the ship — Alan Watts

What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself. — Alan Watts

Religion is not a department of life; it is something that enters into the whole of it. — Alan Watts

The life of Zen begins, therefore, in a disillusion with the pursuit of goals which do not really exist the good without the bad, the gratification of a self which is no more than an idea, and the morrow which never comes. — Alan Watts

Faith is a state of openness or trust. — Alan Watts

The world is in an extremely dangerous situation, and serious diseases often require the risk of a dangerous cure like the Pasteur serum for rabies. — Alan Watts

The secret of the enjoyment of pleasure is to know when to stop. Man doesn't learn this secret easily, but to shun pleasure altogether is cowardly avoidance of a difficult job. For we have to learn the art of enjoying things BECAUSE they are impermanent. — Alan Watts

The 'you' who you think you are does not exist. — Alan Watts

People often say to me, 'I understand what you are talking about intellectually, but I don't really feel it, I don't realize it,' and I am apt to reply, 'I wonder whether you do understand it intellectually, because if you did you would also feel it.' — Alan Watts

The point is seeing that THIS - the immediate, everyday and present experience - is IT, the entire and ultimate point for the existence of a universe. I believe that if this state of consciousness could become more universal, the pretentious nonsense which passes for the serious business of the world would dissolve in laughter ... — Alan Watts

To be free from convention is not to spurn it but not to be deceived by it. — Alan Watts

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. — Alan Watts

Different Chinese philosophers, writing probably in 5-4 centuries B.C., presented some major ideas and a way of life that are nowadays known under the name of Taoism, the way of correspondence between man and the tendency or the course of natural world. — Alan Watts

Imagine a multidimensiona l spider's web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image. — Alan Watts

All that you see out in front of you is how you feel inside your head. — Alan Watts

We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you're dead. 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. — Alan Watts

Zen is really extraordinarily simple as long as one doesn't try to be cute about it or beat around the bush! Zen is simply the sensation and the clear understanding ... that there is behind the multiplicity of events and creatures in this universe simply one energy
and it appears as you, and everything is it. The practice of Zen is to understand that one energy so as to feel it in your bones. — Alan Watts

"It is essential to understand this point thoroughly: that the thing-in-itself, whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, is not only unknowable-it does not exist. This is important not only for sanity and peace of mind, but also for the most "practical" reasons of economics, politics, and technology.. This is not to say only that things exist in relation to one another, but that what we call "things" are no more than glimpses of a unified process. Certainly, this process has distinct features which catch our attention, but we must remember that distinction is not separation." — Alan Watts

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

In Hindu philosophy the whole creation is regarded as the Vishnu Lila, the play of Vishnu. Lila means dance or play. Also in Hindu philosophy, they call the world illusion; and in Latin the root of the word illusion is ludere, to play. — Alan Watts

Enlightenment or awakening is not the creation of a new state of affairs but the recognition of what already is. — Alan Watts

Anxiety is the fear that one of a pair of opposites might cancel the other. Forever. — Alan Watts

The sound of the rain needs no translation. In music one doesn't make the end of the composition the point of the composition ... Same way in dancing, you don't aim at one particular spot in the room ... The whole point of dancing is the dance. — Alan Watts

We are the eyes of the cosmos. So that in a way, when you look deeply into somebody's eyes, you are looking deeply into yourself, and the other person is looking deeply into the same self, which many-eyed, as the mask of Vishnu is many-faced, is looking out everywhere, one energy playing myriads of different parts. — Alan Watts

I too realize that the less I preach the more likely I am to be heard. — Alan Watts

I seem to be a brief light that flashes but once in all the aeons of time a rare, complicated, and all-too-delicate organism on the fringe of biological evolution , where the wave of life bursts into individual, sparkling, and multicolored drops that gleam for a moment ... only to vanish forever. — Alan Watts