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Alan W. Watts Quotes

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Famous Alan W. Watts Quotes

“In Zen Buddhist texts they say, “You cannot nail a peg into the sky.” And so, to be a man of the sky, a man of the void, is also called ‘a man not depending on anything’. And when you’re not hung on anything you are the only thing that isn’t hung on anything – which is the universe. Which doesn’t hang, you see. Where would it hang? It has no place to fall on, even though it may be dropping; there will never be the crash of it landing on a concrete floor somewhere. But the reason for that is that it won’t crash below because it doesn’t hang above. And so there is a poem, in Chinese, which speaks of such a person as having above, not a tile to cover the head; below, not an inch of ground on which to stand.”

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Book:Out of Your Mind
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“I feel cut off only because I am split within myself, because I try to be divided from my own feelings and sensations. What I feel and sense therefore seems foreign to me. And on being aware of the unreality of this division, the universe does not seem foreign any more. For I am what I know; what I know is I. The sensation of a house across the street or of a star in outer space is no less I than an itch on the sole of my foot or an idea in my brain.”

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Book:The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
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“I am reminded of the apocryphal conversation between Confucius and Lao Tzu when the former had been prating of universal love without the element of self: 'What stuff!' cried Lao Tzu, 'Does not universal love contradict itself? Is not your elimination of self a positive manifestation of self? Sir, if you would cause the world not to lose its source of nourishment— There is the universe: its regularity is unceasing. There are the Sun and Moon: their brightness is unceasing. There are the stars: their groupings never change. There are the birds and the beasts: they flock together without varying. There are trees and shrubs: they grow upwards without exception. Like these, accord with the Dao— with the way of all things— and be perfect. Why then these vain struggles after charity and duty to one's neighbor as though beating a drum in search of a fugitive? Alas, Sir you have brought much confusion into the mind of man.”

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Book:Become what You are
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