Alan Watts
Alan Watts
Alan Wilson Wattswas a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience. Born in Chislehurst, England, he moved to the United States in 1938 and began Zen training in New York. Pursuing a career, he attended Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, where he received a master's degree in theology. Watts became an Episcopal priest in 1945, then left the ministry in 1950 and moved to California, where he joined the faculty...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth6 January 1915
opposites play effort
But nirvana is a radical transformation of how it feels to be alive: it feels as if everything were myself, or as if everything---including "my" thoughts and actions---were happening of itself. There are still efforts, choices, and decisions, but not the sense that "I make them"; they arise of themselves in relation to circumstances. This is therefore to feel life, not as an encounter between subject and object, but as a polarized field where the contest of opposites has become the play of opposites.
art class play
We therefore work, not for the work's sake, but for money—and money is supposed to get us what we really want in our hours of leisure and play. In the United States even poor people have lots of money compared with the wretched and skinny millions of India, Africa, and China, while our middle andupper classes (or should we say "income groups") are as prosperous as princes. Yet, by and large, they have but slight taste for pleasure. Money alone cannot buy pleasure, though it can help. For enjoyment is an art and a skill for which we have little talent or energy.
sports play interesting
It is interesting that Hindus, when they speak of the creation of the universe do not call it the work of God, they call it the play of God, the Vishnu lila, lila meaning play. And they look upon the whole manifestation of all the universes as a play, as a sport, as a kind of dance — lila perhaps being somewhat related to our word lilt
practice breathing bridges
Breathing is important in the practice of meditation because it is the faculty in us that is simultaneously voluntary and involuntary. You can feel that you are breathing, and equally you can feel that it is breathing you. So it is a sort of bridge between the voluntary world and the involuntary world — a place where they are one.
men said young
There was a young man who said though, it seems that I know that I know, but what I would like to see is the I that knows me when I know that I know that I know.
mean mind awakening
When one speaks of awakening, it means de-hypnotizatio n; coming to your senses. But of course to do that, you have to go out of your mind.
mind going-out senses
By going out of your mind, you come to your senses
educational clothes giving
Our educational system in its entirety does nothing to give us any kind of material competence. In other words, we don't learn how to cook, how to make clothes, how to build houses, how to make love, or to do any of the absolutely fundamental things of life.
life-and-love effort and-love
Life and love generate effort but effort will not generate them.
differences galaxy
Where-so-ever beings exist throughout all galaxies, it doesn't make any difference - you are all of them....and when they come into being, that's you coming into being.
eye looks happenings
When you look out of your eyes at nature happening out there...You're looking at you..
gold bills sailor
A chest of gold coins or a fat wallet of bills is of no use whatsoever to a wrecked sailor alone on a raft.
education learning buddhism
A scholar tries to learn something everyday; a student of Buddhism tries to unlearn something daily.
self our-society tasks
Nothing fails like success—because the self-imposed task of our society and all its members is a contradiction: to force things to happen which are acceptable only when they happen without force.